Monday, September 18th, 2023 to order. Are there any agenda additions or changes from staff? One addition from staff, it's a memo from finance director Dan Roy.  There's also a few extra copies on the table by the agenda. This is for item 6E, the purchase of approval of Fire Department car 12 replacement purchase. So I can speak to that once we get to it, but request that you add it to the agenda for discussion at that point. Okay. Okay, I'll try to speak into it better. All right. Thank you, Greg. There's also the charter revisions. There's a document that corrects. No changes there. That's just Ethan that asked to try to do a side by side. So the packet has a track changes. This is a side by side track changes. So it's no new materials. No changes. And after taking foot. At that point of which is a better way to look at it for the future. Okay. Okay. All right. Thanks. Any agenda changes requested by board members? Okay. Then I'll make the motion that we include the memo from finance director for item 6E. Second. Thank you, Don. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. Motion passes 5-0. Okay, we have updated agenda. Next item on the agenda is public to be heard. Public to be heard is a time where those attending the meeting can speak to the board about town business that's not on the agenda. If you'd like to speak during public to be heard, you can either raise your hand here in the room or you can use the raise hand feature in Zoom. You can find the button to raise your hand online. If you move your cursor down to the reactions button at the bottom of your screen, click on that will offer you the opportunity to raise your hand and I'll be able to see if you have done so. So is there anyone in the room that would like to speak during public to be heard? I said Ken Signorello, come on up. Good evening, Ken Signorello. Quick update from the last conservation and trails committee meeting, take one minute. We met on the 12th, took two hours, six of nine were present. We reviewed one development application. We added two items to the town plan action recommendations, one of which might be very interested in non-motorized voting access to the Winooski River. Pick that up at your budget prioritization thing and we scooted it in real quick. We set up our work plan for the year. We'll prioritize it at the next meeting. I'll give you some parts of what we pick as some priorities next time. We moved to buy four new additional tree city signs. You might have seen two of the two that we did get. We moved to buy four more of those and put them at major thoroughfares coming into the town. Got a report on the ephemeral art at the parks you may have seen or heard about. The cleanup got moved one hour, 12 o'clock on the 21st now instead of one o'clock. Hope to see at least one or two of you there. Rain day is the 22nd. You got an update on the potential tree nursery at the tree farm and that was it. Thanks Ken. Thank you Ken. You're welcome. Anyone else like wanting, wishing to speak during public to be heard? I don't see any hands in the room. I don't see any hands online. So let's move on to public hearing. I will open the public hearing on zoning and subdivision regulations. Catherine, come on up. Yeah. Okay, could you allow me to share some of the rights? So similar to how I've done this the other times that I've come to you with the zoning regs, I'm gonna just do a quick little PowerPoint presentation just to make sure everybody's on the same page with where we are with the regulations and the process. And then if that sounds good to start that way and then if you wanna proceed with the rest of the public. Recording in progress. So the zoning and subdivision regulation change process, seen this before as well, but the general idea is that there are changes that either are made or suggested by the public for the planning commission or staff of things that will be amended, changed, updated to the zoning regulations. So the planning commission works on a series of changes and in particular this round is a lot more housekeeping than big changes. It's been since 2016 that the regulations have been amended, oh, 2017. So there's just a lot of little things to fix. So after the planning commission reviews those changes and agree on them, there's just a state process that needs to be followed. So it's notifying joining towns of the regional planning commission and the state planning office. And then the planning commission held one public hearing and that was back in May and you held one public hearing, this is your second. And so after this public hearing tonight, you may choose to tonight adopt the regulations or if not, you can have more public hearings or figure out what you want, whatever you want to do here. And then once they're adopted, they're effective 21 days after. So just I'm gonna run through a few of the zoning regulation and subdivision amendments. So again, like I mentioned earlier, most are minor clearing up some inconsistencies or updating information. And so some examples of that are changing the reference or removing the reference to the village of S6 junction and referencing the 2021 ETC next plan. There's some changes in here that were amended by changes to state planning statute. And these are older ones way back from 2018 to 2022. So an example is that the accessory apartment, the rules changed and an updated definition of affordable housing. A couple of other changes that may be are a little bit bigger, but in the B1 district, and this is in the Susie Wilson Road, there was a change to density. So it's allowing greater density on some smaller lots, which really is where we want to see growth. And it's really supporting the statewide push for more housing. So in the sign section, we have additional language to reflect some more recent technology and standards and some new language to allow marquee signs in the MXD PUD B1 district. And that's in the Essex experience area. And then dwelling area requirements, we remove the restriction of a certain size limit. And then in the subdivision regulations, again, and even more, so changes were pretty minor here. So clearing out some inconsistencies, updated the conservation committee to the conservation trails committee, things like that, updated the definitions to reflect the zoning regulation definitions. And then last couple of slides here are in relation to the changes that the select board made at your public hearing that you had last month. And so I came to you with a couple and the public had a couple as well. So the first one was Act 47, the 2023 Home Act, which was statute really focused on greater housing density. I had a couple of suggestions that I thought were reasonable to do at this point. The other ones, I think, if you remember, I thought are too complicated. And every time I look at them, I agree that they're more complicated. Nobody seems like they can agree on something. So for now, duplexes are treated as the same as a single unit dwelling in dimensional standards. So meaning like your lot size or your setbacks, that kind of thing. Family is replaced by unit or household and two family is replaced by duplex unit. So another change, the planning commission made a change to fences and walls, language related to electric and barbed wire fences. And you all had some tweaks to that. And so you can see that there and the planning commission was supportive of this change and the other ones too related to the Home Act. So there was a change made to temporary uses and structures and saying that there needed to be adequate off street parking for garage sales or auctions. And the planning commission was not as supportive of this one. They liked the idea of trying to regulate but they didn't feel like there was enough maybe time spent with the public talking through maybe some ways to tweak it to make it work a little bit better. And I think one of the biggest concerns that they thought that it was possibly really limiting to people that had small yards, small short driveways and I'm a converse, somebody who has a long driveway and a big lot it would be much easier for them to hold the sale. So thinking about equity might not be seen that way. And then another change that you made to the fences and wall section. And this was on recommendation from somebody from the public that asked for this. And again, the planning commission was not as supportive of this one. They felt that limiting to eight feet didn't seem, it wasn't something that had been thought through that much. They just thought there were some holes in the language as well. And then there was a chain, the planning commission made a change which you can see up here that's in red where they were trying to really limit some things that could be waved in the RPDI buffer, 50 foot buffer. And it came across as maybe not really doing what they wanted to do. It was maybe a little too confusing. And so they agreed with you that, okay, yeah, we'll not add that, but we do wanna take a big, they said we wanna take a big look at the RPDI and make some changes down the road. And so this would be something that they could consider down the road. But they, as they were talking, they thought, well, maybe we can reorder the section. So it would just read a little more clearly. And so keeping A where it is, putting D up to B and then putting B and C below, which is this. So just changing the order of those sections. But no word changes just reordering it. But just to be clear, the original change that was recommended by the planning commission is also removed from this. Right. So it's reverting to the original language, just reordering. Okay, thank you. So what's next? So the select board can make changes during this hearing still. And it doesn't include just the ones that you've already talked about in your first hearing. So you can make additional changes. If you make changes that are considered substantial, then it would need to go back to the planning commission again for them to amend their report. And then you would need to have another public here. If you make changes related to the issues that the planning commission had. So say you agree with them, that would not need to go back to the planning commission. It's something tiny, just like a little bit of word changes. Again, it wouldn't need to go back. But we'd have to talk about what those changes are to make that decision. So tonight you can, if you wish, close the public hearing and then vote to approve. And again, the regulations if approved would go into effect 21 days. All right, thank you. We've already had a go at this. And so this is a public hearing. So I think we'll go to public comment first and then we can have some discussion. Oh, I see a hand up in the back. Now you move over here by the microphone, please. Okay. You want me to get up? Okay. Sorry. Or we need to bring another chair. So I'm kind of leery about this eight foot maximum for their fences. You know, the state passed a law that you could grow your own marijuana in your backyard. And some people I think have got those higher fences to prevent people from seeing over or climbing over their fence. So I'm not really sure that that's a great answer saying that you can't have it more than eight foot tall. I just think that could be trouble. Thank you Betsy. Yes sir. Yeah, I'm Hubey Norton and I've read the response that the planning commission sent back. And I do understand their reasoning, how they noted that the proposed language would not solve the concerns it is intended to solve. So they're recognizing there is a concern what they're offering no solution. So I think there is a very simple solution to this. And that is that section E that we talked about there should simply say fences shall not exceed eight feet in height. The part that said not to have fences on fences, they were concerned about that. I think we were quibbling a little bit, but anyway, I think it can be that simple. Fences shall not exceed eight feet in height. Then also, as I had suggested before, another section could be added to say that exceptions that the zoning board of adjustment through conditional use review may authorize residential fences which exceed eight feet in height specifically for security or safety purposes, it may require landscaping to mitigate visual impacts. So it provides an opportunity if somebody did indeed need a fence or wanted a fence over eight feet, they could apply for a conditional use and it could be reviewed and so on. So I looked a little deeper and this is not a precedent here, eight feet. In Brillington, their regulation says, fences shorter than four feet do not require permit. Fences four, excuse me, that's South Brillington. In Brillington, a fence permit application must be submitted approved and a zoning permit issued styles, materials, and dimensions of the fence shall be compatible with the context of the neighborhood and use of the property. Pretty stiff, okay? And I'm not suggesting that at all. In South Brillington, the regulation says, fences shorter than four feet do not require permit. Fences four feet to eight feet require a zoning permit. A fence over eight feet in height shall be considered a structure subject to normal setback requirements for the zoning district unless otherwise approved by the Development Review Board as a conditional use subject to the provisions of Article 14, Conditional Use Review. Pretty stiff, okay? So that's South Brillington. Now, just before I came, I took a look at Willisons. Willisons is even more interesting. Of course, do we wanna be a part or wanna align ourselves with South Brillington or are we lining ourselves on anyone? Any rate, for the town of Willisons, which maybe is more like us, their regulations. Height, no fence on a residential property may exceed six feet in height above grade, except as provided in sections below, which I'll read. Fences within the front yard setback are limited to 42 inches in height. The limitations they talked about are private seas enclosures and kennels. Private seas enclosures, for example, around an outdoor spa. And the fencing of kennels may exceed the height established in the section above, but must be within the setbacks required for structures. A portion of the enclosure or fence that is over six feet in height must not be solid. It may be a lattice similar or decorative work, screen or wire. And then the other section that says screening and sound barriers along major roads and trails, fences erected as screens and or sound barriers along rights of ways on a terrial major collector may exceed six feet in height. The administrator shall, however, refer to all such fences for review before acting on the application for administrative permit. So, Williston, not over six feet in height. So, I don't think there's precedent for regulations of existing communities around us. I don't think eight feet is unreasonable. And so I suggest that that's what should be the change in the regulation to add that section E. Fences shall not exceed eight feet in height and then add where you have the exception that if there is a need, somebody has a need, it can become before the zoning board for conditional review. And so there's that opportunity. Questions, thank you. And anyone else have any comments? I don't see any hands in the room. Any, anybody online wishing to comment? Okay, I don't see any. So, I guess we'll move back to the board. Any comments or questions from board members? I have two questions. What would constitute the need to waive that 50 foot buffer? Well, right now it says that you can't have stormwater there. I don't have it up in front of me or... Driveways. Access drive. Driveways. So, those sorts of things. So normally, so the tree warden has actually come out and looked at the 50 foot buffer and seen that they're generally not a very big buffer and they're not a lot of healthy trees often. And just with the normal site work that you do, they oftentimes the roots get damaged or they're tall and just probably not safe to have. So he pretty much always recommends cutting down the tall trees anyway within the buffer. There's always a replanting plan for it. I don't think it's worth it, but generally it's... There is always a replacement. That was like, okay, that was my... Yeah, cause I think it says it has to remain agitated. And then my other question would have to do with the garage sale, but they didn't like... What if you specified along route 15? You specify the area, cause that seems to be where the most troubles have been. They consider that it seemed a little bit like spot zoning in a way, very, very specific. And so really singling out properties. Cause I knew that's where most of the complaints come from or the traffic issues were. So. Okay, thanks. Any other comments?  