Thank you, Scott. Good evening. Welcome to the Development Review Board. Today is April 11th, 2023. My name is Pete Kelly. I'm the chair of the DRV. If you are a Zoom participant, please sign in with your name on the participant toolbar. This is a hybrid meeting taking place in the town hall and virtually on Zoom. All members of the board and public can communicate in real time. Planning staff will provide Zoom instructions for public participation before we begin. All votes taken in this meeting will be done by roll call vote in accordance with the law. If Zoom crashes, this meeting will be continued on April 25th, 2023. Gonna start the meeting by taking a roll call attendance of DRV members participating in the meeting. Nate Andrews. Here. Paul Christensen. Present. John Hemmelgarn. Here. Scott Riley. Here. Lisa Brayden-Harder. Here. And chair is present. We have all seven in attendance. So we more than satisfy the quorum requirement of four. Okay, so before I turn it over for Zoom instructions, go over the meeting agenda real quickly. We're gonna start out with a public forum and we have two certificates of appropriateness and then we have an open public hearing for one applicant. At this point in time, I'll turn it over to Andrew for Zoom instructions. All right, thank you Pete. Thank you Andrew. Okay, first up is the public forum. This is an opportunity for members participating in tonight's meeting to address the board on topics that are not on tonight's agenda. If you are participating by Zoom and you'd like to participate in the public forum, please use the chat feature or excuse me, the raised hand feature.  No raised hands on Zoom. Okay. First up is HP 23-02 Tanner Armsby, is Tanner here? He is not. Okay, and not participating by Zoom either? Correct. Okay, so staff goes first, who has that from staff? That's me. This is a request for a certificate of appropriateness to replace the sign at 25 old stage, excuse me, 25 slate bar and drive in the National Register Historic District. The sign will look the same as the previous sign, it's just going to be a different material instead of what it would be a vinyl composite. I do note that the staff report in your packets is slightly different than the one I have on the screen. The hack had two recommendations, one that the material be a non-reflected or a matte surface and also that the lighting be brought into compliance with fully shielded fixtures right now, they're pointed on an angle downwards. I do note that this property was constructed in 1998, so it's not a historic home and otherwise this complies with the village design guidelines. Thank you. Okay, thanks Emily. Any questions by the DRB for Emily? No. Okay, thank you. We will close HP 23-02 at 705. Next up is HP 23-03 Dar Gibson. Dar, are you present? Yes. Come on up to the table please. State your name and address for the record please.  Great, welcome. Staff goes next. This is a request for a certificate of appropriateness to construct a detached garage with an accessory dwelling unit at 16 old stage road. This property is located in the additional review area of the village zoning district. The current house that's on the site today and is shown in this photograph is on the state historic sites and structure survey. It's indicated on that record as being 1830s, however, Dar thinks it might be 1850s. So the existing house is quite old. The detached structure would be set back behind the house from Williston Road. It would be facing old stage road. And the hack recommendation generally was that this complies as proposed. They had a comment about the window lintels that the lintel be taller or slightly wider than the side casings to sort of emulate that pattern on the historic home. In terms of the structure that's being proposed, it complies with the building height. It's 26 feet where we allow it to 36 feet. The footprint is roughly 2000 square feet. The roof would have asphalt shingles. The siding would be a vertical pine ship lap that would be painted a barn red with white trim. The windows would be Marvin double hung six over six to match the house. These would be fiberglass exterior wood interior with the exterior mountains. This is a similar window pattern to what's been approved recently in the village. The exterior doors would be wooden. The garage would be a steel door with a wood panel overlay. Here's an elevation from the architect of the proposed barn. The side elevations showing the windows and door spacing and a concept photo of his general inspiration for the building. In general, the hack found this to comply and had that one recommendation about the windows. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Emily. Dard, do you have any issue with extending the lintels? I haven't seen that detail anywhere around, honestly. I spoke to my architect about it. I mean, I'm not against it. He sent me a bunch of pictures that the older barn gets, the more historic barns, they have smaller trim and they go really old barns have no trim at all.  So I look around the village for those sorts of details. I've got the, I forget what's the term for the lintels I have on my house, pitched, I guess it would be. Yeah. So I can understand some desire to reflect that, but I don't want to do pitched lintels on the barn and I'm not sure I need some architectural visual around the area to see what that would look like, the wider lintels. What was the catalyst for? The hack to make that recommendation. Can I ask a quick question before she answers that? What do you think about that? I think that I'd like to be a DRB member tonight. So architecturally speaking, I'd have to do some more research, kind of like his architect would say. You're curious if anything jumped out of you. I don't specialize in historic barns, so I don't really know much about that. I'm going to plead ignorance. Okay. I'm surprised that the windows all have their pains because I've got historic barns and there's a few windows missing. It wasn't a consensus among the hack. There was one member that suggested it and felt moderately strong about it. Some of the other hack members were as well. It is a barn. It's going to have a lot simpler features and detailing than a primary structure would. And that's why they wrote the language to say consider it. It's not an outlaw requirement, but consider it if it's something that is done elsewhere. Okay. It's, we will unlikely change that, but that's up for the group to decide and deliberation. So it'll be something that you will have the flexibility to decide. Okay. Is where this will likely land. Okay. I don't make that decision that the group does, but that's likely where this is going to end up. I don't see barns with decorative details personally, but. Yeah, it's not the, you know, the overall design doesn't really mention philosophy I was going for, just a simple barn. I don't want it to compete with the house. House is old. The house is not a, you know, a beautiful home necessarily, it's an old village house. I don't really want my barn to be competing stylistically with it. Right. DRB members, questions. On the roof of the barn, what are you going to use their shingles? I'll just ask all shingles. I'd love to have a metal roof there, but just cost prohibitive right now. I mean, not. Yeah, I'd like to price one out as the time comes, but my understanding is it's at least twice as much as it asks. What color shingles are you thinking to put on them?  Paul, question. I've been thinking about the shingles is, man, I don't like to get on barn roofs. That's why I put metal on my roofs. I'm just saying that it's a, it's a, the cost savings can be prohibitive on the backside when you have to go repair. Just, just a thought. Understand. Yeah. I could do a asphalt roof myself and cut that cost in half yet again. So I'd love to have a metal roof or I'll price one out. That's all. Any other questions? With that change, if I got approved here for asphalt shingles and I decided to have a metal roof, would I need to come ask for a change? We can try to do it. Yeah, we, yeah, we can, we can write our approval to give you the flexibility. Either or. Okay. Yeah. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Does the house have metal roofing on it now? No. That's well shingles. No, it had wood shingles at one point. Yeah, right. Probably. It had metal. It had a whole shape roof. That was, whoa. Any other questions? No, I think it's a, I think it's a nice project. Benjamin Moore makes a great, it's called Barn Red. That's what I've been looking for. I always see that one. That's what my shed is and it's awesome. Yep. And if you've got a lot of paint, you can go get it, the recycling out there. Do they have barn red? Barn red recycling. As long as they buy the five gallon fails, as long as they have the barn red. So since we're all weighing in here, I disagree with you guys totally. It shouldn't be painted. It should be red stain. It's minus, minus stain. Yeah, it's not painted. Mine, mine, mine. You paint it, you paint it with stain once and it's done forever. I want to clarify, mine is stained. When you paint it, get yourself multiple of those 30 foot extenders so you can paint the entire barn from the ground. Okay, we have properly done grass here. Okay, we're all, I think we like your project. That's why we're going in. Okay, we're going to close HP 23-03 at 714. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay, next up is Leo and Mona Bhutan. Is that, are you the Boons? She's online. Online, so. Okay. Okay. I'm a Bootian. Okay, if you would introduce yourself and your address for the record, please. I'm Mona Bhutan. I live at 1722 North Road in East Fairfield, but this is about our property on, or our house at 17, I'm sorry, 1513 Old Creamery Road in Williston. Okay, great. Thank you. Staff goes next. So this is a request for pre-application review of a two lot subdivision on Old Creamery Road in the ARZD. The parcel's 48 years and currently contains three dwellings, two primary homes and the WU. The objective is to place a number of 1513 on its own lot of 2.2 acres. There's no increase in dwellings or any construction. The applicant has requested confirmation as to whether or not they're required to provide open space. As part of this subdivision, as no construction is proposed, they did submit a preliminary site plan that showed a parcel of 75% of the area placted as its own open space lot. But if the DRB decides the open space is not required, that land would remain with 1607 on a very large lot. Staff recommends approval that the DRB should discuss issues in the staff report, particularly the open space requirement of the applicant and then allow them to proceed to discretionary permit. We receive no comment letters on this proposal. In terms of dimensional standards, we do anticipate compliance with those. The precise alignment of the new property line should be drawn to avoid creating any new non-conformities as there's quite a lot of accessory buildings sort of distributed across the parcel of the moment. So that is a recommendation. As we mentioned earlier, the applicant would like clarity on whether this proposal is required to provide open space. So just to bring up the relevant section of the bylaw there, if you can see, 31.7. An open space development is a residential subdivision in which a specified area of open space is protected. And then we talk about how much space must be conserved. It does say all developments, they involve more than 10.5 acres, preserve at least 75%. If we do look at the definition of development in the definition sections of the bylaw, that defines land development for the purposes of this bylaw and