Welcome to the Select Board meeting for Monday, August 5th, 2019. Would you please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. At this time, do we have any agenda additions or changes? One addition to the packet, Aaron Martin from Public Works provided this. It will go with item 5C. It's a definition of the different road classifications from the state and the breakdown of mileage within the town. That's very helpful. Thank you. Please thank Aaron for us for adding that in. I would like to make an agenda change. In the reading file, item E, the memo regarding grant application for recovery housing at Fort Ethan Allen, I would like to move that item up to be business item 5G, because I think there are some board members that have questions and I'd like us to have a discussion. Any other amendments for the agenda? Seeing none, I'll take a motion. Maybe this comes when we get to the consent agenda. If I've got a change to the minutes, does that come at that point? We would make that change at that time. Thank you. Any other changes or questions regarding the agenda? I'll take a motion to amend. So moved. I do have to do the full one. All those in favor of the agenda as it has been chosen. Excuse me, a second. Thank you, Annie. All those in favor of approving the agenda as changed, signify by saying aye. Aye. Okay, now we're moving on to public to be heard. This is the part of the meeting where if you're in the audience and you would like to speak to the board about a particular topic that is not on the agenda. This would be the time for you to do that. So if you are somebody who has something to say that's not on the agenda, please let us know. Please give us your name. To do everything possible to ensure the safety of responsible dog owners and their pets and to request that you revise the existing ordinance to give authority to the police department to fully enforce the ordinance with stronger repercussions for irresponsible dog owners. The current ordinance states that a waiver fee for our first offense is $25 per dog for dogs quote running at large. My experience is that the police department animal control officers are reluctant to issue tickets. First, a $25 fine doesn't seem to be a deterrent. And secondly, if the ticket isn't issued, it's a moot point.  The problem is my neighbors choose to let their dogs run off leash, often with no person in sight. I would go as far as to say that they use the dogs to harass me. For a dog on leash, one or more loose dogs running at them can be frightening and dangerous. While some dogs may indeed be friendly to people, you never know how they're going to respond to another dog, which is a problem. More than one dog constitutes a pack. And the rules change as to their behavior, whether with other people, dogs, or anything else. As the person holding the leash, I don't want to deal with the unleashed dogs and I don't feel that I should have to. I'm asking you, please do whatever it takes to write an effective ordinance to protect responsible people and to do more than a wrist slap on the offenders. And then if I can have another minute, I have just my personal story, is after repeated requests in person and on the phone, asking my neighbors to keep their dogs on their property, I called animal control. This was several, probably 10, 11 years ago, called animal control and was told that he would talk to them but without a photo or him seeing the dogs running loose, he couldn't issue a ticket. I provided photos of two dogs in my front yard. The animal control officer opted to talk to them again instead of issuing a ticket. After numerous phone calls with no resolution, I gave up.  It was very intentional, didn't feel safe. The advice I received from the animal control officer was use pepper spray if the dogs are bothering you. However, the owners continued to let their dogs loose but not as frequently. This has been going on for the past 12 years. These same neighbors recently acquired two more dogs and the problem continues. This time, last month, when I asked the owner to grab his dogs, he told me they are just pups and made no attempt to secure them even though they were in my dog's face and the dogs were growling. I explained to him that that's not how to introduce dogs.   It created a dangerous situation for both her and her dogs. Then he screamed at her about being on his property even though she was walking her dogs on the other side of the street. If you're able to offer a solution to this ongoing problem, I'd love to hear it. And I want to mention that I am another person who no longer takes my dog to Indian Brook. Do you want to leave them with the board? Sure. Okay, why don't you feel free to hand those in. Thank you. We'll be discussing the ordinance again in the near future so you'd be welcome to come to that discussion because we'll actually be having the ordinance on the agenda that evening. Thank you. Is there anyone else in the audience who is here to speak on an item that's not on the agenda? Thank you. Moving on, we have sometimes a really great part of our job that we get to do when we have very generous residents who have opted to share their property with the town and the community at large. And we have a family like that here today. The Unsworth family has donated an extremely large parcel of property that abuts Indian Brook to the town. So they have worked with staff to make the transfer happen. And they were recognized at the State House for their generosity a couple months ago. I had the pleasure of joining them there with our state delegation. And they're here today. So we have a resolution and appreciation of the Unsworth family. So Pat, would you do us the honors of reading the resolution? Absolutely. Resolution and appreciation of the Unsworth family. Whereas Ray Unsworth owned approximately 224 acres