I like the fence suggestion. I thought that was worded very well. Anything else, Ethan? Yeah, I just have a short question. I'm gonna start with our PDI first since he's in front of me, but I thought we were talking about eliminating the 50 as well last week. I thought we were gonna strike 50. The planning commission added in that 50 foot in B because they thought they were trying to make it clear about that there's a clear waiver process for the 50 foot. So you felt like it was confusing to add that in. And it talks about a waiver later for the 50 foot buffer. So it was sufficient to keep it as it was. So I remember Lorraine Zellum saying like, I like the idea of limiting the 50 foot buffer, but I think this makes it confusing. So you remember that was a planning commission add-on that didn't seem to really clear up the issue like the planning commission that intended. But in the slide that you showed, it still included one singular 50 in front of the 100 and 200. I thought we were striking the bottom line and the 50 because it was already here. It may not be, but if they do need to move it, they give themselves permission down here. And so what Catherine was showing was what we talked about last week, then the second section was what the planning commission recommended, which was keeping the original wording and reordering it. So section B proposed, well, I guess it would be now section C that says parking areas, access drives, components of stormwater management systems may not be located in 100 or 200 foot buffers. And then it says, but maybe allowed within the 50 foot buffers. It's actually the original language. Right. I'm not sure I'm answering your question. No, my question is, I thought we agreed last week to strike 50 from section B, both languages. It wasn't last week, sorry. It was like, I'm one thing. So does that suggest then you can't have a driveway that get onto any of the properties? That's the thing that I think I get confused on. It says parking areas, access drives, and components of stormwater management systems may not be located within the 50, 100 and 200. So we were going to strike the 50 in general because down below it says that the planning commission may not... Yeah, it still contradicts itself. In the 100 or 200, but may waive in the 50. Because one's RP, one's the two different districts, Ethan. I think that's why it's like that. No, I'm in the same, I'm comparing B with D, but. Okay. I don't know. I think probably that the easiest thing to do is just go back to the initial language that was there with no changes. I think the planning commission is fine with that. So anything that's, it's confusing with strikeouts and underlines, but really it's just going back to what it initially was in the regulations with the red. Which red? The red striker or the red underline? There's two reds. There is, so it's going back to where it was. That's the bottom line. I don't think I have the original. No proposed changes by the planning commission or by the select board, that's what I would recommend. Do we know what the original read? Yeah, I'm trying to find the, I think my reference in this memo isn't... I can look back to us. In the meantime, should I jump into my fans question? So I'm not wondering whether we should go through each of these suggested changes one at a time, have a discussion about it and then go to the next topic rather than just going back and forth. So on the buffer question, I'm inclined to consider the recommendation of the planning commission and have the bigger discussion about the RPDI continue, because that's already also already taking place. And I suggested revert to the original language in the reordering of the paragraphs. Others have comments about accepting the planning commission's recommendation or not. Quick question. D, as part of the RPDI buffer, RPDI district, may waive buffer requirements in the 50-foot buffer area. Does that mean that a waiver could be granted to basically say B and C don't apply, we don't have to keep existing trees, we don't need to maintain, they don't need to remain fully vegetated. So on and so forth. Is that what that waiver is for, that they can basically say, nope, we're not doing B and C in that section? I don't think so. Well, as kept as you mentioned though, that the town forester does go look at those buffers and if the trees are dangerous, then they will allow a waiver to be issued to take them down as long as there's a replanting plan to put something else back in there. Is that what I understood? So yes, they can waive the need to leave older trees that might be, when you take a pine tree that's surrounded by other pine trees, you take everything else around it, that pine tree becomes less stable because there's no trees around it to buffer it. And so single standing tall pine trees are more dangerous than a clump of them. And so I think the forester would recommend that they possibly be taken down and then put something else needs to be replanted. It doesn't say in the regulation that there needs to be a, that there are conditions. Yeah, so there's another section too in the zoning that deals specifically with the RPDI. So it's also confusing, I think that this language is and there's language in two different spots. So that section is more clear about the replanting. Okay, okay. So yeah, so that, right, there could be a proposal to put a stormwater swale into a 50 foot buffer. It could be a proposal to put, everybody's gonna have a driveway. You gotta be able to use the property in order to have a driveway in order to get onto the property. So I think in all cases, all properties if they're developed need to have a waiver to allow a driveway to go across the 50 foot buffer or you can't get to it, right? I was just curious what the original language said. All right, so let me show you. Okay, so this, if you look in B, it doesn't have the 50 foot there. But it does contain the last sentence, but maybe it'll add within 50 feet, 50 foot buffers. So that's the language that's gonna stay after the language. That's a proposal that that language would stay, yes. Okay, that's what we're doing, yeah. So what are, we have a, I'm not sure I have a consensus as to, and Alana and I have both commented about agreeing with the Planning Commission's recommendation to stay with the original language and reorder them. And I've continued discussion about the RPDI, to look at the overall things. Any other thoughts? And what are you doing with the fence issue? Well, I'm not saying we're accepting the whole thing. I'm just talking about this one particular issue of the change of the language around the 50 foot buffers, do we want to, yep, would you have it? Because we gotta decide in, I think during this public hearing, whether we want to accept that or not, right? And then we'll vote on the changes that we end up agreeing on, unless we wanna vote on each of the changes individually, I suppose we could do that. That might be easiest. We're, the board is, the, I'm sorry, you were asking a question. You wanna, you want permission to ask a question right now? Sure, go ahead, Betsy. So we had the public, we gave the public the opportunity to speak. Yes, go ahead. Come forward, come forward, identify yourself and I'm allowing the question, yes. I do have a question, okay. So the 50 foot buffer that you've got there, Captain, Betsy. Can you correct your question to me, please? So the, Betsy. Betsy, correct your question to me, please. Oh, thank you. So the 50 foot buffer that the planning commission is saying that they can waive, that has nothing to do with how the vegetation is. I didn't see anything in that, in that B about the vegetation. And I wanna be sure that when you're saying that you're just gonna, you know, not do it, what are we talking about? Just that they can have a driveway and they can have stormwater through the 50 foot buffer. Yes, that's what we're saying that you're saying they can have. I wanna understand, and what about the vegetation? Because I don't wanna see the vegetation removed from the 50 foot buffer. If it's not thriving because of how it's been planted or because they put the mulch too high or whatever and it killed the plant, I would like to see a good buffer there and good vegetation there that makes it blend in with the surrounding neighborhood. And is that part of what that, isn't that? I'm trying to understand this because I didn't see this piece. So the, you're... And do you have it in front of you? Do I have what in front of me? I'm not sure. This piece about the 50 foot buffer, is that in front of you? Yeah, it's in the, I am not familiar with all of the regulations. So no, I can't answer your question to say whatever. But is our chair, is our department head over here aware of what they are? Can I ask her? I will relay your question. I will allow her to answer your question. Yeah, yeah, you do.  Sorry for the musical chairs here. Okay, so... We should bring another chair over. Yeah. So like I had mentioned before, that this particular section that we're looking at is not just about RPDI, there are other issues about buffers. But this particular section A through D is just for the RPDI. But there's a discussion about where buffers are required in other spots. But if you go to table 214, which is all about the resource preservation industrial district, RPDI district, there is a lot more discussion about buffers and waivers too. So when we're talking about the 50 foot buffer in particular, there is language that says there needs to be a plan or proposal for additional landscaping and revegetation and that it needs to be approved as a part of the application. Is that coming? Yes. Right. Yep, thanks Betsy. Thanks for the question. Sorry for the, might forgetting how to run a meeting or something. So basically you had a question. Yeah, so Catherine, what you showed for the existing, what I'm seeing for C is all existing trees and other vegetation shall be preserved except in an area of not more than 20 feet on each side of required driveways, which must be maintained in grass or other ground cover that does not obstruct driveway site distances. Buffers shall remain fully vegetated with the exception of tree clearing pursuant to a forest management plan, FMP approved by the Planning Commission. So is that first part being removed as part of, because I don't see it in what was proposed? No, the proposal would be to not remove anything. So if the Planning Commission was just reordering those sections. Okay, I was just going off of your slide and it didn't have that language in there. So I wanted to, Okay, so. I was just curious why. Well, I maybe mistyped it on the slide. Okay. So everywhere else, that is, that remains, yeah. Yeah, the Planning Commission didn't want to remove anything. They just wanted to reorder the sections. So the memo is how they proposed to how to run a meeting? Correct. But that's where I got confused earlier because in the memo it strikes out, but. So that was, yeah, the things that in the memo, that section is what we recommended, what was recommended by the last, in the last hearing. Okay, and the next section below it, which includes the four sections A through D, reordered all of the original language is retained there. Just the order is moved in order to hopefully clarify what the intent of the Planning Commission was. They agreed that the language that they had originally proposed was confusing and they think that reordering it helps with that. But they also said it, if you want to not reorder it, that is also fine. It's causing confusion. And that's fine. So again, maybe I'll ask people explicitly, Gracie, do you want to support the Planning Commission's recommendation or? I am good with it, but do agree that the overall intent in RPDI language should be revisited as a whole. But I do think that removing the, but maybe allowed within 50 foot buffers and then reiterating what that waiver process is, I think that makes it more clearer. So I would. Ethan, any thoughts? I just want to comment to Tracy really quick that they're leaving in the but maybe allowed within 50 foot buffers. That's where I was confused earlier. That's so they just want to go back to the language before that, and that did include that. They moved it from being B to it's still B. I know this is. Well, it's not. It's not B. It would be C, it would be C, it would be, yeah, yeah. Just, yeah, yeah. I, D gets moved up to B and B becomes C. And C becomes D. I apologize, that was not clear to me. So it would be, it would go A, D, B, C, or it would. It would go A, B, C, D, but. Yeah. But the words would be in the order that they're on the page. Oh, okay. The section lettering would be adjusted right in alphabetical order rather than with no crossouts or add-ons, it's just a reorder. So D becomes B, B becomes C, and C becomes D. The only difference. I changed my comment. Okay. I'm fine with it. Okay. All right. So let's move on to fence, the fence question. Ethan, you said you had some specific comments on that. No, I mean, yeah, for both, but I only see one recommendation. I know they agreed with the fence there, but there was added language in the slideshow. No, I was just, I was including your language that you had proposed. So we added it being exempt from the state of Vermont. So the, oh, you're talking about the electric fence? Yeah. They accepted our recommendation. Right, but in the slideshow it changed from- So what does it say in your memo? Agriculture, because we have it in the packet as agriculture is exempt, and then the memo, it says, or not in the memo, it's not in the memo. Right, their memo only had things that they wanted to, they had some issues with. But in your slideshow it says, the language has changed, and it says something to do with being exempt from by the state. I'd still have yet to hear an example of an electric or barbed wire fence that would- I can show you what- So it's a double whammy. What about the police station? No, that's a good point. It's not in the town, I could never mind. That's a very good point. Woodside, is that there anymore? Fences. Yes, it is. It's a different use. It's still there, it's a different- Is that still there? It's a, yeah. It's not a juvenile facility anymore. It is still there. That would be grandfathered from the eight-foot question. But it also raises the question about barbed wire. You wanted to make it explicit where barbed wire was agricultural only. So there's security issues that- Right, but wouldn't there be, I mean, that was the conversation that was brought up before, though, was why it was restricted to certain areas was because they didn't want barbed wire everywhere. So wouldn't you still have it be a review to make it something that you would accept? You wouldn't just say you can put barbed wire for the state as you can, you know what I mean? So you're totally convincing me that we should not change