state law. It does include a division of a parcel into two or more as well. So one for you to discuss with the applicant. The second thing is that they've asked that if the DRB does decide that open space is required, that they only need to survey the front half of the law, the portion near Old Creamy Road. We think that's acceptable as long as the subdivision does show the 75% of open space. They probably end up using the previous notations from their original plan. And then lastly, we have also included a recommendation that designated home sites of half an acre be provided for each of the homes. And that is a recommendation as well. Because it is, because these dwellings already exist, the residential subdivision doesn't create any new units. It doesn't need to participate in growth management. So unusually for a residential subdivision we are recommending they go straight to discretionary permit stage. We have a recommendation that a discretionary permit, they demonstrate that the onsite wastewater system continues to meet the standards of our bylaw. That is recommendation three C. They have quite a larger lot so we don't anticipate any problems with density. They are well below the density limit. And then lastly, in terms of conservation areas, you can see from the map there that there is a large proportion of the lot is designators, strategic wildlife habitat area and scenic view. If the DRB decides the open space is required, we want to maximise the amount of that conservation area that's included in the open space lot and the applicants preliminary site plan does do that. It sort of shows the northern or the back half, well the back three quarters rather of that parcel being open space so they would be compliant there. And then lastly, the parcel does have an unnamed stream but as no construction is proposed there would be no impacts so we're not recommending a delineation here. So that's it, the recommendation is for approval and just the DRB attention is drawn to recommendation three and the requirement to provide open space. Okay, thank you Simon. Mona, what do you have to add to the staff report? Well, I do want to respectfully request that the open space requirement be deferred into a future subdivision. The only purpose of this subdivision is to allow my husband and I to have access to the land of which our property, our house and our garage and barn have been on since 1986. There will be no other changes to anything. All our water and septic sewer roads, everything is there. So the only thing that is being changed is that we're going to be allowed to own some land that our buildings are on. I don't, I don't, can you elaborate on the land that your buildings are on? You don't own it now? No, we have, we own a house, a barn and a garage that have been built on this 2.2 acres, but we don't own the land, it's on. We've lived there since 1986, but the property belongs to my mother-in-law and they're going to want to subdivide it so that we can have access to this land so we would own the land that our buildings are on. And that is the only purpose of this subdivision. Okay. So I think you can sort of see it on the, we probably can't see it on the map, but there's a very small square there for 15, 13. And that's set within the parcel, their mother-in-laws. Sure, the mother-in-law. It's like a footprint lot, basically. Yeah, Mona Mary-Booten is your mother-in-law? Yes, that's correct. Yeah, okay. Okay, I understand. The reason why I asked was, I thought it was owned under the family. I had it correct.  All right. Okay, anything else to add before I turn it over to the DRB for questions? That's all I had. Okay, thank you. Okay, DRB members, questions please. I have a question for staff. If it's designated as open space, can it still be used as farmland? Yes, agriculture is permitted in open space. So they can have outbuildings and stuff for the animals if they need to. Yeah, they can have agricultural outbuildings. Okay. Other DRB member questions? The definition you showed of development, yeah, for those ores or ants, there was a whole, I couldn't quite see them and I don't see it here in my report, that definition, maybe it's not seeing it. Well, they are ants, so it's a list of what comprises development.  I mean, so does any one of those trigger the definition of make it a development or does it have to be all of those? Any one of those would trigger the development. Any one of those, okay. Definition development. I guess this is as much for staff as anyone, but if in future the large law is brought in with a development proposal, at that point, because it exceeds the 10.5 acres, they would be required to set aside 10% of that lot. The two lots, the two residential lots would be 2.2 and 7.8 acres, so they wouldn't be subject to the development. If it's not subdivided now, and it's just put into the two lots, you'd have one at 2.2 and one at 37.8. Yeah, you're correct. So then obviously the 2.2 isn't gonna get subdivided into very many other houses, but the 37.8 could certainly be, at that point we would be requiring them to set aside three quarters of that. Correct, yeah. So there is a mathematical difference here in terms of how much land would ultimately get set aside. If we did it now, they would be setting aside 30 acres. Yeah, correct. And if you did it in the future, it would be 28.5 or something like that. I mean, I'm just trying to make sure I understand what the ramifications of the decision here are. Yeah. And is there any way to kind of stipulate now that if that is to develop in the future, they need to set aside 30 acres of it? As a rule, I think we don't stipulate what the bylaw requirements would be at some unspecified date in the future. Is it a good change? Because I think we prefer to apply the bylaw as they stand currently. So, you know, as unlikely as it seems that the one will change, it's fairly settled. Understood. And we'd want to do that at the time. Okay. Those are all the questions I have. Good question, thank you John. Anyone else? Okay, members of the audience, either participating by Zoom or here present, any questions? Please come up to the table please and identify yourself with your name and your address please for the record. My name's Kevin Boutan. I live at 1474 Skunk Hill Road in Fairfax, Vermont and we're talking about my mother's land. I need some clarification. What is this 30 acres of open land and who has access to this 30 acres if you deem it open land? Go ahead. So it would be, it simply needs to be planted. It simply needs to be planted as its own separate lot. So the 37 acres would be a separate lot? The 30 acres would be a separate lot. You can retain ownership and you don't have to provide public access to it, it remains private land. And it's not part of the 2.2 acres? No. So the 2.2 acres has no access right to the 30 acres? It doesn't have any right to it. You can, you could own it. Oh, okay. There's no public access required. I think what we're saying, it becomes its own separate lot where your development options, so what you can develop there is much more limited. So it's agricultural. Right. So it'd be tax different than it is now? I don't know the answer to that question. Only if it was put in current year. Well, what I can speak to on that is we would typically inform the assessor that that land had been restricted from any further development. That may alter the assessed value downward a little bit, although typically undeveloped land of any type is assessed quite low by our assessor already. And as Scott Riley just said, if the land was further placed in current use with the state of Vermont, that might reduce taxation on it more. That represents a commitment by the landowner not to develop the land for a certain period of time and to keep it in agricultural use. So we don't have a say in that part, but we do communicate regularly with our assessor about any added restrictions that are placed on land as parts of the region. So if it was put into forestry management or something like that, would that change any part of the open land? It wouldn't in the eyes of the town. No. So if she wanted to put it into forestry management, she could do that to that 30 acres and there would be no opposition from the town. No. No, that's her right. Okay. You have any questions? I think that'll do it. Okay. I just didn't know what the town as well as the stipulation was for open land. Because it seems to vary from town to town. Basically, I can't do any development on it at all. No skyscrapers. Yeah, anyways. Yeah, anyways. That's what I thought Burlington never had any. Thank you. Thank you. Good question. Any other questions from those participating in Zoom? Mona, do you have any follow-up questions or concerns? I know. No, I just did understand when I talked with Matt and Emily that if that land was an open space requirement that there would be a mark down on the tax, the value of it and the taxes on that section. That is something that I thought that they had told me. Yeah, the DRB doesn't get into valuations. So I can't speak to that. Okay. DRB members, any last questions? Okay, we're going to close DP 23-13 at 729. Okay, the DRB is now going to go into deliberative session. Recording in progress. Welcome back to the town of Wilson Development Review Board for Tuesday, April 11th, 2023. It is 745. The DRB is out of deliberative session. Is there a motion for HP 23-02? Yes, I make an motion that we approve HP 23-02, sign panel replacement with the following conditions. Foil is shielded downward facing lighting and the material must be matte or non-reflective. Thank you. Is there a second? Second. Okay. I think Paul's seconded it. Any further discussion? Yay or nay? Eight. Nate Andrews? Yay. Paul? Yay. John? Yay. Scott? Yay. Dave? Yay. Lisa? Yay. The Chair is a yay. Seven in favor, not opposed, motion carries. Is there a motion for HP 23-03? Yes, I move that regarding application number HP 23-03 with the following recommendations. Consider window lentils that are taller slash wider than the side casings, asphalt shingle, or dark gray, steel, black metal roof. Okay, thank you, Lisa. Is there a second? I'll second it. Dave seconds it. Any further discussion? Yay or nay? Nate? Yay. Paul? Yay. John? Yay. Scott? Yay. Dave? Yay. Motion carries. Seven in favor, not opposed. Next up is DP 23-13. Is there a motion? As authorized by WDB 6.6.3, I John Hemmelgarn moved at the Wilson Development Review Board, having reviewed the application submitted in all accompanying materials, including the recommendations of the town staff and the advisory boards required to comment on this application by the Wilson Development Bylaw. And having heard and duly considered the testimony presented at the public hearing of April 11th, 2023, accept the recommendations for DP 23-13 and authorize this application to move forward to discretionary permit review. I would clarify that recommendation number three reads the subdivision is required to provide 75% of the parent parcel as an open space lot at discretionary permit per WDB 31.7.1. Thank you, John. Is there a second? I'll second it. Scott Riley seconds it. Any further discussion? Yay or nay? Nate? Yay. Paul? Yay. John? Yay. Scott? Yay. Dave? Yay. Lisa? Yay. Chairs are yay. Seven in favor, not opposed. Motion carries. Is there a motion to approve the minutes of April 28th, 2023? So moved. Paul makes a motion to approve the minutes. Is there a second? I'll second it. Dave seconds it. Any further discussion? Yes. I want to say thank you since I wasn't able to join you for the growth management. I read through those very carefully just to see how much fun you guys had. I'd noticed that Simon