on Indian Brook Road for many years. Whereas Ray Unsworth was an avid outdoorsman who loved skiing, hiking, hunting, and walking in the woods. Whereas Ray Unsworth gifted his land on Indian Brook Road to his four children. Whereas the land contains numerous natural resources, including prime wildlife habitat, wetlands, streams, and agricultural soils. Whereas the Unsworth family has long allowed hunters, loggers, neighbors, the Vermont Association of Snow Travelers, and others to recreate on the land. And whereas the Unsworth family subdivided the land to create several residential lots on 64 acres. And whereas the Unsworth family wanting to see the remaining 164 acres conserved in perpetuity to protect the natural resources on the property and to allow for public enjoyment of the land. And whereas the Unsworth family donated the 164 acres to the town of Essex to be permanently preserved and named the Ray Unsworth parcel. And whereas the Ray Unsworth parcel abuts Indian Brook Park which in turn connects to Winooski Valley Park District Land in Essex and Colchester. Thereby extending a massive swath of protected habitat and recreation land. Now therefore, be it resolved that the select board on behalf of the citizens of the town of Essex hereby extend our most sincere appreciation to the Unsworth family for their commitment to natural resource preservation and public open space for the generous donation of the Ray Unsworth parcel. We have a framed resolution to give to you and I think we'd all like to come over and shake your hand and thanks. I may be getting a good picture. Like we did in the moment. You guys are beautiful. Thank you so much. You're very generous. Thank you so much. We are so lucky to be able to receive this and to share it with the rest of the community. Thank you. Thank you so much. Do we want to have you three come and be in the center with your resolution? Sure. You guys can help me. What do you want to do? All right. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm missing. I have awkwardly put myself in everything. There we go. Make sure no one's eyes were closed. Well done. You guys stood well. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. Again, thank you to the Unsworth family. Our next agenda item. Excuse me. Oh, I'm so sorry. Brad. Please. What can we do for you? You just recognized the Unsworth for this wonderful piece of property that all of the Essex residents have the opportunity to enjoy. My question for the select board, is there any restrictions on the Unsworth property that you're proposing to place any Brook Reservoir and Saxon Hill? Seeing as it's not actually part of Indian Brook Park and seeing as the history of the property has been to allow use, we don't have plans at the moment to do anything. That's the question is, you know, will the, it abuts any Brook Reservoir proposing to place restrictions on hunting, which the legacy of the Unsworth, Bray Unsworth was to keep the land open for all types of recreation, including hunting. So will the select board be putting restrictions on the Unsworth property? Sure. Stuff is looked into it. There are no plans to put any firearms restrictions on the Unsworth property at this point. It's still mostly an undeveloped parcel. If you're interested in your use as Indian Brook Park, staff does not think it's appropriate to extend the restrictions on the Unsworth property right now. I think the select board agrees. I can't speak in perpetuity, but it's not part of the change right now. We're not looking at that right now, Brian. Thank you. Next item on the agenda, interview and appointment, Brian Sheldon has expressed interest in becoming a member of the Economic Development Commission. Greg Morgan, who is the chair of the Economic Development Commission as well. Thanks for coming, Greg. You want to join the EDC? Tell us why. This is my hometown. I love this town. There's a reason I came back. And I want to make sure that it continues to grow. I think that that's the and the best way that we can do that is to have more businesses willing to come to Essex, whether they're from out of Vermont or whether they're from, you know, Colchester, Williston, and or Brattaburah. You have questions for Brian? A question, but a comment Brian, your technical background is excellent. So I think that place on the Economic Development Commission, if we approve your joining it, it seems like you would bring quite a bit to the table in regards to potentially lowering or being able to present Essex as a location for where businesses can set up where remote workers can connect pretty easily to existing technical infrastructure that we have. I'm very excited to have gotten your resume as part of this packet and sort of gone over what you have in your background. Thank you, Mr. Murray. I think that my background and yours have a nice cross-section, right? Because one of the things that as a remote worker myself in this town, right, that Essex is well positioned because we have some of the fastest broadband in the state, but it's still not, it's not world class though either to be clear, right? So with your experience and, you know, and mine we can, I think that's something that we can work on with Montpelier, right? That'd be great, yes.  I have, yes. I'm a I'm a software consultant by trade, right?  