anything relative to references to barbed wire and our regulations because we don't understand what it all means. And there's not been a good public process to review the use of barbed wire in Essex as the security questions have come up just tonight that I hadn't heard before or thought about before. I'm a little concerned about the five of us making a decision to change barbed wire language in our regulations without, I don't think we've gotten that adequate input. The only concern I have is the way it's written right now, there's no exemption for agriculture and the electric and barbed wire fence on Towers Road is technically used for agriculture and is not allowed by the town. So, so I can show you the language that you talked about at the last public hearing. Right. So it's, it's this D. Thank you. Right, so the sentences as electrical and barbed wire fences are only permitted for agricultural uses makes it so that the former Woodside facility can't have barbed wire. Right. And so I don't think we should do that. And if you want, but I agree. And if, but if you eliminate that last sentence, central district isn't allowed to have electric or fences that are prohibited and it says nothing about barbed wire. So take out central district, does that cover your field? Why is it, why is it just, it's not just me though. It's anybody that wants to participate in agriculture in the town of Essex. I just had come across it when I was watching the revision process and I said, I don't want to have electric fences in Essex and 85% of Essex. I take as we kick this back to the Planning Commission and you can take your, your. I did six months ago. And so I don't know. I mean, barbed wire is allowed everywhere, but electric fences aren't. That's something that doesn't make any sense from the beginning of the original language. What if you left the electric and barbed wire fences are only permitted for agricultural uses with the exception of, and then you could we'd have to identify, we'd have to identify all of those exceptions that we want to include. And I just remove one row. Yeah, if he's removed only then it's still permitted. Great question. Great question for Catherine. I know that agriculture has a lot of exemptions that the state allows. Do you know if fencing is one of them? Is fencing exempt from local zoning regulations like some other agricultural uses of art? I believe that we, the Planning Commission looked at that and yeah, I, I honestly can't, I honestly can't remember for sure. I think there's an issue, is it considered a structure and if it's a structure, then yes, but then there's issues with setbacks. And so it's, it was a little more confusing than we thought. The statue for fencing is basically 65 to 70 years out of date and relates to your cows in the road and how the town can walk them up for 35 cents a day until you come and get them and it's Aboriginal. So, but that's why I said before when I first, when I came to the first very meeting that they had about this and like I said, it was snow on the ground. And there is, there was no mention of state statue. There was no mention of even barbed wire. It was just the original language was electric fences prohibited in these areas, period. And that's the way it'll read with no changes. And technically the horse that used to be here on 15 the fence would have been under the same scrutiny. There's barbed wire across from the sweet scoops around that whole property. There's no animals there. So at what point do you, what's existing and what's okay and what's not okay? And it just seems like there's a rule in there that doesn't cover all of electric and barbed wire fences. I think there needs to be a larger public process to go through all that. And the five of us shouldn't decide that. So what happens if this goes back to planning? We have to have another hearing. No, we would just go back. We could just go back to the original language. I don't, I don't. And because they, they, the planning commission understands this stuff much more than I do. I'm trying to figure out how you could reword that that if you go back to the original language, could you also make it at the end with the exception unless the land is being farmed? Being used for agricultural, because if there's other areas that is being used, where we've prohibited it, but we're using it for agricultural now than we didn't used to. Do we exempt it that way? So what are you exempting? I'm not sure what you're talking about. Land is being used for, well, like either land where he has his cows, where the horse was, wherever anybody else may have unelected your friends to hold their pets in or cat horses, cattle sheep, whatever they have. If it's in one of those zones, it would need to be exempted. Or wave, whatever. That, that, that fence, I'm just using this as an example, not because it's mine, but that fence on Towers Road has been there for longer than this has been written. The property has since been subdivided and sold. And at no point did the town raise a flag about it violating the zoning regulations. Not in the review process, not in any of those situations. So where is this enforceable and how do you, and what would the enforcement be if it's written? It would be my question because that fence has been there longer than this has been written. And a subdivision and a private sale happened under this regulation. So is that what we're trying to fix here? Is that one particular fence? No, it's everybody in any one of those, in any one of those districts, you cannot own an animal electric fence. You could have an electric fence around your chicken coop, not allowed. Six chickens. You could have a bunny cage. It's not about agriculture or this or that. It's just electric fences. It's banned. It says electric fences are prohibited in all of these districts, period. So Catherine, is that new language that was proposed? Or is that how it exists? Anything that's crossed out in this case is what the existing language was. Or is it the language of the 2017 zoning? Okay. So it's not existing language. It's not a change that we're making further changes to. That's what we'll do. Well, so the planning commission did propose some changes and that was instead of saying it's not allowed in those districts that said it was allowed in some districts. So it was more. So it was just worded to say where it is allowed. But they did add in the barbed wire. So I'm not showing you the planning commission. Okay, can you show the slide that you showed us at the beginning? I could also just show you the... Other comments. So, Yubi, did you want to ask a question or a comment? Fences. Not only for keeping things in, but for keeping things out. In any bears in residential areas and in ethics, if anybody had e-hives, such offenses are often used. I think it's an overreach. Say agricultural. These fall under agriculture. And it's in our definitions. In the table, you go to the table in the planning, I read the agricultural definition at the last meeting, but it covers about everything you could think of. This is what the planning commission had. My issue was that they couldn't find anything that was exempt by the state. Originally, when I responded to the first... This is their first proposal after the original. So even this is problematic with regard to security issues that have been pointed out this evening. So... Probably the original language is, I guess if you're talking about electric fences, but it doesn't mention barbed wire. Right. Adding in the barbed wire is problematic. More of the issue. From the security standpoint. And then it sounds like there's an enforcement question about whether or not even what was written before was enforced correctly with regards to this prohibitions. Like if, for example, I had chickens in my... I don't want to keep the boxes out. So is it... Is it up to us in this hearing now to figure out how to resolve an enforcement issue? I don't think we can put in the barbed wire one without a larger discussion to make sure that we're not missing something else. And if there's an enforcement issue about our requirement around electric fences, then I don't know that... I think that feedback needs to go back to community development and they should come forward with the proposed language to address that the way it needs to be addressed if it needs to be addressed. I mean, that feedback was given a month and a half ago and it was fine then. There was no concerns until today. We had this same meeting with the same... We came up with that language. It was... Yeah. I guess there was a consensus to come forward with that language. But now I'm hearing that it's... There's problems with that. Can we remove barbed wire and change electric fences to be allowed in the town of Essex? What do folks think about that? Take out barbed wire but leave the rest of it where it said they were permitted? So it's just... So the change instead would be where instead of saying where electric fences are prohibited, saying where electric fences are allowed. So it really doesn't... It doesn't change anything there. I agree that taking the... We got to take the barbed wire out and have a larger discussion.  Do you have any thoughts on that? So we would... I guess the proposal would be to accept the changes as proposed by the Planning Commission in reference out. Which proposal? The one she just showed us. The one that says that three... Oh, it's only allowed in three districts. That's not what we voted on last week. We didn't vote on anything last week. Okay, we came to a consensus on moving it to... sending it back to the... And they didn't actually comment on this. They were okay with it. They were okay with this. So you showed us earlier that said in your slideshow unless you came up with that language on your own in the slideshow you showed us at the very beginning of this meeting. So this is the Planning Commission's original proposal. This was your proposal. This was our proposal? We're back there again. So... So the Planning Commission had no... If I put something incorrectly in the slideshow, I apologize. No, that's fine. I'm just curious what you wanted to write in there because it said state exemptions. No, they were happy with it. They accepted this language with a highlight this evening about the fact that the barbed wire is definitely going to be problematic because there are other uses, there's security uses. So leave electric wire fences. They're only permitted for agricultural uses. And if somebody needs to have them the agriculture use is defined then somebody can define it for them. As I read it last time. In agriculture as written in our subdivision definitions. Agriculture as defined by the Vermont Secretary of Agriculture Food and Markets to include the cultivation or use of land for growing food, fiber, Christmas trees, maple sap, horticulture, orchard crops, the raising, feeding or management of livestock, poultry, equines, fish or bees, operation of greenhouses, production of maple sap, the onsite storage, preparation and sale of agricultural products principally produced on the farm and the onsite production of fuel or power from agricultural products or waste produced on the farm. The term shall include commercial greenhouses and riding stables but specifically excludes the slaughtering of animals or poultry for commercial purposes. So I'm in agreement with the language that we had proposed last time with reference to the barbed wire. Yep. Anybody else have any comments or concerns? You can go around in the circle there and thanks for keeping us on the keel there. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you for bringing up the barbed wire issue. So then now what about the eight-foot fence part of that? So that's the next question. Right. I just like Mr. Norton's proposal. I agree. So for this one scratch the barbed wire. Yep. So we're consensus is okay with that. The eight-foot fence thing, the feedback that came from the planning commission was that if you move the fence six inches away from your property line it's no longer on your property line. But I guess the proposal included discussion about then your proposal included within setbacks, right? That it was very simple. This was your logic. Okay. So removes the reference to property line. No. Yeah, just that's it. If you're greater than that the other feedback from the planning commission is that this becomes a bit of design review which we don't do outside of and in most districts. So this is a new proposal. So that's it. The other feedback from the planning commission is that this becomes a bit of design review of districts. So this is a new design review function where we're adding across all districts. The recommendation is not to do that. I'll make the same comment that I made last time. To some extent we already do that by saying that structures need to be located within, you know, more than a certain amount of distance from bordering properties, property lines, things like that. So I see this as much of that same we're not saying how the fence has to be designed. We're giving structural structure to, you know, the height of the fence. And that's it. So do we currently not regulate fences at all or what do we... So there's a section all about them. Well, Catherine's looking that up. You know, that's with the... My comments are specific around the exemptions which list security and safety purposes as well, which would cover places like Woodside, places like police department. There would just be a step to move that. There's language here, but it's, you know, the first day is more about corner sight lines that a fence might be blocking. And the next one is maintenance. So you don't need a permit for a fence, essentially. Okay, that E-section is the section that we added last week. Right. So commercial industrial properties can install fences without review. Okay. So what do people think about the proposal that came forward today and said as section E, fences shall not exceed eight feet in height, and then it adds a G section to that, subsection to that section. Exceptions, the zoning board of adjustment through conditional use review may authorize residential fences would exceed eight feet in height, specifically for security or safety purposes that may require landscaping to mitigate visual impacts. I think you've said you're okay with that. I like it. So what you just read is what was proposed this evening by QB as an alternative to the language that had been brought up before, which talked about it included fences on property lines and then some of the rebuttal from the Planning Commission was, six inches in from the property line, you're no longer on the property line, can you then go to eight feet or six to 12 feet? It was explicit to property fences on property lines the way it was written. That's great to hear. God, I'm going to go down this rabbit hole. Do we need to have security or safety purposes defined? I mean, if someone is concerned about a neighbor breaking into their home and went to the ZVA and said, I have a security or safety purpose, what would then define that security or safety purpose? Who would determine whether it was a legit purpose or concern? Well, eight feet and zoning would have to, because under the eight feet right, but if someone went and wanted a ten foot fence and zoning would have to determine if that was, and if it's not clear in the zoning regulations and that's what I'm kind of going back to. Was a zoning administrator to it? I think a zoning administrator probably would maybe in consultation with members and a zoning administrator's decision can always be appealed well to the zoning board more of a Do we want to put ourselves in a position where one application could be approved and one not and then are you going to take that? Can I keep going back to the legally