wasn't listed on the list of attendees yet. I was, I know. He was quoted in the minutes. So I wondered how that worked. Ghostly. He can't get rid of me. Always with us. Yeah. I just requested he be added to us for attendees. Thank you for looking out for me. Doing it right now. Okay. Does the proposed approval accept that from the amendment? Paul? I did the minute. Yes. And who seconded it? I did. Yes. You accept it as well? Yes. Okay. Any additional conversation or discussion? Okay. Yay or nay? Yay. Paul? Yay. John, are you going to recognize me? I'm going to abstain just because I wasn't at that meeting. I'm sorry? I'm going to abstain since I wasn't at that meeting. Yeah, thank you. Scott Riley? Okay. Dave? Okay. Lisa? Abstain. I hope you're feeling better. So just because you weren't here doesn't mean you haven't done it. I understand. You don't have to abstain. And I would have been willing to do that if we didn't have the right number of votes. Okay. The chair approves. Five in favor and none opposed to that abstained. Motion carries. Minutes are approved. Okay. At this point, I'll turn it over to the staff for a number of administrative topics. Yeah. So Mary Claire, you're welcome to come on up to this table. The next item is an interview for the library and community center scoping study. This is a rare moment where the DRB gets to take off your bylaw hats and be creative. You can do this interview as yourself as an individual, but also thinking about the testimony that sometimes comes up in public hearings about community and facility needs that are not related to DRB hearings, but comments that you still hear. And with that, I'll turn it over to Mary Claire. Hi. Thanks for sticking around for a couple extra minutes. Is anyone not familiar with the project or what we've been doing? Maybe you could. Maybe you could want to throw it. I need to let you know that I'm the lead architect on this project. I voted against this. So this is very- Recusing yourself. No, I'm not from this conversation, but. I must admit that I know nothing about this. I got it. Ditto. That's kind of what I wanted to know was where on the spectrum of nothing till you hear about this every day. We're both on the spectrum. Three of us on the spectrum. Three of us. So it's a big sort of scope, but the idea is to first start with, the library is a need of expansion, and there are things that have come up that have driven this survey to happen for Williston community indoor spaces. So we're asking community members what they would like to see for indoor community spaces. That could mean a huge variety of things. And we're conducting these in-person qualitative interviews at this phase, kind of trying to figure out what people might be interested in, you know, nothing being off the table. And then we're going to take that and we're going to move it into some more quantitative quick online surveys that we'll send out en masse and get some data that we can then use with our information from our architects and come up with a plan and a proposal for the select board for indoor community spaces. I'm not going to use any other language around sort of what that might be, because there's sort of a lot of opinions, but the first thing that we're doing is we're asking everybody what they currently use and then what they'd like to see in Williston to have the town offer. People in the community. So is there a site permit at this point? No. Are there sites in play? No. Okay. As she said. This is the what. Hold on, let me switch hats. This is the what. And we're going to get to the where and the, you know, define what any building would want to house. That's going to have a tremendous impact. If it's this big, it's going to fit on X number of sites. If it's this big, it's going to fit on a much larger. And this will, the library will move to this space? Or this is? These are all, so at this phase, again, this is sort of just like the big picture and we're trying to gather information and then we'll take that and decide that will narrow down our focus, essentially. Once we have the what. Does that make sense? It is a tricky question of like chicken before the egg, but we decided that we'd like to start here versus sort of telling people what they might want and then going, you know, having to take us in a direction that maybe the town doesn't want to go in, so. Can you go over what kind of spurred this again? You said there were things that came up, but I don't think you said what they were. Yeah, the library needing, they are running out of space. They have, I think it's 50% of their collection is in the basement. So yeah, space for books, space for, it's not accessible to wheelchair users at this time between the aisles. There's a few other big. There's a lot of programming that they do, too. That's limited because of their space. Okay. So this has been sort of something that is. That makes more sense. Been in the works and then with the project, the outdoor space over at Allenbrook, there were a lot of things that came up at that time that were not addressed by that project because of the site's needs. And so they said, well, maybe we'll kind of sweep that down the road to when the library needs to come up for review and add that into that discussion then. So that sort of, that brought up some rec department needs and those are also being considered here. So when I look at this topic, it's first of all, without preparation, I can't really weigh in. But the scope could be a community center with a community pool, with basketball courts, with a sophisticated state of the art library. I mean, it could be really big. And then it could be just a functional library. And anything in between. Yeah, or it could be multiple spaces, right? Or it could be the library getting a remodel and nothing else, right? Yeah, there's a big scope. So I can take you through these questions and we can start with that if that's okay. I've not done this in a big group setting, so we'll see how this goes. Can I ask you a quick question? Yeah, of course. First, I'd like to say that Matt needs a new office. And we'll hug him if that's okay. Aside of that, I assume we're also talking about like a community center, a possible senior center. This is a grand wish list. Nothing's off the table. Okay, all right. So, not at all trying to be disrespectful, but I'm just confused as to why you're here tonight talking to the DRB about this, when it sounds like it should be some type of broader community outreach forum. And this group, I'm very confused. Good question. So, good question. So we are going to all of the boards and groups in town. We're just trying to snag as many different people as we can. We're collecting people's ages and streets to make sure we have a broad demographic. So we're going to senior centers. We're going to the library. We're going to the coffee shop. We're going to restaurants. We're just tabling at events. We went to town meeting day. We're just trying to hit as many people as possible. And since this is also through the town, I think it's pretty easy to come to a lot of these meetings. We're going to the parent group. So we were a low hanging fruit. You were a low hanging fruit.  What you want to do is set your Vulture watch on any grocery store in Williston that's going under because grocery stores are the best way to convert. Brutal libraries. Ohio did them all over the place. Yeah, so we're trying to just get as many people as we can. And then hopefully you can go home and tell people, you know, look out for this. And there's also nights where we're just here and people can come and sign up online to come and be interviewed. Sounds like a good table at the Greenup tent. Yep, they'll be at Greenup today. Yeah. And I think this is a really interesting and cool approach where part one is these interviews, these one-on-one, like build community with a new person. And then they'll use that broader feedback and it may be launching a more traditional online survey. Get an article in the Williston Observer. I think there was something, I read something someplace before, was it? It's been in all of those places. I've seen it someplace, but I've read it out a little bit. That's great, subliminal messaging. It's getting out there. And then hopefully with the more like quantitative survey we'll really get high numbers too. Great, so starting just, I'd love to hear either from all of you or from a few of you, what town facilities you currently visit and programs and activities you and your families participate in? Main Street. Well, you're talking about indoor space though, so you don't want to hear about hiking in Panama. So that pretty much leaves the library, right? Well, or the armory for voting and stuff like that. Armory. This space. Yeah, I certainly use the library. I mean, one thing that kind of stuck with me is when you said they're running out of space, I would question is that a sort of a forward-looking view of a library is they go more digital. So is what they have in their basement relevant to what we'll have in a decade? Not that I have the answer, but I think that should be part of the thinking. And some of the library remodels I saw in Connecticut did a great job in terms of people that work from home offices. So having meeting space, coffee shop in the library, that kind of thing. So those libraries really changed who visited them by what they were focused on. So a lot of the printers and all the kinds of things that. I think that's a fabulous idea. Yeah, I mean in a world where home offices are here to say, we all need meeting space. Yeah, I ran a company from home for 20 years, so that kind of thing would have been invaluable. Yeah, that's a great idea. If you have any dogs, we'll be around to visit you. I was kind of in the spirit of that idea too. I don't think it's unreasonable to try to think of a space where there are spaces within it that you could have rent out to vendors, like a food vendor or a coffee, whatever. Especially living where we live, there are a lot of great quality food vendors that have nowhere to go in the winter. And I think that could be really popular and draw people in. Speedway. I've seen wedding venues where they have food trucks that can pull up. So this is in the city, but they have in the winter, they still have weddings there, but the food trucks can kind of pull into a bay or something like that. Yeah. There's like a big field where people can drive in and there's covered. Yeah, sometimes you can still be inside but do the food truck thing. Yeah. I'm dead set against the computerization of books. Reason is, I read 1984. I don't want to sit there and read a copy where it suddenly changes. I want to be able to go to the print and say, oh, that's what it said. And we do need something for seniors in Welliston too. So I think something that incorporates some kind of senior center. If the space is big enough, it can be multi-use for anyways. What would you envision that looking like? I mean, if for the senior center, I would envision a place where they have a little cafeteria where they do bingos, they do arts crafts, all those kinds of things for people just to get together. I know some of their housing units now have some smaller places for that. But I think seniors would prefer to get together. Seniors and teenagers and it could be mixed use for not just seniors, but all people. Yeah, and the thing I would add to that is I just moved my mother here from Denver, so I know too much about this. But I mean, what I've heard in talking with people is that Vermont underbuilt senior facilities and had a very much of a strategy around aging in place, which sounds grand and we all wanna support that. But I think seniors that are living at their homes would love to socialize during the day. So I think if we're gonna support, I mean, there's folks in the state that know much more about this than I do, but there's a huge gap in terms of senior resources and in a state that's aging quite a bit. So I would applaud those efforts too. Maybe even an indoor farmer's market and of something like that. So maybe a variety of sizes of spaces or rooms. Spaces that could be made into a bigger space or something, you know, versus the spaces. Versatile, like as in maybe room dividers or something like that. Something like that where you could open them up or, you know. That then approaches the subject of location, location, location. Yes. Now you gotta start measuring where the senior centers are and what land is available, which you're gonna plant this on because that means we decided pretty quickly because land in the center is kind of disappearing. Maybe we can use, oh no, there we go, no comment. No comment. No suggestion, they will have their place soon enough. We know everyone has opinions too. And I think regarding recreational space, we all know the winters are long so being able to play pickleball inside or something, your skate would be brilliant. That place just went away. Sure. Did you say skate? What was the other thing? Yeah, ice skating rink.  