defensible question? What about the simple language that he originally proposed? Security but that can be that can be that's already grandfathered in anyway but if there's going to be a new facility they could make that on the plan when they approve the site plan but an individual on any street corner could say I have concerns for my safety and I need to I'm not talking about, I'm just saying going back to that I have a procedural question Yeah um if we exclude this and kick it back to the planning commission for more discussion what does that timeframe look like? So you would be asking them to try to come up with some different language is that what you're thinking? To take into consideration some of the concerns around legit uses um making sure that it's firm enough to give clear direction um I just don't, I don't want to say no here and forgive the phrase but have it go into a black hole and be forgotten So procedurally technically in state statute there isn't a mechanism for what you're saying the mechanism is that you tell the planning commission you say we've changed this and then they can amend their report and choose to comment back so then you would need to have another public hearing after that So we can move forward with everything but this and have them amend their report to come back to us it's not an all or nothing um so you mean at the next public hearing you would just be talking about this one issue I'm saying in hypothetically speaking if we said yes we want to go ahead and approve everything but this would then the planning commission develop a new report for just that No so I'm sorry I guess I misunderstood if you want to just strike this and not add this language it was language that you at the select board added it would not need to go back to the planning commission to amend the report without it you want them to come up with different language and there's not really that mechanism but obviously we can share what the intent is with the planning commission They do have concerns with something where us in this room have just come up with three different cases where poking holes in it I think it needs to be more fully vetted I think that's generally acceptable to the planning commission as well I mean they take months to come up with changes Catherine next round of zoning amendments now you have the town plan we've had designations are going after you've got a lot going on but a year, year and a half, two years before the planning commission takes up zoning and subdivision regulations again yeah easily I'd say a year and it depends you know they like the idea of doing them more frequently so even if it's not a big heavy lift of our state designations there will be smaller things maybe it's the RPDI that gets tackled something like this could be included with that it is not going to be early next year I would say like 12 months in my understanding is a select board has no mechanism to direct the planning commission to take up a particular topic the methodology for us to have them respond to something is to propose language that then they can respond to but then they have to respond to if we remove this and ask them very nicely to look at it they may or may or may not choose to do so right right so we can't mandate what their work plan work plan that's part of the concern is to be clear is that if we don't do this it may language or it may get taken up unless we hold up the whole package and send that language back and rinse and repeat right and the planning commission right now is in the of town plan staff so they may not have a chance to look at this they may and so the next time the next time any changes come through again we can the select board can then at that time choose to add more language around this if it isn't already in there similar to what we what happened to you Ethan I have a technical question really quick this is approved it's going to have an effective date anything that we have would be grandfather could we go with the original fences maybe erectile and property lines and shall not exceed 8 feet in height and whether without the last sentence under the assumption that the planning commission can choose to give any new applicant a waiver if their need arises to build a fence greater than 8 feet there isn't really a waiver provision a waiver provision that is in zoning is specific to is to height but I don't think it's building I think it's building height specifically so it's not there's not just a general waiver out zoning isn't that structure is it structure or building is a fence was the word structure or building I guess would be the question the fences structure it is right this that's what I'm what I was just thinking trying to remember yeah what is that exact language I just be a simple yeah so do we do we want to try to I mean the meeting's been going on for a while here now we have people we've got a lot more to do we and that's not that's no reason not that because we had another topic and this category to talk about as well just to get a before we go too much further do we want to any consensus with regard to whether we want to move forward with something about fences eight foot fences today or whether we want to have a allow an indeed more deep discussion to figure out what the language is or do we want to sort it out tonight and Bill or Tracy or we keep just the first part fences shall not exceed eight feet leave it at that but then you have the problem with security fences which would be a special issue that they would have to bring to the planning commission if they wanted to fence more than eight feet second part of a few bees language mentioned about going to the zoning board or conditional use yes yes it does but we we had concerns about who defines what a security or safety purpose is right and so without definitions of to back those things up and how you make sure you consistently enforce who gets a bit larger than eight foot fence and who doesn't I've concerns with going forward with this tonight without a lot more consideration of what possibilities or what problems we might be causing by putting these regulations so to move things along do we want to have more discussion about this do we want to keep it in who wants to keep anybody to keep sounds like Don you want to keep the eight foot it's like we're going to have to be kind back for public hearing that we're not going to accomplish enough a lot that's true when we're talking about the same thing we talked about the public hearing before I'm doing agreement on so we want to talk about our process and we want to talk about what we're going to do so we want to I like it just leave me at eight feet what do you want to do eight feet yeah I say eight feet address other things that come up yep in the future I have concerns about it I might vote against the whole thing if we do that so I'm worried about the exposure it's going to give us it's not going to change anything because this stuff that's been in here before hasn't been brought up in future things they've been able to work around a lot of things in this I don't see why a fence would be the killer in a project when there's so many things in here that come into play with so many different properties and they found a way to make it happen so which language is being proposed you want to keep this language here that it specifically says on the property lines so somebody can move a fence back six feet from the property line and go 12 feet that was one of the planning commission's rebuttals against doing that this specifically says property lines it would have to be within the setback to be considered not a fence within the setback which setbacks are different on every road two different roads but say in 25 feet back I could have a 25 foot fence as long as I get a zoning permit because it's a structure at that point it's not a fence this is property line for a fence you can't build within the buffer right so the only place you can put a fence is on the property line isn't that up above in A I don't know I don't understand enough about what the restrictions are what property line means right here all fences I think up above there I think it's A there's all kinds of rules about where you can put a fence the height is the only thing that's on to find I guess I heard three of the five of us at least said they want to have the 8 foot thing in there so I guess we should go further over that so if someone comes in and they want to be a cannabis cultivator and they have a plot of land there is a need to protect that they can't have more than an 8 foot fence they'll be able to as long as it's not on the on the property line that's what I was just saying you can just move off the property line and build a fence which is then a zoning permit agriculture is exempt from all zoning regulations anyways so that's already exempt it's state statue no nothing else that follows the setbacks with agriculture there's no zoning regulations in the town of Essex it's in our book I heard consensus that we want to have this language is that true language as it's written here now it's moved to find under agriculture would be horticulture definitions I move forward in the meeting I've heard the three of you say that's a majority that wants to do the 8 foot fence I'm not in favor I think we talk about respecting our community and commissions in support of the recommendations what does that do for the public that raise their concern with no solution I'm sorry Catherine can you go back to where does it say that if it's not on the property line that it doesn't matter that can be any height that was a response from the planning commission yeah part of their response was that what does it mean to have it on the property line you can move it a couple inches in from the property line and then the rule doesn't apply so it's a in my sense it's kind of silly that only on the property line you can only have an you can move it in a little bit further you can go higher because I guess I'm just not seeing where that is in this section it's not in the regulations it's in the response it's in the planning commission's report or it's in their response their memo about how they don't support Catherine said something earlier about there's a height the height waiver I found it it mentions it can only be one of the following that you could get a waiver for and it does not mention fence right but I'm not talking about the waiver you said a height there was a height on a structure the structure can't be inside the buffer not the buffer, the setback so I was talking about the waiver is an issue but as far as there's nothing about height in the setbacks there's a 40-foot building height that's overall for anything I guess it probably said structure maybe not building so no structure it's more than 40 feet that's the only height if the fences are exempt from buffer requirements as long as it's not as long as it's not obstructing traffic you can put a fence within a setback, within a buffer right on a property line that was A in the section that just said it had to obstruct view essentially with a fence for sight lines how about this one if we take the whole fence thing out we vote to accept the plan as presented with the exception of the fence proposal and also recommend that part of it returns to the planning commission for further consideration for the next review we can ask them, we can't force them to no, I'm just saying with the recommendation that work? and that's my motion so we have another topic though the garage department well that was explained it was it's my I don't know how you would force that and I don't know how you know there were garage sale in my week in my neighborhood this weekend there were six cars in the street that all belonged to the people who were holding the garage sale so if it's in a neighborhood where there is on street parking why do we care why would it need to have off street parking right? the same argument we made for the location on the 15 that raised some concerns you can park on the side of route 15 as long as you're not in the traveling that's an accident a lot anyway I guess are we in agreement that we need to remove that and potentially other enforcement methods or other methods of dealing with it need to be renew my objection to it from last time I don't think it should be in there okay alright so where I believe we are is we are accepting the recommendation of the planning commission in their memo with the exception of removing the barb wire restriction is that correct is that what we remember differently it's not in the memo the PC didn't have any qualms with your they didn't have any qualms with that that's why I said with the exception we're going to remove the barb wire because the barb wire question didn't come up last time so it wasn't so are we ready to make a motion on that and I'll make the motion I didn't see any hands go up did you I thought that's what I did but that's alright I'm sorry go ahead do whatever okay I just wanted to make sure okay so Don has made the motion to sorry I'll accept it I'm sorry Don is there a second second thank you Ethan any further discussion and I've already hopefully made it clear close in favor you say aye actually no we're still in the public hearing I'm sorry sorry that's the next business item so let's close the public hearing make the motion we close the public hearing second Don thank you Gracie sorry for the procedural error here all those in favor of closing the public hearing please say aye both say nay the public hearings close let's move on to our first business item which is consider adoption of the amendments Don has made a motion has been seconded by Ethan so then restating the motion let's all those in favor please say aye aye both say nay aye motion passes 3-2 so Catherine do you understand what we've yes I believe so all set there thank you Catherine so let's move on to our next business item which is 6B presentation about US Small Business Administration disaster assistance Vermont Declaration of Loan Program we have our lead screen here from the Small Business Administration come on up introduce yourself share your information hello my name is Ali Scream I am a public affairs specialist with the Small Business Administration and I'm here today to share with you the program that we have available for instance county actually it is a continuous county and I'm going to explain in a minute what that means but I'm here for the Vermont Declaration 18016 that happened on July the 7 2023 the incident was severe storm flooding landslide mudslides at least you mentioned Essex County well I'm sorry we're not in Essex County well I'm sorry Essex Town I'm so confused because it's Essex County so please forgive me I'm from Louisiana we don't even have counties so this is all new to me I want to thank you the select board for having me here today to present the program that we have available and what it means is that we have an economic injury disaster loan for small businesses it does not matter if it's home-based business, storefront agriculture any type of business and non-profit organization are eligible to apply for this disaster loan this is because the neighboring counties or towns were affected and the disaster loan program you can go to you can apply up to two million and the term can go as long as 30 years and we try to encourage businesses to go ahead and apply for this program because here we are again in hurricane season and it's better to have it than not to have it then and you go back and say oh I should have gotten this loan and it takes six months to a year before a business can really see the decrease in their sales that's why the deadline is April 15, 2024 they give the business time to kind of see and look back at oh I was making this much a couple of months ago and now going forward