That's what it is, sticky pad session. I'm getting excited. That's essentially what this is right now. Yeah, exactly, yeah. So I'm hearing sort of senior spaces, all different kind of sizes. I heard a little cafeteria. Is that like a kitchen or is that? Well, I think a kitchen would be more versatile because most senior centers have a place where they can go in and cook their own meals if they want to. Or they can have someone come in and cook them for them. So, you know, refrigerators and those things all would be part of that. And you could rent it out as a wedding venue too if you wanted to. So in the town it could make a little money. Fog detectors are foggy in the town. As long as you had the good view of the mountains. Anyone else I haven't heard from? Ideas for what kind of gathering? I'll read that question or activity-based spaces that you'd like to see the town provide. Or not, too. Well, that then had to take into consideration cost. Yeah, so what would be the priorities out of the things that we've mentioned for this group? In my mind, I think the senior place would be the priority. But being that kind of a building, it could be versatile for multiple things that we mentioned too. And I think an interesting data point here would be what parents are saying about what their kids are doing. Are they fully, I mean, few parents I know say their kids are fully booked. They do, you know, five sports and whatever. They're always going. So maybe they're less of a focus on these newer things. But I may be completely out of line. So that would be a data point. And I'm not saying I understand it. But what age group feels like they're not getting out in the winter or whatever. Mm-hmm. What kind of activities would a senior focus to place provide? How would it be set up? Some of them, I mean, some of them provide meals. Some of them provide entertainment. Some of them do educational series where they bring speakers in to talk to the seniors about different things. One thing I looked into, which didn't work out, but they have a senior date here. So if you're having an elder living with you, but you work, you know, having, and you don't feel like they can be in the house alone all day. Yeah. And that was a public service provider? UVM has a little bit of it, but. When you say. Very little. I believe the city of Whenuski provides adult take care. And there are places in Burlington too. Sometimes the municipality provides the space for someone who provides the program. Correct. For some specialized services like that. Spaces that can be used for all of those sorts of things. We've seen your lunch used to happen out of South Burlington City Hall. For those of you who don't know, the rec department is just open to new space over there by Goodwill, where they're doing some of exactly that. You know, where they're providing space and there's people who are coming in and doing their yoga over there. Chair, yoga, yeah. Like all kinds of. Jazzercise, kind of stuff. And kids music programs and whatnot. Yeah, a lot of the seniors I've talked to, not to influence you, but they've been, they've been saying, you know, couches, but also tables and big tables and small, you know, bingo table, but a little bit of a spread of, yeah, exactly. To have multi use. I would just emphasize again, like Dave said, the farmer's market and indoor, something that can host an indoor farmer's market that would have some sort of small local vendors. I think that that's the best way to bring community together as food and especially as Williston quickly grows. We need to have a place for people to come together and little businesses, food vendors, whatever can incubate there. So it would be, I think it would be very popular if there was a way to incorporate that. Great. With convenient parking. So you've gone up and surveyed, have you gone up and surveyed Whitney Hill? Have you gone over and surveyed? Right here. I have. The senior centers, the senior homes right there. I'm not sure if we've done it. At the circle. We have the word out to all the senior. No, no, I mean, you need to actually go and knock on the doors and ask them because the bottom line is everybody knows what a senior wants, but they never seem to ask the seniors what they want. We are asking the seniors. We are going to all the, or we've at least requested to visit all the businesses in town. I don't think Melissa's gonna let us get away with all. Yeah. Some of them didn't decline, but they said, what are you soliciting? But we are trying to get into each one. Something like the church music series that you do that you can do in a building like that too. Would that require a stage or is that something that could be like in a multipurpose room? I mean, it could be multipurpose and stages are all portable now too. You can get portable stages to go in and out.  So if we had some place indoors or they did activities and stuff like that would be perfect. Great, it's gonna be a big building, but... One of the only questions that we have and really hit in this conversation is just how you and your family spend time currently at the library, if you do. Google. In terms of programs. It might, yeah, online is okay too. That's fine, I don't know. They tried mahjong this week. They said it was for beginners and there were eight women there that had their pile. They were beginners. They were very gracious, but they were not beginners. Especially if they were asking for money right now. That's how they get you. I have two kids and I do not bring them to the town library because the libraries and the schools are really good and they bring folks home from there. They have been there a few times, but not frequently. And are there any programs that you'd like to see offered at the library? I mean, it seems like they do a fair amount now of different programs and stuff. So, I mean, as long as they stay consistent like that. It's kind of interesting to read some of the stuff they do. And I used to take care of all the stuff out in Jericho for Deborah Rossen, which is a really good-sized library. And they had all kinds of activities for people in the community to go in there and do stuff. Felt more like the center of the community than anything there when you were up there. Great. Anything to add? It's great to see all the volunteers willing to think about this, because it could be amazing. It's pretty exciting. And you're welcome to come to our meetings, too. They're posted on here, but also, I'm not sure where they're listed our meeting times on the city's website. The committee's meetings or the interview meetings? The committee meetings. Yeah, we can send out the link there on the agendas web page of the town website. On your way out, I might just ask, just in terms of trying to make sure we can hit the demographics, if you want to just write your no name, but just age and the street that you live on, that would be great. And if you have more ideas, just reach out. You can take one of these and let us know on here or reach out through the town. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for coming in. Nice to see you. You're doing that. I'm done. Cool. Thank you very much. You have other things? Thank you. Maybe the old premises will make a nice location. It's a beautiful building. It's lovely, and it's delightful. There's the kitchen. There's going to be 13 or 16 acres right over here on the corner real soon. Yeah, if you want to pass that sheet around, I'm sure. That's probably the easiest one. Do that, and then create. The thing about me, when up for sale, the one across the interstate. Well, it's got the one on this section, and then the little piece on across the interstate. 250 foot setback from 89, a big old river setback. The people marketing that are just out of their minds, they're asking a huge amount of money for telling people that they could put an enormous amount of houses in it. So it's listed on BT commercial. That's cool. If you're going to live to be 200, you might put all the houses in. So before we go into board training, a good segue is talking about DRB's meeting, date and location options. So usually we're in this room. Sometimes if the select board meetings get shifted and they're using this space, we go over to the police station. The community center, excuse me, the community justice center is now utilizing that space. So it's no longer available for public meetings. And the DRB doesn't need to make any decisions tonight. We're just talking about a couple options. The recreation department opens the REC, the rec zone at 94 Harvest Lane. Right behind Goodwill, Mary Claire talked about it a little bit. It's a event and meetings and activity space. So the DRB has a couple options. The next time that our location will change is in July. We need to know to send more in that hearing in June. So we have a good bit of time to decide. You could choose to meet at the same date and time on Tuesdays and go over to the new space. Or you could choose to meet on a different date and time in this space. For example, Wednesday at seven. There's pros and cons to each. So just tossing it out and want to hear from you guys what your preference would be. My first thought is I don't like the idea of changing dates or days. I'd rather just go to a different spot. I agree. On the same time. What's the fact is we moved it back a day. Wouldn't that impact you guys, your work schedule? They got this. We did just. We did just. We're trained to do so, but yeah. I'm just saying, by getting an extra day, it makes it a little easier by us being on Tuesday rather than on Wednesday, right? Well, one week, but then the next one, it's the opposite. Yeah, we still do packets on the same schedule. And I think we should keep it the same date. The same date. Yeah. I like, I like Tuesday. Yeah. I do. Dave, in here in this building allows the public to use all of this infrastructure. You lose all of this if you get some police else. And that's a concern to us. Who's displacing us again? The justice? Community justice? No, it's like we're in the police station. In the police station. So we would probably, we don't quite know what our setup would be in the rec zone. It probably would be owls. I don't know if there's like a TV on a rolling cart over there. So there would be some more research to do as to how our configuration would look like the tables and audio setup would be to host a meeting in that space. But it would be different and probably not as high quality as the space in terms of acoustics and equipment. So the. The audio with the knees and knees. But how is that any different than having to move over there and still moving all this infrastructure over there? No, that doesn't. I'm saying if we were at the police station, it's not here. And there is the same as over at the rec zone in terms of not here. The station's right behind us. Right, so we move over there and have meetings there on a regular basis. Is that a problem for you? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, that's why I wanna find out. No, I didn't. Your public doesn't get to see you. I may have missed this, but have anybody looked into staying at the, going to the fire station's room? Currently not, I asked and the answer was no. You didn't ask hard enough. I mean, why is it no? It's a public space. Remember that. I will pass that comment on. Please, that's a ridiculous answer. There's a, it's not this big. There's a room at the library as well. So can I just recalibrated here? We're just talking about an alternative space for when there's a conflict in this room. Yeah, and this is like two or three times a year. So maybe in July, when a holiday shifts, the select board dates and then in December, they usually have an extra meeting for the budget cycle. So we're only talking about three, maybe four meetings a year maximum. And just say to a virtual, one more clarification and I'm hard of hearing. You said we can't use the police station room? No, it's going to be changed to a permanent home for the community justice center. So they have a set up that precludes the room from being used as flex space for meetings. What do they do? What's this justice center? They conduct a reparative justice process with certain folks who find themselves involved in the justices and have an opportunity to go through a reparative board process as part of making up for what they did that got them in trouble, essentially. They have to come in and meet with folks in a meeting space. They work with some staff from community justice. This center is currently housed in a different part of a police station that because of the movement of dispatch and staffing in the police station will no longer be secure to have them in, essentially. So you're mixing offenders and officers in restricted space right now in the police station in a way that's no longer tenable. We're moving them down into that meeting where it puts them outside of the secure part of the police station. And their set up is some desk space but then also more couch and seating where people are having more dialogue and more restorative justice conversations than the board table set up over there. So if I could kind of throw out a concept to keep this moving is stay Tuesday, seven o'clock for the three or four nights that we have a conflict and we can't be in here. I personally, unless somebody really strongly disagrees with this, I delegate this decision to planning his owning staff and you guys figure out where we meet those three or four nights. It's three or four nights a year. I'll second that. And your, you guys decide and we'll be there. Yeah. I think so. It's only three or four nights. We can just what move it back one day for three or four nights of the year. Is that legitimate to stay here? Yeah. That was an idea for you guys to consider but I'll defer to what the chair wants to do. If that works for you guys, that's probably what that was for. I say we stick with the same rhythm, the same night, the same time. And when there's a conflict, you guys tell us where we're going. How did we end up on the same night as sled board to be start with? And this is a historical kind of thing, right? It's been on Tuesday nights for how many decades? So you're on alternating Tuesday nights with the select board. It's only when they have to have an extra meeting or push a meeting off due to holiday. So if DRB falls on the fourth of July, we just don't have DRB. Often when select board falls on the fourth of July, they move to the week before or after because they really have two meetings worth of stuff to do that month. So we think about the nights that we've been moved out of here to the police station or generally nights when something like that has happened with the select board. I don't think we've ever been relocated out of here for anybody other than the select board. I think you're right. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I just wondering historically how it came out. Was it just because then staff could know that every Tuesday night they had a meeting and they just had to remember whether it was DRB or select board. I mean, the other solution here is for the DRB, and this is gonna not wash with a lot of people, would be to switch days and just meet on Wednesdays instead of Tuesdays or something because then there's no conflict in this room ever. Or you could just do it on the Zoom. Yeah, I like the Zoom idea.  You saw up to designate some place for the public, we ought to come. We have to provide a fiscal president if we could do that next door. In your conference room. As your staff person, I am adamantly opposed to going to a predominantly Zoom meeting. My personal experience has been that while it is a wonderful option to provide access, there is so much communication that is lost when someone's ahead on a screen instead of on a Zoom. Absolutely. And I'm just, it's my personal opinion. I love going to meetings in my jammies too, but I don't think it's good public service. You could come to this meeting in your jammies. We would just say it. I like the idea of deferring it to staff. Just tell us where to go on. Yeah, just say Tuesday and defer it and let staff decide. Yeah. And if they tell us that they can't do it on Tuesday, we got to do it on Wednesday of that week. We'll do it. That's not what we said. That's not what we said it. So, you guys clear with my direction? That sounds good. Okay, what's next? So, board training. We try to do a board training annually and find it on an agenda where it's lighter. So, there's more time to talk about it. This one happened to be that night. I included a couple things in your packet and I'm trying to find the memo that I wrote that I know is in your packet. But in general, going over the town volunteer policy, there's a couple of statements in there just to be mindful of in terms of attendance, preparing for meetings, leave of absence, et cetera. There's also the town's conflict of interest of ordinance. So, the volunteer policy is a policy. Conflict of interest ordinance is an ordinance and that lays out the codes of conduct that public officials both elected and appointed follow. For the DRB, it highlights ex parte communication and what we like to call the grocery store test. So, if someone comes up to you in the grocery store, hey, you have this item on your agenda next week. I wanna talk to you about it. You're supposed to say, I'm sorry, that's a public hearing. Please submit your comment to the DRB for us all to consider. That is very different from what the planning commission does which is legislative. If someone comes up to the planning commission, hey, I wanna talk about this bylaw amendment. They could go on and on all night. They don't have that. They don't have a reason to end that conversation. And like the community center discussion where it's not a public hearing item. The conflict of interest ordinance also lays out how violations are handled. If there's a complaint, they go to the board of civil authority and that policy explains how those are handled. So we're just trying to make sure that new and old DRB members are regularly and equally reminded of these policies that we're supposed to follow. I've also included a little bit of information about the role of the DRB, focusing on what the bylaw standards are and what the DRB can and can do. I think that's where Pete's been doing a really good job of if there's a question that someone raises that's not directly bylaw related, segueing it to staff and we say, here's how the state handles traffic or here's how the state handles wetlands or that kind of thing.  I gave you the introduction chapter one and then also the equity and zoning procedures. And here's where the conversation can be a part two in the future. As you read and digest these materials, if you think of ways of, hey, here's how we can improve our hearings. Here's how we can improve our process and logistics to be more equitable or have a more efficient meeting. Let us know and we can try to evolve, yeah. It said you could give us rights too if that was part of the situation in there when I was reading it. Then you could go get us and bring us here. So we'll wait for you to come get us. For everything I said about wanting meetings to be predominantly in person, there is an equity consideration providing lots of ways for people to participate. Post COVID, I think every town board has continued hybrid meetings so that people can view and participate remotely if that's the way that they're able to do it and it's wonderful and we certainly want to keep doing that. You know, it's a great way. It really is a good way for allowing people to listen in. They may not want to participate but they want to know what's going on and that didn't occur before. And as evidenced by the equipment in the room and many other things, towns made a big investment in making sure that's possible and some of the conversations we had earlier about well, is the other room set up well enough to do that? You know, plays right into that. The other thing I'll just note is this whole equity and planning policy guide from the APA, this is a new thing. It was under discussion at the national level for about a year. Zoning, the tool that we wield as planners and citizen planners is a tool that was traditionally used to exclude people from certain places. It was found constitutional by the Supreme Court under the idea of separating uses from one another that would be incompatible. So we talked about, you know, you don't want to put the tannery next to where people live. But when you delve into some of those court cases, what they're really about is a fundamental idea that apartments are fundamentally incompatible with single family households. And it had everything to do with who could live and who could afford to live in those things. So we wield a tool that in America has traditionally been used to some pretty not nice, pretty discriminatory, and the APA recognizes that, recognizes the need for that tool to be used in an equitable way and in a reparative way in some cases to make up for things that were done in the past. And, you know, Vermont has its own unique history dating back to the late 1920s. With a UVM researcher and some others and a very strong connection between zoning and eugenics and the idea of preventing certain people from propagating and having children to make Vermont a better place. And so we all kind of still work in a system that came out of that. And obviously that's not what anybody in this room is here to do. It's not what the town of Williston's here to do. But the APA, you know, saw this and far more egregious examples of this all over the country and said we should have a policy. This is a piece of it. There are other parts of it about equity and comprehensive planning. There are parts about equity and how you run a planning office and how you provide translation services and make sure that everybody understands the rules and all those kind