I'm not making this much so we just try to encourage businesses to go ahead and apply for this loan and it's just a safety net you know we don't know what's going to happen from day to day and it's just a safety net that they can help to get them along so once this has all passed they will be able to get back to the norm I have if anyone have any questions feel free to ask again we just try to encourage all businesses and nonprofit organizations to go ahead and apply because this is something that is very necessary and a lot of business don't know that they're eligible because they didn't have physical damages but the damages is in the economic injury out of the business so if anyone have any questions feel free to ask any questions given that there is sort of that lull or time frame before businesses may even know that they're impacted do you have a presence or do you think it would be worthwhile to have a presence at the FEMA sites and the DRCs the disaster recovery centers that are already stood up is there a place to disseminate additional information so let me understand what you're asking are you asking that should the businesses go into the centers to apply I just didn't know if the Small Business Administration was part of the DRCs or the FEMA sites to add another layer for businesses to receive this information generally they are in there together in the DRC but not the BRC DRC are just strictly for businesses but the DRC you have FEMA other organizations everybody tends to be there at the DRC okay I hate to ask something very foolish but according to the flyer that you provided us it does not list Chittenden County as eligible for EIDL and we live within Chittenden County okay Chittenden County was a major eligible for physical and economic injury okay but what it says is small businesses and most private nonprofit organizations in the following adjacent counties are eligible or not eligible are eligible to apply and Chittenden County is not listed under the eligibility okay so you know that we are in Chittenden County so so at least I think what you said is the categories of eligibility above that it mentions the major county she was talking about the EIDL we are not eligible here in Chittenden County according to this so I think what it says is that those counties are only eligible for the EID the physical part and then the other counties are eligible for all for both it's eligible for both and since like I said I'm not from here so I'm not generally familiar with the counties but if you would look I don't know if you have the same as I have you would see as a continuous county would you like to see my okay let me know what you read any other board questions does the public have any go ahead Greg at least when we spoke you said that homeowners are also eligible for some loans is that a similar process or do you have anywhere to point for homeowners who might have suffered some damages okay now again can you kind of educate me on you said you are in Chittenden County okay and this is Escent Town Chittenden County despite all those other Essex counties out there yeah okay so Chittenden County is eligible for homeowners renters, businesses all of it so I may may not be educated on how this work as for is what county Esses is in it's a lot of Esses and I'm kind of confused here so please forgive me yeah I should have educated myself a little more on that but Chittenden County is eligible for physical and economic injury and homeowners renters as well can apply themselves for damages now to go and apply you can visit Disaster Loans assistance I mean Disaster Loans assistance.SBA.gov or you can call the 1-800-659-2955 now I bought some um flyers that I'm going to leave here and I do have some flyers for homeowners and renters as well that I will leave here so you can get the information that you would need in case you know of anyone that needs to apply great thank you again ask if there's anybody in the public who has any comments or questions anybody in the room I got one more thing that I need to tell also this is the biggest portion of it all the interest that will not occur for 12 months you do not have to make a payment for 12 months so after that year you get approved and you get the money and you get the money in your account and the day before your 12 months you say hey I don't want to do this just simply get the money back and you will not have occurred no interest so I think that's a good deal you know seeing that you're not out of anything just to apply and again if after the day before that 12 months and you see that hey I'm going to be okay then you just give it back so I think it's a real a real good win situation I know no one wants to take that alone but we're in these times where disaster happens every day so it's just better to be safe than to be sorry and wish you have done it alright thank you again and if you guys have any questions you have my business card you can call me at any time I'll be more happy to address your concerns great thank you so much thank you okay let's move on to business item C which is presentation of Chittenden County Regional Planning Commissions Annual Report Charlie Baker come on up good evening thank you for making time on your busy agenda I'm going to try not to take too much time because I'm feeling bad for you all so you got our report in your packet I'll just do a quick overview of it and then ask if you have any questions or feedback this is largely a customer service call just to make sure we're providing you the services that you want and the way that you expect the first page of the report gives you a little bit of background about the RPC and a little bit of how we leverage your local dues to bring in state and federal funds to the county and to the town your reps on our boards and committees for all their service it's quite a bit of time there's a new little feature on this report a QR code so if you look at this online and you want to get to this report directly on our website you can do that and I should mention that each community does have a page on our website where you can see the last three years of these reports but also any of the current projects or recent projects that we worked on with you that were significant enough to warrant your own little web page a lot of things are probably below that threshold the second page really and a little bit on the third goes into all the specific projects we worked with you on some zoning stuff but quite a bit of water quality stuff energy work GIS and then just technical assistance any feedback on any of those good or bad like this brown fields program and you check this property does the town get the report on the property whatever you found if there's something there or not we can provide it it's not a typical thing that we would provide it to the select board check it out and then okay yeah we do we got federal dollars where we can do assessments for property owners which is pretty typical if they're going to do a transaction you know sell the property well the buyer really wants to make sure there's nothing that they don't know about there that's typically or before redevelopment yeah so and we just got new funding as you can see just this spring so if you know of any properties that are looking you know might have brown fields and need some investigation please let us know Dan Albrecht on our staff manages those projects so any other questions I was just going to ask it's probably already covered you do a lot of coordination between other towns as well as Essex with some of the major transportation projects that come up indeed yes any much a lot depends on what it is I mean I guess the biggest thing going back in time was the CIRC alternatives which was multi-town for a few years to figure out what alternative projects and you can see in the next section of the report in what our transportation improvement program which we need to prove as the region which is really all the towns looking at it together to make sure they're comfortable with how VTRANS is proposing to spend federal transportation dollars but you can see there's still a couple CIRC alternative projects in the capital program for Essex in there and you see a number of other transportation funded projects quite a bit I would say Essex has done pretty well in getting projects into the capital program over the years sorry did you have a follow-up on that or yeah no that's fine okay sure we're working with you this year on your official map for the town center mix use district and then the last two or three pages have just a variety of efforts that we're working on regionally we are in the process of updating the regional plan right now which we call the ECOS plan spending quite a bit of time on equity and public engagement to marginalized communities folks that haven't really had a chance to participate fully in the processes quite a bit of work going on there energy planning a lot of different transportation things walking plan this year we're going to start a transportation demand management or transportation alternatives like how to really implement more of that quite a bit of clean water stuff park and ride plan and also the communication union district which Essex is a member of so so far so good on that we'll see what kind of hopefully the providers respond when we put out an RFP we can also get access to some more federal or state funding to provide more coverage for broadband sorry it was quite a bit I hope a short time but any more questions or feedback for me any questions any questions from the public I'll just put in my refrain from last year thank you the RPC does a lot for us whether it's technical assistance that Charlie mentioned I know a lot of staff will just call up counterparts or support at the RPC and just bounce ideas off of them that's from energy to GIS to planning efforts to stormwater stuff so great resource for us thank you Charlie for you and your staff yeah no thank you pleasure working with your team so thank you thanks for one more question do you see any increases in the dues coming up? from our budget yeah so good question that is something our board takes up in October you know we've been in a period of inflationary period which I'm sure you've been feeling so we've been trying to keep it small I wouldn't be surprised if it came up we haven't taken a specific look at it yet so third week third Wednesday in October we'll know for sure what that number is and we'll get that over to the certainly to the staff and stuff for budgeting purposes but we've been trying to keep them small thank you yeah no thank you you're all you do for us yeah thank you Charlie see you on Wednesday very much you can make that meteorite I'll let you know me and the other Andy Watts huh the Williston rep for the CCRPC his name is also Andy Watts wow we're actually going out to dinner next week we've started it's kind of a funny thing Andy walks he's bad Andy okay moving on to the next agenda item which is discussion and potential action about Essex rescue billing for non-transports feel free to slide another chair well these are way more comfortable good evening I'm Colleen Ballard with Essex Rescue Peter Mertolo with Essex Rescue so back in July I sent an email inquiring how the select board would feel if we were to start billing for transport for non-transports we currently bill for non-transports just to be clear the difference is we would be holding patients accountable when their insurances don't cover the non-transport fees and most of those right now are our governmental insurances so Medicare, Medicaid TriCare they don't cover our non-transport fee and our non-transport fee is $150 or $250 depending on how much treatment is provided so we've met with some of the other select boards and had the same discussion obviously everybody is aware of the increases over the last couple years trying to just continue to make ends meet and we're being used for a lot of non-emergent things right now that are taking us out of service for long periods of time for calls that are really what we're meant to be here for we're hoping that this would deter some of those calls from occurring encourage people to utilize the subscription plan to help us recoup some of the costs that are lost for those times I will say that even the transports that are billable and should be covered are now getting kicked back from Medicare those are transports so it's we're up against challenges and you know there's been a lot of discussion about recouping funds and holding people accountable for the costs of their transports and requests for care and this is one of those things that we don't currently after the patient for $150 or $250 so essentially what this would mean is we're going to hold patients accountable for the cost of the service being provided to them regardless of the amount which is a pretty significant change from anything we've ever done before last year alone was about $30,000 that we left out there that we did not recover we're already passed $30,000 with our subscription only last year was $1,000 that we wrote off that people had subscribed so they would be covered under our subscription plan and this year so far I think was $2,100 so the subscription plan helps with some of that and there's a lot of people that are not subscribers that maybe would subscribe to help kind of fill that gap so you know it's not a vote or a motion it's more just trying to this is a pretty significant change to the residents and the communities that we serve and we understand that we have opportunities for people to pay over time they can submit hardship requests to us that we will consider their financial situations we have the $50 subscription plan that can help people the terms of the subscription won't change you did consider alerting the public in this new subscription that that might change over time so there's even a better reason to join the subscription program this year so that would be part of that rollout plan as well right to hear your thoughts and if you haven't so non-transport even if you go and patch somebody up and then they refuse to get into the ambulance that's a non-transport that's correct or if a life alert goes off and you go but there's not like the kitten pulls it yeah that's a non-transport well so I will say that our protocols change that require anytime we have patient contact so somebody calls us and says you know sadly my toenails need to be clipped they're snagging my sock because or I need help off the floor so anytime we are assessing anybody in any manner we are now required to take a full set of vital signs do an assessment and complete a non-transport form before we could say this really isn't a medical emergency it doesn't appear that you need medical assistance we're going to consider you and no patient and we leave we're no longer legally able to do that because they want to ensure that people are properly being exited from the healthcare system there's lots of people that don't see doctors and things so we may be the only person they see therefore they want to make sure that we're giving them plenty of time and attention to ensure that there aren't any life threats so it takes us more time than it used to those are also the patients that we may provide life saving treatments such as providing Narcan or a diabetic who requires sugar we provide all of these things and then they say I'm better I don't want to go to the hospital we have no way to recoup any of the cost of equipment or any of that so we're left footing the bill for those calls any other comments no go ahead that's great did you have a question yeah curious of what a dispatch call would sound like for someone needing assistance clipping their tonials or I'm sorry I need breakfast and the reason why I'm asking is could this be weeding out