of things. And, you know, I'll just leave it to say, well, why do we have this document? We're members of APA, three of the staff, Emily, Melinda and myself are certified planners and actually have some tie to this equity policy as part of our pledge to maintain our certification. So it's real, it carries some force. I recently went to the National Planning Conference in Philadelphia and went to a presentation on this policy. And one of the folks who developed it said, you know, this is something you can take back to your town or your city. And if they're asking you to do something that's not okay, you can say, hey, my certification says that's not okay. This policy says that's not okay. So it gives planners in far tougher situations than we're in something to stand on when their community asks them to do something that's exclusionary or discriminatory. For everybody else, it's just, it's a really good guy. It's really well put together. We did an exercise in the session. I went to where we just looked at his own in code and said, what about this code is discriminatory? We sat there with, you know, 800 nerdy planners like me in a room going over some random zoning code and going, well, you know, here's some things about literally the allowed uses in this fictional town that are discriminatory. That does happen, so. Pleasant though. It sort of was, you know, it was the usual sorts of things you might imagine. So, I mean, I think that's great. And I would agree that, you know, none of us are in this to kind of be discriminatory in any way. And I would say, I don't believe that the intents that our planning commission, commissions have used to develop the Wilson development bylaw have done that to be discriminatory. But I would ask you then, if you took the WDB and you looked at it, are there pieces there that are unintentionally discriminatory in today's world that's however many years after that was drafted? I mean, it's hard to imagine here, but I gotta think that if there are things in there, there are gonna be things that, I'm gonna give us all the benefit that are unintentional. But I would, I mean, I'm gonna jump in. I would argue that our average house price is very, makes us very. Bingo, absolutely. Density, density is discriminatory. And we're, you know, and we're moving the right direction, but I, well, I mean. I can tell you why I think we are. Optimism, optimism. Okay, but the density idea is starting to address that. But I think we do have some real work to do here, even in Williston. And actually one point that came up for me with this in terms of getting multiple voices, one challenge for our retail workers are all the people that we don't let live here. The people that have to work here during the day and leave at night, is they can't come to these meetings. They're not residents. But also the timing, you know, if you have three minimum wage jobs, you can't sign up for this board. I mean, we just brought our ages down on a note that went around and we're all, you know, like this into the spectrum. So we're gonna get any voices for the younger voices. I think we have to be creative and it can't be sign up for this committee or come to this hearing. You know, I would propose, I mean, less for this, for us, because we're more of the rule executors or something. The rules are written and we look at them. But for planning and stuff like that, I would say that maybe they think in terms of focus groups, or let's bring certain populations in that are currently excluded by our pricing and say, what would you need to live here and what are you looking for? But again, that's less for DRB than other groups. So, you know, two things. Number one, yeah, having parts of town that are allowed at certain densities has a discriminatory effect. Not everybody can afford to live in every part of Williston and some folks can't afford to live in Williston at all. I disagree with that statement, Matt. It's not some parts, all parts. It's all parts. So I'm gonna make a pitch. Unless you're workers from Canada building hotels. I mean, we have the highest density part in town. We can't build enough units to get the cost down. So I'm gonna make a big pitch for the housing and assessment in a second. You know, there are also times where you say, you know, we do have open space rules that keep things low density in certain parts of town. We balance that against natural resource from rural landscape and aesthetic considerations and all those things. And it's not necessarily true that building everything as dense as possible everywhere is the solution because it's actually, in addition to being unattractive, it's fiscally unsustainable. Smart growth really helps us with that. My pitch, two pitches. The first pitch is, we recently performed a housing needs assessment that really goes into the numbers behind this. We'll be presenting that to the select board next week on April 18th, Melinda and I and staff from Chittin County Regional Planning Commission will be talking through that, talking through some of the policy levers that planning commission select board might consider pulling on to have the effect of allowing more abundant and affordable housing in town to address that need. The second thing, process equity, what Lisa brought up, of making sure all the voices are heard, especially when these rules are being made and that, hey, everybody come grab a veggie platter on Tuesday night at 6.30. You will get folks there, but you will get the same 40 people, which is literally a definitional term in planning dictionary, same 40 people, meaning it's a very narrow audience when you do that kind of process. So really happy news. We applied for and received a municipal planning grant this year. We just found out about it a few weeks ago and it allows us in the upcoming year to do a $32,000 public engagement project in the lead up to the next town plan, what will be the 2025 Williston town plan. So this is not a project to write that plan. This is just a project to collect public input about that plan, to ensure that we bring planning to the people wherever they are in town, including people who are working in town, but maybe not even living here and make sure we have this really broad, really deep public engagement so that when we make those big policy statements and do all of that goal setting, this is gonna be the 2025 to 2032 town plan with a 2050 horizon, that we're doing it based on as many goals as we can go to and bring out and make part of that process. So my pitch is if you're knowing, but in planning business, the request for proposals is out there on the town website as of yesterday morning, I think. We have a fairly short time to respond to that. There's a scope of work on there talking about kind of engagement activities we're looking for. And that, I think, will go a long way toward the next town plan being really well founded on that broad and deep engagement. So that's what we're doing so far. And I think those are both really good things. Are you also gonna upgrade the website so that people can give live feedback there or input there? We'll be doing a bunch of online engagement stuff with that. We've talked about, you do a survey, you do everything from printing it into the observer and letting the people drop it in a box here to have the QR code that someone can grab it with their phone. And also stuff it in people's hands by going out and knocking on doors. So there'll be a website just for this effort that will have an easy to remember URL that you can go to just like how we did my tap corners. It won't be buried in the town's website so I'm gonna merit it. Well, I'm thinking like under your planning and zoning where we have our DRB meetings there, we have all the meetings and everything else. If there was a section in there where people could comment, you know, they can't come to that meeting, but if they can comment on that meeting or that item on the agenda in there so that everybody can see it. That's a drill. Yeah, literally just a way to say, give testimony about your meetings, but people don't have to just email us. Most of us do not. Yeah, that's something that we think that are like the level of gatekeeping to provide. Oh, I'm having a hard time hearing. Thinking about our training tonight, like that it can only be spoken. Sometimes people do type things in the chat and like maybe we just read those out into the record and being more equitable with how we receive input. I think you'll get the input that way. I mean, I was, I actually have that note right here as I was reading this is that, you know, we have some topics we get a lot of letters in and people spend, I think some people spend a lot of time thinking about that. Others just spew words onto the page, but those end up being, we included, you guys say we included those letters in your packet and we say yes, we read those or we stay silent or whatever, but those don't really get read as testimony nearly the same as somebody who actually spends the time where it is available, one of the 40 that can come here and sit in the audience and wait their turn and maybe read the exact same thing they would have written, but I think that gets a much stronger voice in this hearing than the letter that's written. It's more impactful. It is more impactful, but what I'm hearing here is that that's actually maybe not fair to the people who want to be here, but. Can't make it. Maybe they can't make it for whatever reason, whether they're working, whether they're on vacation or. And this way they got a longer period and not specified data make it easy. I mean, on the other hand, so you want all the letters to be read into the record? Well, that's the question. And why wouldn't I mean, if we've got a hundred people sitting here, the Scottish chairs and Pete, now we know we're very good about, have always been very great about making sure that everyone that's here has a chance to have their say. And it sounds to me that, you know, I know I don't take those, I have not in the past taken those letters seriously, just because of the way they're presented. I mean, I do read them. I think that could have the potential to be abused. I mean, there could be a way to summarize the letters a bit more, like generally is it a statement in supporter opposition to something and does their letter raise any substantive bylaw thing? So sometimes people are like, I want to see more landscaping because it's an industrial building or I have some questions about lighting. There have been some small instances where a comment letter does result in a recommendation or DRB condition. And maybe we could raise those to attention or say we were to leave five letters in support or five letters in opposition and two raised a question about landscaping or stormwater or something. One of the areas, you know, one of the areas when I scan through the letters and I will really admit that there are times when I don't read them as clear, you know, as deeply as I should. But I've always tried to remind myself that, you know, this board is here to uphold the bylaw period. And that's what our job is. So, you know, you're going to get letters from people that oppose certain things or approve of certain things that aren't permissible. Vice versa. And our job, you know, is to sure you read the letter but ultimately we're reading the bylaw. And maybe modifying it a little bit but ultimately it comes down to what's printed in the bylaw is what's allowed and that should be the way we are voting. Yeah, and I think that, I mean, I think that's how we do vote. I do too. But I'm just trying to think of it from the point of view here of our is all testimony being given