those calls happen at dispatch we wish they could and leave our dispatch system isn't set up so you're talking more of like a priority dispatch this is part of that regionalization and dispatch larger discussion that the state's having the dispatchers on the line don't have medical training to make those types of decisions so if somebody is requesting an ambulance the ambulance has to respond they can't we can't even just send first response first response and us get dispatched first response can cancel the ambulance once they get there and often times they do if we're not needed but still you've rolled you've used gas and you use peep personnel exactly yeah there is a difference if we get canceled before we hit the scene though because our time on scene is significantly shorter yeah there are a lot of different variables here and that's a great question about where do they enter the health care system and as Colleen just mentioned the emphasis is now on making sure that everyone who enters gets at least a proper assessment and then exit before a doorway assessment oh you look fine and off we go so that has changed our dynamic a little bit and we're working with the first response partners to see how they can participate as well but two years ago we were here asking for more money and one of the things that we were trying to do was making sure we were asking the people who are requesting the service to be the primary supporters of that service and then you as the community being the secondary level so this is another way that we can extend that directly to the point of care I don't know whether I'm splitting hairs with my follow up but does the caller have to specifically request an ambulance or if the caller says I need help clipping my toenails could fire go out do the assessment and call you out if needed I mean if it's that cut and dry yeah it doesn't work that way currently if it sounds like it's a medical emergency or anything related to a health care situation there are situations where we'll send law enforcement out before us if they're like you know like a welfare check for example we haven't heard from this person somebody's concerned of their well-being if it is as simple as what we're discussing and first response is there before us we often don't make it there I think a 911 response falls into one of those three categories law enforcement fire or EMS and then possibly a combination of modes any 911 call there has to be a response somebody has to show up to verify and if it's medical it's EMS the fire component becomes first response of that medical side but it's not as simple as saying this doesn't rise to the level of you need an ambulance I'm just trying to think if there was some like driage that could be done I hope in the future there will be because they do that in larger cities send the most appropriate care which in Vermont we don't have that it's the ambulance that comes has everything on it yeah I just have a question and I'm personally happy to see this but I just have a question on like a situation this is I'm gonna call it a personal situation it's the only thing I can relate towards but I guess I'm allergic to bees to be upfront and by a bee right and I have an happy pen at home something like that and I said hey I'm smelling up but I took my drill and I just wanted to have my vitals check whatever and you guys come and check my vitals and everything's fine and then you leave is there like a guideline on like how long you were there how much you charge and like do you have a it's just one fee for non-transports and how much is that it's $150 for basic life support we pretty much check your vital signs and all of that if we provide advanced life support care so we do an EKG we start an IV we give you medications we give you epinephrine then that would be $250 but anybody who gets epinephrine would go to the hospital goes for transport yeah yeah yeah yeah okay so it's $150 for a non yeah yeah transport okay but if you were a subscriber it's $50 for your entire household for the year whenever times you get stung by a bee it doesn't matter okay and that's the benefit of the subscription use the word insurance so if you get just perspective so we cover slightly over 30,000 for a population this last year we had 2100 subscriptions it's not very much in comparison to the population we serve so I have a question about that is there a reason you have to do it in December when everybody's broke from Christmas and not like 1st of July seriously I've always had that question well I think it's just when they did that because at the time it was more of a financial support so that you know people were in the giving mood it doesn't have to be it's just the way it's always been we do get them throughout the year though and I get that but I always think that you might get a bigger response when people aren't all right up in the holiday I'll take that into consideration especially when you get 40 envelopes in the mail it's true for donations at Christmas time whereas it kind of taper off a little bit between July and August not always I got quite a few but my other comment was if I ask somebody to provide a service to myself I expect to be charged for it so I don't have any problem saying that I think you should charge these people that are calling you especially for toenails or useless stuff like that I just I don't have a problem with that and I would encourage you to do it even even for somebody that's you know any sort of minor medical event or you know bump their head and once they're vitals vitals taken I mean how many people have a blood pressure machine at home or those things for the finger well we've also found that people are using because our providers are so they're so versed in different medical things that people do call the ambulance rather than having to go to the doctor and pay a doctor's bill they call the ambulance and say it's not life-threatening you know or you can wait or you know and that's that's what they needed that's what they wanted so so you just reminded me of something that I was thinking about bringing up because my mom lives over at Mansfield Place which is probably a place you go to frequently and there's been times where the advice of the medical staff there was she needs to go to the hospital and I was there and I said well I'm available I can take her and they say we recommend that we call 911 and send her in an ambulance she'll get seen sooner but it does happen a lot are those kind of things problematic for you or is it so is there any way to change that perception if you are a guardian for the individual you can question can you give me a reason why you feel they need to go by ambulance because that right there is the perfect example where bills get kicked back from Medicare because they feel that there were alternative transport opportunities I was there in the room we have that in people's homes as well it just happens that there's a population of people that live outside of their home with their other family members and so that happens a lot there so it's only a perception that like a Mansfield Place an example they believe that if they go by ambulance they'll be seen sooner than if I were to drive them there so they often say that and we repeat the same thing there are times that we bring somebody in we go straight to triage and they sit and wait it's all done by the acuity of the individual yeah there may be things that are variables such as self-harm can't sit by themselves somebody who's a flight risk because of dementia or Alzheimer's disease those things get a little more complicated you can't leave them in a waiting room by themselves but that would be the same whether you brought them in or the ambulance and the common misconception is if you show up in an ambulance you're going to get seen sooner and it's just not true maybe years ago especially now since COVID if your bones sticking out yeah they'll bring in the room maybe so is there is there anything you could do to try to dissuade that view we work with the local I mean we work with them and talking ultimately if the patient has the capacity to have that conversation we've run into situations where the patient doesn't want to go by ambulance but the staff are very pushy but they they also have plans care plans that I'm sure you put together for your family remember when they got there about whether you want to be consulted before they go to the hospital whether you just want them to go every time those types of things it gets into hard whether or not the patient is their own guardian we will have those conversations but ultimately if the patient wants to go or the family member who's the guardian wants them to go or the staff there say we can't handle this they need to go I mean the patient doesn't suffer we will take them to that that's also part of covering there yes as much as this is about recognizing where the point of care takes place we're not trying to discourage point of care yeah yeah yeah yeah so this is really about leveling who's receiving the care and who's then supporting the services for the family any other board question board member questions my answer to specific questions was yes you should bill for non-transport services you should be, you should ask the experts to send all patients to collections yes you should I did have a question about three this wasn't quite sure what that meant and I think we should give full support to you billing of people that use your service and I might suggest that you do a presentation at the annual town meeting, it's not town meeting anymore but our meeting to get more people to sign up for the subscription that's a great idea oh yeah right we have a little all of our departments are there to talk about yeah yeah yeah that would be a great idea what was the third oh I see should the patient be responsible for the bill regardless of if their insurance carrier's coverage is for the service so in other words you want the patient to be billed direct and then let them deal with the insurance? yeah I'm not sure how that works what about that one well what we would do is we would send the bill and if their insurance doesn't cover it the bill would then be sent to the patient we always try the insurance first if insurance covers it then there's balance billing potential with the patient are you looking for the balance from the patient of what the insurance doesn't cover or do you just take yeah so we have flat rates for certain levels of service so if it qualifies as a basic life support it's $150 to anyone regardless if it's advanced life support meaning just more advanced care treatment it would be $250 and again I would go that's the max that can be charged regardless so that doesn't vary and what happens if you submit that and the insurance says they're only going to pay $70 so far they either cover it or they don't we only run into the other issue when it's a transport that's when we bicker about what's allowed and what's covered and it gets way more complicated that's my question is that would you want a bill for the balance that's not covered so certain ones Medicare we cannot balance bill so what they cover is what they cover other insurances are different we have some commercial insurances that will cover the entire bill then we have other insurances that will only follow Medicare and Medicaid we are fortunate that the state agreed to increase the Medicaid reimbursement to match Medicare so last year I figured it out that would be like $25,000 more in reimbursement so that's a positive so yeah that's a whole other discussion of cost build what's allowed and what you actually are reimbursed I just had one comment that I wanted to save until I heard everybody talk but for number four for how would your municipality support Essex Rescue if we would begin pushback from the community I thought of it and Kendall really kind of hits the nail on the head when he was talking about it but if you go to the doctors then you have insurance there's a balance you still have to pay the balance and they'll send you to collections they'll make you set up a payment plan so why should EMS be any different we pay a contribution out of our taxes to support having the agency that doesn't mean that the readiness doesn't mean that it's a full service so that personally I just wanted to say that to me that's how I view the situation and I fully support Essex Rescue any comments from the public or questions anybody in the room have a question or a comment Charlie Betsy I'm sorry I saw Charlie's hands first I'm sorry sorry I just wanted to support Essex Rescue coming to here tonight for the same reason operating costs like credit even costs for service and not make money off of it it's a volunteer organization and have costs to keep products happy on their their point Tracy the dispatching services a whole new process of run cards that dispatcher has to on that phone with that person about it can't take other calls that's going to add to staff and make the dispatch centers harder we're not equipped with that area so whenever anybody calls to set it yourself there isn't a specific request it's in the fire department elevator alarm goes off there's nobody on the phone it's in the fire department got a line down in the road in the fire department and we're seeing the same thing you're going to calls that we shouldn't be getting sent to it's the same thing with rescue a lot of calls that system is broken it hasn't kept up with the times and it has to be done I wish we could we have the ideas alright thanks Tracy Betsy could you come closer so you can microphone hear you please Betsy that so I have the question I am I'm asking is you've got people who are calling for help the patient is fallen whatever the client is falling but there are possibilities for people who are in the position for sister care correct? and so should you actually sit and talk to them about how used they think they have to help get that helpful that's a really great thought however the facility doesn't their nursing staff sorry yes their nursing staff does not have the training to do a complete assessment for the types of reason we're being called so they're not really equipped to handle that they don't have doctors on staff they don't have protocols that their nursing staff work under so it's really outside of their scope as an assisted facility even a nursing home so that's how we get involved but we do have conversations when things come up about you know whether or not that was an appropriate use or other little things that happen we do meet with them some of the staff that are caring for your loved one so one of the facilities that we have eight times same person same person same call, same place only two of them person as a nurse myself so that they can they have the equipment my sister was over at and they have the equipment but they don't utilize and it seems to me that's a bigger problem and maybe facilities when there are people should have been in maybe then you'll get action on that or to get there people be trained if they can find also not legally able to do that sounds like a great idea I think that talking more with the facilities and what their responsibilities is sounds like a great idea it's not within our purview or ability to affect this time the contract technically with Medicare for that however that's going to lead to more non-emergent calls that's a whole different and there might come a time where we do talk about different levels of staffing but currently we are not it's not an apology thing but thank you but I do think you should be paying hey Ken did you have a comment or question could I get some clarification he said that it's meant to be a volunteer organization for all of the people we're mixed we're a combination department so we have a volunteer how