equal weight. And it seems that there is the opportunity for that to happen on the other end, you're right. Somebody could write 15 letters or they write a really long letter which we would ask them to get to the point if they were, we would politely ask them to get to the point or answer the question that was asked. The challenge from my perspective is that so much of the content of the letters are not things that we can influence. Not germane. And they're not germane. And we really, our core mission is to judge a project for compliance to the bylaws. Does it conform to the rules that others make? And the letters more often than not are outside of those, they're coloring outside of the lines. And so if we were to, if we were to, because it's confusing, I mean we do this every two weeks and it takes new board members usually a while to even understand what our role is. And so it's unrealistic to have a member of the community that isn't involved and intimately involved in DRB proceedings in the past to understand really that distinction. It's not easy for them. And so they color outside of the lines and that's okay. But to have a formal reading into the record of what oftentimes is a very high percentage of irrelevant content, I think would be very... Yeah. I was just gonna add in, I think to truly be equitable to everyone in the town. It's exactly what you're saying, Pete. By the time people read about it in the Observer or something and they're coming to the DRB thinking they're gonna tell their opinion, they should have voiced their opinion with the planning commission or the select board. And there should be more community outreach about this. There really should be. I don't know how that could happen but that's the only way to really be equitable here. Well, there's kind of another point going on here too and that is with the advent of form-based code. Portions of this board are disappearing. Boof, right? If you comply with the form, then you get approved. Pretty simple, right? A rubber stamp. That was that. Well, I don't say it's a rubber stamp. Well, no, I'm trying to say it's... I'm just saying it's at that point but if it meets the form, we've got no input. You know, I think we've cleaned up the room since but Emily made some really great posters a while ago with the Bill Becomes a Law character saying, going over those roles. And we've done it a couple of times when we knew we were gonna have a lot of people in the room saying, remember, the DRB is here tonight forcing roles that were made by the planning commission and adopted by the select board as in a public hearing process. And that's another process equity thing. I mean, we just absolutely knocked ourselves out of the form-based code bringing people in. We were still rightfully or wrongfully accused of not bringing everybody in towards the end. People who said, I didn't know this was going on. You did this during COVID. It happens every time. Yeah, I think that's universal. Every bond vote. As a planner, I try not to be too jaded because your right happens every time and I try to really make sure I listen to those people and think about, did we miss something? I don't think we did in that case. I don't think we generally do when we do by-law stuff but I mean, I can remember five years ago being very frustrated with folks coming to the DRB and they were arguing against the policy being administered, not the administration of the policy and we wrote a planner's corner or two on it. We did a growth and development public outreach event in the summer of 2020 all on Zoom. We've tried a number of ways to help people keep understanding that because I think it makes the DRB's job harder when the audience doesn't understand what the DRB is there doing. Oh, absolutely. No question. We say over and over again, no happens in the classroom with the applicant at the early stages and why do people think, gosh, that DRB just approves everything? Well, because you have a staff that knows the by-law there, tries to filter out most of the hard-nosed and writes a extensive, well-organized, illustrated, highlighted staff report that recites all of the ways in which the project complies and draws the DRB's attention into the two or three judgment calls that need to be made on each application so that it can focus on doing that and really have a hearing that is directed towards deriving out those reasons that the DRB exists. I really am proud of the way the staff and the DRB have done that. I think you do a very good job of that, but I think the public education around it is just a sort of a forever job. Nobody's interested until it's too late and tempers are flaring. And you've only been on the board two years. Well, you know, we certainly had our share of it in that 2020 growth and development conversation came out of it. Some of the biggest nights of the DRB are the nights that some sort of residential project is happening in the residential zoning district. And we feel like we're saying to people constantly, so since the 70s, between Mountain View Road and I-89, more or less, has been planned and zoned for this sort of suburban density development. And since before any of us were here, since several of us were here on this planet, Williston has had that growth pattern in its policies. And we come into it taking it on good faith that the town made a conscious decision about that and that there are boundaries and there are things that are allowed inside those boundaries and things that are not. And then we go forth and administer it. Yet, there's a lot of surprise. There's always new people moving to the area. There's always new people becoming engaged in the process and- Some of what we'll do with the town plan process is say, hey, everybody, did you realize this is what your plan says? Is this what you want your plan to say? Because it's gonna say this for the next eight years, maybe more. And if it's not what you wanted to say, do enough if you want to change it that the town should go and change course. And that change, of course, on big things like that shouldn't be happening in the comprehensive plan before it happens in the by-law and certainly before it shows up in front of the board with a development under review. Right, so, but like Lisa was saying, we're all kind of the same. You know, and a lot of people in Williston are the same. So when you talked about the historically disadvantaged and vulnerable communities, it's not very big group in Williston. And, you know, and until, and as Scott was playing out, it's our densities or whatever else you wanna say, you know, the lack of affordable housing, blah, blah, blah, that's kind of led to that. So it's not gonna be, it won't be popular with the people who live here to change that. So how do you do that? And, you know, you're not gonna do it by popular vote. It's changing. I mean, I think people recognize the housing shortage in Vermont. But, you know, I will say one thing about any data about the town that I always, my reaction to it, and I don't know if this is a solid number, but one time at a select board meeting of one of the policemen were reporting the traffic data, but saying that our population doubles during the day. Now, if that, so I don't know if that's a real data point, but it's back an envelope calculation. That means that any number we look at could be up by 50%, right? In terms, if we say the people that here during the day create value, they work in the retail shops, they're our town planning team, you know, there are teachers, if we say they're creating the value that is Willis, then they should be able to be part of that, that they create. Our numbers could be up by 50%. That just, in terms of a data person, that makes you crazy. Rescue calls used to double because of the influx of people in this town. During the day. During the day, versus our night calls. Some night calls, you'd sleep, never get a call. Daytime, you were getting calls because of all the businesses, have all these workers, and there's always accidents, but you get back to the other thing. Do you remember when we had the meeting on the affordable housing? Yes, the CHT. Do you remember the comments that were made in some of the letters? And by some of the people who were here, that were like, one, they were outside the bounds, and two, they showed a lot of people who wanted to be a NIMBY. So I think, you know, the board comported itself really well. Oh yeah. And we prepared a staff for that. We talked about, again, what is the bylaw about, and what is the bylaw not about, and what does fair housing law say about, not discriminating about certain types of housing? But I think that that stuff is always out there. I don't know that the policy guide is really good about this, but you guys serve the town on this board. It also makes you leaders in the town. Whether you like it or not, people know you're here doing this stuff. They pay attention to what you're up to. And what the board showed to me the night of that particular hearing was also a willingness to affirmatively take on that kind of mentality comment that you were receiving. Say, you know, that's not okay to actually say, you know, I don't want something my board is doing to descend into a process that's giving voice to something that's really discriminatory or leading in equity. And again, compared to, I read way too many articles about stuff going on and planning boards all over the country. And compared to what I read about, this group is head and shoulders above a lot of that and is well prepared to address that kind of thing. You gotta let people talk. It's public hearing, but you can also feed back people and say, you know, we're not here tonight to talk about what kind of person is going to live in that room. And in fact, we really shouldn't be because that's discrimination. And it's great to see the board do that. It's nice as a staff person to be able to stay a little more neutral and just be the reporter on the facts, because, you know, we want the citizen board to be the one steering the ship on that, and you do. So thank you, and like Emily said, this is a conversation. The full policy guide is quite a bit longer than what we gave you, but it's actually a pretty good read and send it around. And just know that we're probably going to be bringing this to the other boards and staff as well, especially the relevant parts for each and certainly following it when it comes to what we do for this next template. So to piggyback on that a little, I had my grocery store moment this past week, where some fellow in the aisle said, oh, are you on the DRB? And he did compliment us on our thoughtful handling of a recent hearing. Okay. I'll just leave it at that. I can guess which neighborhood that is. Is there, is there anything else? Yeah, so we do have on the agenda to do, Simon has a potential bylaw amendment master sign plan to meet your activity. Yep. Everyone's gone. Pete, that was absolutely the wrong question. Okay, so let me, let me read it right. Is there a motion to adjourn? You can't write to her, Andy.  Part 25th is a fairly light agenda. May 9th is a super light agenda. So we could do part two. We can do part two of this, then the feedback. Come on until then. Part two is deferred. Okay.  Once you do your homework. Is there, is there anything else? I don't know. I'm just gonna read it again because I don't remember it by then. I think that's better. I don't have better. I saw my age on there. I'm gonna have to read it again because I won't remember by then. I saw, I saw three in a row at the same age, right here. Okay. Is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Anybody opposed? Thank you all.