about the general people who actually provide that drive the ambulance they're both not 100% no any comments or questions from folks online not seeing any hands so the agenda item says is there a possible action potential action is there a potential action not right but just in case if you wanted to make a motion of formal support you have the option to do that I hear the sense that you're saying I'll turn it to Colleen and Peter this is more the dialogue we wanted is just to get we've gotten a lot of great information back such as the town meeting and having that opportunity to continue to get that information out and also when the public comes back and says did you know did you have some general information on the record let you guys ask questions I appreciate it I didn't have it yet said but I fully support that you should bill thank you for your hard work I'm sorry you get so many unpaid calls thanks for taking the time to ask for the input absolutely you guys deal with cows and all different department and no barbed wire that's Charlie's department he said call the fire department you heard him I'll just go knock on the door all right let's move on to the next business item consider approval of fire department car 12 replacement purchase and amended fire department vehicle replacement schedule chief call hello again what did you do so you have two memorandums one that was in the packet and one that was given to you late today after discussion with the manager and the director of finance as you know back last year in October we talked about the replacement for car 12 when we entered into contract in November that vehicle is still not here we keep getting pushed off and pushed off the latest admission or whatever assertion from them is we'll get it September 27 well I've been there too many times and we need a vehicle that we can rely on so I have located another one it is a larger chassis truck but it is sitting on the lot and we can possess it immediately it's a 4500 series chassis the benefit to that is it's a larger chassis more of a commercial vehicle than a one ton pickup our opinion is that the way that we would use it we would be able to extend the replacement schedule for that out twice of what we would with a pickup truck just because of the lighter duty frame it doesn't hold up as well as a truck will so the added cost between the one that we had on order and the one that we would like to get in my opinion is more than offset by the fact that it's life will be a lot longer to speak to the price a little bit when chief Cole approached me with this that was one of my first questions wait two more weeks and see what happens versus spending an extra $30,000 as the chief pointed out I think a $10,000 or $12,000 increase in the cost of the vehicle the additional money was going to be towards interest and that is Andy was asking questions about that today that's what the memo from Dan is about Andy basically asked why are we paying 7% interest on a vehicle if we have money on hand Dan and Charlie and I spoke about that Dan's confident we have the money available now in the past we've gone to leases for maybe a number of reasons sometimes they come with a maintenance agreement that's not the case here sometimes we don't have the money available sometimes we're trying to avoid a bond boat former finance director has said that's a better way to avoid liability on the books to take a look at it a few different ways today we think we can recommendation in the memo before you now is that we pay for the vehicle outright avoid the interest costs that way G. Cole said extends the life of the vehicle we think we have a 20 year replacement on this one as opposed to I think it was 10 years on the previous truck we were going to look at so we really think that big picture all told the finances work out it's a good purchase financially involved and we can have it really soon Andy how much of questions are you having first of all on the $80,000 truck is there any penalty for reneging on the deal basically no in our opinion would be as they've reneged many times before we have we have not expended any funds to secure that vehicle yet at all there's no source of obligation or anything where they would feel inclined to pursue none that we know of I would like that answer 100% and secondly I was going to mention the same thing with why finance it out of the capital I would point out that the memo from Dan spells out very clearly what I brought up a couple times about there should be the costs that you folks need in your capital budget and those should be funded versus just giving you a number that we feel as a board might be enough so that then you could look at this and say that you have an exact amount that you've already funded with your capital budget to replace these vehicles I wanted to make sure that I mentioned that you'll be seeing that again when we get into the budget presentations we'll have that we have that document updated and Dan has the formulas laid out as to what that fee would be for your consideration Tracy? so in the listing of assets that you currently have I see 15 car 12 2010 Ford 350 pickup is that the one you're replacing? correct car 12 are replacing yes 15 car 12 I don't know so it indicates that lifespan is 20 years was that one currently 20 years or did that column just get updated before that column that's not correct that's a 10 year truck okay yeah because I was going to say if it was a 20 year lifespan there's still a good 6 years left 20 years okay thanks Tracy yeah is there any trade in or selling the one that you have to reduce the cost? the one that we have we will be selling it outright because we still have to put emergency equipment on it so the lighting package has gone through the roof as well like everything else so the price of that so we have not yet we've tried to sell that truck on the fire truck website and it had a couple of interests and then both of them backed out because of its condition so um we'll be looking at that again and how best to dispose of that in the way that's most advantageous for us great and they're not interested in it they'll wholesale it it's got a lot of rust on it and things running boards are broken it'll need some updating before it's suitable to sit on a lot somewhere I might just mention you mentioned the fire selling site locally you put it out nationwide it does on the fire site the company that we used is out of Randolph the fire truck ladies and then it it goes literally globally everybody can jump on it and look for it I know some places have got quite a bit more money than they expected Ethan I just want to throw out there that vehicles especially trucks in the past well the original order was November of 2022 I'd say that that vehicle that was originally quoted was probably closer to 85 maybe even a little bit more now so the new price of 94 for a much larger vehicle was very adequate in the pricing there so I'm glad you're not buying from Capital City what kind of warranty comes with a vehicle like this so it's a 3 year 36,000 mile warranty for us that'll be 3 years for everything and then outer body rusts through as 6 years or 100,000 the other board member comments or questions any comments or questions from the public any hands on the room don't see any hands online Mr. Chairman at this time I'd like to make the motion that we purchase the new pickup truck for the fire department outright using the balance currently available within the Capital Fund thank you Don and Tracy we've got the second on that one it was a tie any further discussion so do we also need to mention the change to the replacement time is that you need to be included in the motion and update the vehicle replacement schedule as part of that would be great say that once more I can't hear you if you could also update the vehicle replacement schedule so move then you have the schedule I'll just add that so move okay will that change Tracy? yeah I am okay any further any other discussion all those in favor please say aye aye say nay 5-0 thank you thanks for all you do okay now we're moving on to consider approval of contract for wastewater pump station contract operations do we have a public discussion about that here? we do so the possibility going into executive session is just to discuss the contract if there's any specifics about contract I'd recommend executive session for that piece of it but otherwise Aaron and Annie can speak to what's before you and I think we can do most of the conversation in public if not all of it yeah definitely issue before you tonight is whether the select board will approve the pump station supervision in operations contract waive the town purchasing policy to sole source this work to champion associates and direct the town manager to execute this contract town center owns, operates and maintains 17 sanitary sewer pump stations throughout the community attached a map in your memo kind of depicting where they are and where they're located throughout Essex each of the town's pump stations each of them have their own individual maintenance needs some get more alarms than others quite frankly I think they have their own personality each one at times these maintenance needs can take up a substantial amount of our operators time both during work hours and off the clock during overtime hours in the future the number of stations is only going to increase we have another one that will be under construction over the winter into the spring and likely coming online fall of 2024 and as we see the town center build out over the next three or four years you'll likely see an additional two more which puts us at about 20 stations within three to four years over the past couple years the department has had some trouble finding qualified water and sewer operators it's kind of industry wide this is taking place there's just nobody coming up taking the place of a lot of the retirements that we're seeing from some of our older operators we're currently down to two full time operators we have a level 3 wastewater operator and we have a foreman who will be retiring in about three months January 1st which leaves us one employee we normally historically have averaged about three and a half operators with that half operator kind of as a floater between highway in the winter months and then back to water and sewer in the summer to help backfill the guys and help them basically so we could run two crews to both do the water and sewer maintenance Danny has been stepped up and has been doing a lot of the interviewing as of late we've had an advertisement up for almost a year close to a year we've had six, seven interviews and quite honestly from what we gathered they're really not qualified for the most part some of them aren't qualified some of them are and we've offered positions to them and right now it's kind of a market where you can kind of pick where you want to work in your job where people are struggling so most of them even though we've offered them a position that has taken a job with somebody else doing similar work so we've been unsuccessful with finding anybody and additionally we've worked with management to at least try to acknowledge what our two current employees are doing over there quite honestly they alternate carrying the emergency on-call pager and they usually get maybe five to six hours overtime on average per week with that pager for call-outs on mostly generally the pump stations so if you're alternated between two operators the person who's carrying the pager gets interrupted at home at 2am but who do they call to help them in a system the other person that is not carrying the pager so it's kind of like this vicious cycle and these guys have been at this for almost a year now I mean it's a lot of undue stress on them the physical demands a little free time after hours and quite honestly the stipend that we are offering them in addition to their pay is not a solution the solution is to have qualified personnel to either hire them or have an alternative out there and tonight we're going to be discussing an alternative to helping and aiding us in operating our system the water and sewer department currently is in a services agreement with Champlain Associates we've been working with Champlain since I've been here they've supplied a lot of wastewater monitoring equipment pieces, parts they've definitely over the past four or five years have been a resource to the town many times providing technical backing to us we're currently under a contract with them to monitor all of our SCADA for all of our 17 stations this is budgeted for in the 24 budget we did have in that budget description it also included the 24-7 call out service which we have decided to postpone until we can see whether or not expanding our maintenance agreement as well would be the town's preferred solution to what we're trying to achieve here again due to the lack of staffing increase in the number of stations over time labor intensive work that we do maintaining these stations the department would like to enter into a 24 month supervision and operations contract for our 17 stations with Champlain Associates if you go to page 2 of your memo there's a brief scope of what we would be having or getting under contract with Champlain with we have the proactive monitoring of all stations which is monitoring the SCADA for each of the 17 stations which we're already budgeted for under our budget the retainer for the 24-7 emergency response and technical response that's also budgeted the third item would be the preventative maintenance side which would entail daily checks for vital pump stations weekly checks of some of our small residential pump stations quarterly station maintenance on all 17 stations and some of the yearly items that we need to take care of annually some of our stream crossing inspections gravity sewer inspections we would probably enlist the services of them to help us kind of honcho and monitor some of the sewer televising so with that said just due to the amount of time the history that we have with Champlain Associates quite honestly the knowledge of our collection system and all of our pump stations select board it's a recommendation of staff that the select board waive the bid process in sole source to Champlain Associates I left I put the actual word verbiage from the policy purchasing policy in the memo anything over 40,000 requires board approval that's why we're here tonight to request that of you and I know Annie has done quite a bit of work on looking for alternatives you can speak to who is it SOS? Yeah, SOS out of Waterbury I never heard back about a quote but I had a conversation with one of the managers over there just trying to get a gauge on what's going on with other communities and whether they provide these services and they said that they're seeing the same thing across the board it's been a really hard hit to the industry trying to find qualified operators and they don't have the staffing available to take on a system like ours so they deal with smaller systems and so I had asked for a quote but I didn't hear back but one another positive about Champlain Associates is that they're local so they're located right off of Pinecrest Drive and their operators are also local so if there is an emergency response they can be here within 10 to 15 minutes to one of our plumb stations so that's important thinking about if we decide to check out other companies they may not be located or have an operator that's located within our close proximity to our community in order to get here to deal with an emergency emergency and I believe the quickest response time needed for one of our stations during an emergency event low power is 50 minutes which doesn't give them a lot of time traveling from other counties around us other than Loyola, Franklin so moving on discussion of costs as previously stated the addition of the preventative maintenance contract for the 17 stations within our collection system is going to have a significant impact to some of the line items on our current budget although individual line items will overrun significantly the current labor and benefits will likely underrun due to the current staffing and the retirement of a long-term employee staff has reviewed these costs and savings and determined that these additional costs can be offset with some of the savings that we're going to realize on the labor and benefits side top of page three here there's a breakdown of the actual monthly costs for these services as I stated item one and two the proactive monitoring and the emergency call out are currently budgeted for the third the preventative maintenance contract we're looking at an increase of 17,000 per month this contract would start over first we would like it to that gives us nine months remaining in fiscal year 24 doing the math that gives us an increase of 153,000 remainder of fiscal year 24 and this doesn't mean that we wouldn't continue to explore hiring people then still a priority and Travis and I have been talking and brainstorming different ways to reach out to other locations thinking of different ways to advertise going to career fairs like trying to figure out how we can get the word out about what our department does and try to get qualified people are even just maybe college students right out of school who are looking for a job and we can train them pretty easily so we are exploring those options as well still it quite honestly I can't stress enough that just with the past couple interviews we've had in either a decline or the still qualifications there three months is going to come real fast which leaves us one employee in water and sewer which that's not sustainable we do have some depth on the highway side we have two former employees that started out their careers in water and sewer then moved to highway but then we are taking employees out of rotation for plowing and doing winter maintenance it's just a bad time of year I can't stress enough I do not want to do that I'm trying to find other sources for either mentoring school children or school age workers or continuously trying to find any applicants that do come in we're not going to cease doing that we have to find somebody to fill the position this contract would kind of give us some buffer and allow us to do our job in water and sewer and maintain our pump stations the way they should the way they should be I do not want to get into any type of reactionary maintenance of our collection system for pump stations that said as I discussed above here we have looked at and did some math regarding what we have budgeted for a fiscal year 24 and some of the savings in those labor and benefits costs with the retirements and we're looking at roughly $204,441 that would be available potentially which is enough to offset these additional costs of $153,000 for the contract for this year and it's something that we would budget for in the coming fiscal year 25 water and sewer budget to continue these services on I'd like to entertain any questions which you may have I'd like to at least just bring your attention to the fact that the contracts are protected discussions so we would any specific questions to the contract itself we would recommend going into executive session to discuss any changes or any comments that you have done so basically it's not kind of basically you're going to turn the whole operation over to this company due to lack of help basically is that where you're they're going to work with they're going to work with us and our team to help us operate our pump stations so the person that you're going to have left after their retirement you're going to keep that person and not move them anywhere you're going to keep them with the pump stations and water and sewer we're going to keep them with sewer there will be times when you will be carrying the on-call pager when rotating with either a new hire and or the contractor will the contractor carry the pager I mean to offset the balance of that one person having I had to carry a pager for almost two years it doesn't work so I just want okay they will be in the rotations no problem I have a question and I think I can make it non-contract specific you mentioned and I see that the cost is for 17 pump stations contract is for 24 months but you also mentioned that there will be a new pump station coming on at the end of 2024 will that impact the cost of the contract or would that contract need to be amended when additional pump stations are brought online it would likely be amended as it's pretty fluid so it specifically says 17 stations and that monthly maintenance fee and the monitoring fee all those fees are based off of a number of stations obviously so the addition of one station we would probably have to assign some sort of addendum to that contract to recognize that additional station I'm just curious how long we've been operating with just two quite a while we had somebody here who did not stay long that was probably about three, two, three months ago but we've had two yeah we had one one hire that stayed like two months and then we had another hire that only stayed two months so the employee that's going to be left is the one that's been there for a long time I was just curious if we had lost additional people I knew about the retirement but I just want to make sure we're sustained I like your idea about the tech center you know we've had very good luck Ethan working with the tech center a couple of our employees both current and past have gone through that whole program and we like taking them in and mentoring any of them that do come and then it's an option and it's something that I know Annie has reached out and we're going to entertain that's where your employee you have yep exactly but not people I'm going to choose my words very carefully because I'm well aware of the rules that boards operate under but I will say that I am disappointed to hear this essentially in the last minute this is not something that should have showed up three months before senior employees going to be retired from the department and it has been an ongoing thing and we have talked about wages and Annie was very specific and what she said is that the reason you have not got personnel, qualified personnel is that you're not offering a competitive wage so that they would choose to come to Essex versus going to other communities tell me I'm wrong so my position is is that when you look at what you're going to be spending for contract you could substantially increase the wage that you're offering for your water and sewer employees and still save a lot of money over what you're going to pay for the contract so and you shouldn't wait until you get down to this point I mean public works is going to be the same way if you've got truck drivers that are older and they're 60's and stuff you got to start finding these people now you got to start doing the things that other towns are doing in the communities to be competitive to get the people into these positions you can make $25 at the bagel place down in Burlington these guys and gals and folks the money to get them to come to your community because you're right we don't have a choice now we've got to get this contract but this company is going to be paying qualified people comparatively with what Essex could pay and they're going to be making a profit on top of that and I don't have a problem with that other than that we should start looking at the way that we're staffing our departments so we're not putting a position of having to always contract out at the top dollar for these essential services that are not going away your water and sewer department is not going away your highway department is not going away you got to staff them so yeah please and I hear you this is not an ideal situation I don't I give a lot of credit to Aaron and Nanny for doing this, for taking this step it's delayed largely I wanted them to make their argument to put it together to have the discussions we've been talking with Champlain I've been talking to Champlain for a couple of months now Aaron and Nanny for longer than that we've seen this coming I've credit them a lot for having the foresight to look at options to look ahead except three months ago we had the third long-time qualified operator in there it didn't work out Aaron's been thinking about this and Nanny it's been on their mind for a while and the possibilities might come up but it really didn't hit until three months ago and since then like Nanny said we've had two job offers I think in the past three or four months where people took other jobs before they came here we don't know what the wages were in some cases from what I heard they've been interviewing we interviewed with one who made a job offer within a day or two and they'd already taken another job I don't know that was a dollar amount we don't know we do have a compensation study coming up working on that with Hickok and Boardman that'll really give us a clear picture and we will adjust if we need to adjust as I've said before I want us to be competitive I want us to see what the market is and if we're way behind the market and that is the issue we will do what we can to adjust it part of the reason we about the timing of this and the length of the contract and the sampling about what the length of the contract should be we landed on two years because we thought that was a good amount to test this out, see if it works also give us an opportunity to try to adjust our wages if need be do what we need to adjust staffing wise if need be try to get people here and make that adjustment if the two years is up and like Aaron and Nanny said we're going to still be advertising we're still going to be trying to find that person maybe two people to staff or two departments throughout that we'll be studying we'll be looking at the contract over the two years and seeing how it's working how our staffing is shaking out how our wages are shaking out how the whole public works department is shaking out it's going to be an evolving scenario and like I said I hear you I'd rather not be in this situation but we are and I think that this is the best step that we can take at this point so and I don't know who's going to answer so what happens in the event that a miracle occurs and two very qualified people come through the door okay and they agree that you know they want the job and you offer them what happens to the contract that you've signed with this company there's provisions in the contract that would address that okay I honestly see I don't foresee that no I don't either but I'm just saying buy something or I just wondered what would happen in terms of this contract if I mean like all contracts there's a mode within that to back out and it would be compensated in such a way within the contract okay thank you so just to clarify maybe to address one of the things that Kendall mentioned doesn't this say that we're actually going to be spending less than we would had we hired that we were at full staffing yes so this is this is a it's 153,000 less approximately than full staffing would have cost it's 50,000 and change maybe 50 less than if we had the full staff okay right it's the difference between the 204 and 153 okay thanks yeah I knew the math was there and it seemed to be a savings but it's a fairly small savings the other thing that I wanted to make clear to say this is all paid for by water sewer water sewer fees rate payers so if you're not on either town water or sewer you're not contributing this is not tax dollars this is rate comes out of the rate comes out of the enterprise any other questions anything from the public answer questions see any hands in the room don't see any hands online given that I see no need to go into executive session I would recommend that the select board waive the contract bid process and sole source the sanitary sewer pump stations to provision and operations contract the shamplin and associates and approve the contract and direct the town manager excuse me to execute the contract thank you don do I have a second thank you Ethan any further discussion there are provisions in the contract that the select board should discuss before it's approved don't you feel that would be if you'd like to discuss then do we do other select board members want to go into executive session and have a discussion about the contract I think if at least one of us feels that there's something we should discuss I would like to hear what that is I mean I not reviewing anything but to assume that the contract would cost only what is the proposal is probably not accurate there's probably a good chance that the contract would overrun what the cost is approved for based on the experience on the traving inner system correct me if I'm wrong but there's probably a good chance you're going to have some repairs that would be needed and additional labor beyond what is covered with the per month maintenance contract if we had repairs handle they would be under the r&m line within either the sewer or the water where we're specifically talking about sewer here so they'd be under the r&m for sewer there's r&m pump stations and r&m so any additional costs that they have through this contract would be covered through r&m if it were a maintenance or repair similarly to as we do with our cleaning or maintaining of those pump stations the risk of overrun and repairs is there regardless of whether there's a contract yeah I can't promise you that I'm not going to overrun on repairs and maintenance that's something I will not do that was my only question any other discussion about we have a motion and just to be clear Don you said recommend I think you meant motion I made the motion too yes all those in favor please say aye opposed say nay motion passes 4-1 thank you so much thank you guys okay now next we are going to get back into charter updates chapters 6, 7, and 8 they're fairly short chapters see where this goes there is a Greg did provide a sheet that provides a side-by-side question before I also have my another ugly one that nobody likes the only the only problem is and I know we're running late as it is anyway but the request was to build a review of this on paper side-by-side before I can look at it on the computer the same way I was looking at it before you wanted time to look at it that's why I thought we were going to print these out and then discuss them at the next meeting I misunderstood we came up with that at the last meeting so that it wasn't something that I misunderstood and I thought content to see the different track changes and then have the side-by-side I looked on the on the computer and really 8 was the one that was always new and it doesn't look like it's anything that's being changed from the charter change original so a number of things a number of things in these chapters have already been voted on and are already before the legislature for review so right so there's not a lot to look at here but if you want to have a review of this we can defer it if you'd like well I'm okay as long as you helped me like you had before well even I can explain it to you if just so let's run through these instead of jumping around if we're okay are we okay with going forward with this or do we want to defer it we only have 11 right total so I'll be here tomorrow maybe Greg could print it just for me tomorrow for the this is all I have right now a version like this for doesn't yet exist so this is worth to put these things together and it doesn't exist yet so you can't have it though see that just so I guess we can make an attempt if we start failing then maybe we'd defer and