So this might be unprecedented. Uh, don't know if this has ever happened in the history of the Humanist Report show before but Chuck Todd said something and I Agreed with it feels wrong to admit that but he said something that I think is objectively true that for some reason even though This is obvious other pundits haven't pointed out yet And this is necessary because the White House is gonna listen to mainstream media They're not gonna listen to some dude with tattoos on YouTube Explain why he needs to fight harder, but perhaps listening to mainstream media will at least let them know the way that What he's doing or not doing more specifically looks to the public. Let's watch if you got on a plane or a train Or really any form of public transportation today You've probably noticed a pretty big change yesterday afternoon a Trump-appointed federal judge in Florida struck down the administration's federal mask mandate for travelers Just days after the Center for Disease Control Extended it through early May the White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki called the ruling disappointing But the White House has not yet appealed the ruling They claim it's something for the Department of Justice to look into already the TSA major airline carriers Amtrak Uber lip All others have dropped their mask requirements. Essentially the second the the White House decided not to appeal Folks, it's one thing for a Trump judge to strike down an order from the Biden White House But it's an entirely different thing for the White House to let it happen without any Legal pushback and it's not the first time recently that something hasn't gone the White House's way They don't fight back. They don't defend their rationale. They just give you the the emoji shrug We saw it when the Supreme Court struck down their vaccine mandate for large employers We saw it when West Virginia's Joe Manchin essentially scrapped the president's entire domestic agenda in Congress We may even be seeing it with the ongoing intraparty fight untitled 42 The Biden administration with the full power and prestige of the presidency with his party's power in Congress on the line This November has repeatedly looked as if they're easy to roll. Chuck Todd is right. Chuck Todd is absolutely right The Biden administration with the full power and prestige of the presidency with his party's power on the line This November has repeatedly looked as if they're easy to roll Exactly Biden's unwillingness to fight for even his own agenda, which is not a revolutionary agenda This is a pretty incrementalist and milk toast agenda overall But even his unwillingness to fight for that I cannot tell you the damage that that will do politically Long-term to Democrats because all the young people who came out to support Biden over Trump If they can't even see the bare minimum get accomplished with the Democratic presidency The message that they will take away is what's the point of voting? What's the point of participating in politics altogether if we can't even do the bare minimum if basic governance?   It's just simply Not true. I mean even if that were the case and you definitely didn't have the numbers That doesn't mean that you just give up and fight Yeah, we have these issues that need to be addressed various crises currently, but you know, we only have A Senate that's split down the middle can't do anything. Sorry. No, you fight as the president you use your bully pulpit You can use whatever approach you like Biden can use the stick or the carrot approach. The problem is that he's done neither He's done neither and as Chuck Todd pointed out there Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sonoma though to be fair has basically Completely ruined his presidency. They've obstructed him from doing even the bare minimum He couldn't even pass build back better his signature reforms And He's just giving up. Where's the push for build back better? We were told that after build back better failed that they'd bring up, you know, these individual pieces of legislation You know disaggregate build back better and pass climate alone and and pre-k universal pre-k alone That hasn't happened either because we all know it's gonna be an obstacle and Joe Biden isn't up for the fight Look, there's a number of things that he can do to put pressure on Joe Manchin And I don't know that any of these things would be successful But the point is that he tries he could say if you don't play game If you don't support this legislation Then we see that your daughter was engaged in price-fixing when she worked at the company that produced EpiPen Maybe we look into that. Maybe we fire your wife who I gave a job or you don't even have to use the stick approach You can say how about this Manchin if you support this climate legislation We will include pork in there specifically for West Virginia will create jobs Clean green jobs for West Virginians and you could take that back to your constituents and brag about it. He's not trying anything You're not trying anything when it comes to voting rights legislation. I mean Manchin and Sinema said no and that was basically it Biden said he'd fight but he didn't fight and I don't think Democratic party loyalists and leaders of the party understand how damaging how demoralizing that is But you see I actually and this is incredibly cynical so you can disregard this I think that a lot of Democrats don't want to win. I think that having the majority in Congress They don't have the Supreme Court But having the majority in Congress is just too much pressure because any legislation that they pass is bound to offend some of their donors So it's just easier to be a party Where you don't have full control and then you can just fundraise by sending emails to your constituents about how the big mean Republicans won't let you pass anything and that's just easier because if you pass any sort of climate change mitigation legislation then your Fossil field donors might get pissed if you try to do even a public option your health industry donors will get Pissed at you so the easiest way to not rock the boat and maintain the status quo is To just have Republicans in control so you can use them as an excuse But when Republicans are not in control, there's no excuse the pressure's on you you're in power the buck stops with you so to not even fight at a minimum is just I Can't explain how big of a bloodbath It's going to be for Democrats and the worst part is that I think that a lot of them So long as they get to keep their seat are perfectly comfortable with that outcome as Derek Thompson of the Atlantic points out Something very interesting and troubling happening with Biden's approval rating among young people Which has collapsed by more than any other age group since January of 2021 between 18 and 34 He's down negative 19 points. No college negative 20 points Hispanic negative 20 points black negative 30 points You know, there's a number of reasons for this a number of reasons for this After we saw a historic black lives matter movement after George Floyd was murdered We even saw protests across the globe. What has been done to prevent this from happening To more black people Nothing young people strapped with student debt heard Biden say he's going to look out for them And what happens nothing? And I think that this common dreams headline really says it all Progressives say climate and action student debt explain Biden's drop in support among young voters One observer suggested there is a decent amount of young people Not all that pleased to see the administration sucking up to fossil fuel executives as the earth rapidly loses its capacities to maintain Life and that's the thing right there. I don't think that anyone expected Joe Biden to be Bernie Sanders but all that young people wanted is the bare minimum voting rights so we can maintain our democracy and Something with regard to climate change just moving us In a positive direction so we can still have a habitable planet can't even get that and You know, let's let's say that Biden tried everything He fought mansion and cinema tooth and nail and he did everything in his power to legislatively achieve his agenda Even if that fails, what do you then do? You pick up your pen you sign executive orders you cancel student debt You do everything in your power to accomplish change because we all know you have a limited amount of time to actually get things done To move this country in a positive direction as Republicans try to rip it apart And it just feels like Biden is asleep at the wheel It seems like he isn't up to the challenge. He isn't taking this seriously and he just wanted to be president So he can I don't know say he was president. It's I'm so soured on electoral politics that it feels like There's really nothing that we can do at this point and we're just circling the drain That's not to say that I'm discouraging anyone from voting because of course, this is something that everyone should do I think that voting is important But in terms of giving people a reason to vote not all people live in states where it's very easy to vote in my state of Oregon, I have no reason to not vote they mail my ballot to me I can take my time filling out but in these states like Georgia Where you know votes are suppressed where they have limited polling places where you have to wait in line for hours People need reasons to get out and vote and Democrats have demonstrably failed to give them enough reasons And I just I don't think that they understand how their inaction how their ambivalence is Fucking us up for so long I mean, we're about to likely see the end of Roe v Wade and What are Democrats going to do to fight that?   If you run in 2024, what's gonna be the message look at all that I accomplished We gave you I don't know a 1400 check after we promised 2,000 at the start of my presidency What are you gonna run on? Even when Democrats do good things They don't brag enough about the good things that they do so even if he did do something Who knows how good of a campaign he can he can rent he can run.   It's this never-ending cycle But as the cycle continues we as a country continue to circle the drain It's just it feels so demoralizing and hopeless and we just need One leader in the Democratic Party who's able to stand up and Change the direction of this party and the country but actually win But the problem is the Democratic Party establishment fights against people who are potential change makers They fought against Bernie Sanders, tooth and nail. They're fighting against Nina Turner right now So, you know, I don't know What to say, you know that they're comfortable so regardless of the direction of the country Democratic Party elites They're wealthy enough to be insulated from the damage that the GOP causes to this country But I mean at some point in time the dam is gonna burst and the damage that they cause is Going to affect everyone you can only go so long without addressing climate change until we all die literally as a species So I just feel like you know, if you don't see this at this point Then I don't know what to tell you but Chuck Todd right there for pointing this out that Biden is weak I think that's important because maybe Biden's White House will finally get the message that the way that he looks to everyone is Not as some like unifier like he ran as being a unifier But you're not just like going to unify the country by rolling over and dying and letting Republicans run roughshod over you By letting your own party make a full view You're going to bring together the country by passing policies by any way you can that actually change people's lives


It's your fifth full year in the organization. You've been through a lot. And you've earned that excitement that you're feeling, as you said, it's a little different. But how do you balance that against the normal humility that all ball players have just because this game does humbly? Yeah. I try not to think that I'm going to come into the season and just hit 60 home runs because of the way the off season went. It's really fun to hit an off season, but it's hard. So coming into the season, I try to balance what the actual expectations are versus how many home runs I hit off of the hit tracks in the off season. But I think for me, the thing that I'm most excited about is the possibility to get a full season of the bats and really just to see kind of what I'm capable of. Because I do, in my mind, have expectations that I'd like to see come to fruition. And the game is hard. It's a lot harder. I feel like playing in New York. But I feel like the last couple of years have prepared me for what it's like to have highs and what it's like to have lows and really how to find that happy medium to just go about my business the right way. 60 home runs, the expectation you're talking about? You know, after watching the pace that Luke was on last year and knowing that that's probably what 60 home runs would look like, I don't know if I'm in that company just yet. You know specific numbers of mine, though, even if you're not going to share them with us? I have a couple of bets in my head that I've made with myself, not bets, I guess, goals that I've made with myself of. You know, I know in my career I have 162 games played. Exactly. And I'm hitting 258 with 24 and 82 home runs. So to know that over the course of a couple of years where I didn't get a consistent amount of the bats and that's the numbers I've put together, I feel really good about the numbers in my head that I kind of have looking at those numbers. So especially with the progress, I feel like I've made in some areas of my game.


We have SoftBank taking a position in NVIDIA. I thought this was important, if only just because NVIDIA has already doubled since it had the first breakout quarter. But SoftBank doesn't have to play by the rules. It's a private fund, and even if they pay this much, it won't hurt them. But it does verify that NVIDIA is the most forward-looking semiconductor company. Now, it's not really a semiconductor company. We really should be thinking about it as an artificial intelligence chip maker. That's what they are.