If that one's interesting, I stay. You know, if not, then I, you know, follow it to somewhere, you know, then I find another project somewhere else. So yes, I have, you know, I've lived in most parts of the most recently in Chicago. So, yeah. So I've seen a lot of places that are doing interesting economic development and, you know, some of them are that are, you know, letting it go by the wayside, you know, so, you know, so I think that my perspective is both from geographically and from like lots of different companies, right? I didn't run any of these companies to be clear, you know, but, you know, I can see what IBM was doing well and, you know, good and well when I worked for IBM years ago, right? And I can see what startups that I worked with were doing good and well. You know, so I think just my diversity of experience I think will be useful. So what do you think about our situation and our bones? I mean, as I said, I actually got the map of the broadband because that was something that was important to me as a remote worker and, you know, encouraging software developers. So I think we do have good infrastructure by Vermont standards, right, for that. Number one, I'm curious as I'm also a member of the Saxon Hill advisory committee, I'm not sure, I mean I have the name right, I apologize. So one of the things that Greg and I have talked about is trying to because we have that as a great recreation resource, it's already a great industrial it's a good industrial resource but I think that we can, we could, if we could maybe tweak the zoning to do some things to capture some of the recreations that's coming in from outside Essex out there, that would be great. That may be part of the vision with NETC next too, so I'm not sure what the answer is there, but I would like to try to work on that. Does that answer your question? What economic development opportunities do you see that the town could partner with the village to accomplish? That's an interesting question just because I, well, I didn't really think of it as a division that way. I mean I'm I'm, when I played hockey when I was starting goalie for Essex High School I didn't care whether someone was coming from the town or coming from the village. I didn't care where the people the defensemen in front of me were from. I think we should work towards one big town and not fight over resources in Saxon Hill versus those resources in the village. I don't think that's practical. What would you leverage from the village just curious about the kinds of conversations and changes that could occur that would lift both boats? Yeah, I mean I'm sort of thinking off the cuff right now to answer your question, but I think one of the things that's great about Essex is that we have everything here. I used to live in high-rise apartments in New York and Chicago. So if you want that we have that in Essex. If you want to live on a five-acre plot and grow something, you can do that in Essex too. The diversity of what we have to offer in Essex is a selling point. I don't know if this is specifically an economic development to answer to your question but I think if I were recruiting software developers to come work for me in Essex, then I would say look what are the things that you like to do? Do you like to do you like to hike? Saxon Hill, Indian Brook right? Do you like to fish? Indian Brook, right? Do you want the where-do-you-want-to-live example that I gave? Do you have kids? Do you not have kids, right? So if you have kids we have great schools and I can tell you about my experiences that ADL, Iowa is the nice school. So, I don't know I feel like I'm rambling. I don't know if I'm answering your question. Yes, ma'am. Hi. Am I correct by your resume that you came back to Essex in November this past November? That's right.  That's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Watts? Yeah, so my mother calls me that. I see that you spent a few years as a professional triathlete. Just wanted anything from that experience that I learned to do triathlons here with Eric Bowker. I think you all know. Here in town. As a we have if you want to be a triathlete this is a great place to do it. You can swim without getting run over by a boat in Indian Brook. Well, hopefully when the state finishes the 15 it will be beautiful to ride upon again. This is not many of the towns that I've lived in. Other places that I've lived you have to choose between living in the city center and being able to get out where it's safer to ride on a two-lane road. You don't have to do that here. You can live in that apartment building at 5 corners like the urban center of Essex Junction and be on a safe road to ride. With those beautiful bike lanes. When I was trying to recruit triathletes to move here those are the things that I would speak about. To be clear you know that there's another professional triathlete who lives here. Kim Laughler. I'm not the fastest triathlete in this town anymore. Any other questions for Brian? So Brian, thank you for coming and for answering our questions and for your interest in being willing to volunteer for our community. We really appreciate it. At this time the agenda says we might want an executive session for the appointment of public officials. There are no other applicants for this position. It's up to the board if you'd like to vote on whether or not to approve Brian's request to join the committee now or we can wait and do it in the executive session later that is up to you all. Any preferences? Okay, well then why don't we take care of that now? Would anybody like to make a motion? Andy. I move that the select board appoint Brian Sheldon to the Economic Development Commission. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor please signify by saying aye. Aye. All right. Congratulations you're an official member. Thank you for joining us. Next item of business it is the adoption of Town Road and Bridge Standards. Greg, would you walk us through? I will and I'm filling in for Dennis tonight so give me a break but I am not really as proficient in your language. It's good because I was going to ask you to go very slowly. I had a lot of new terminology throughout this packet. Anything I can't answer I can take back to Dennis and get you some answers but we are on vacation tonight. I had asked Greg to give us all a list of the definitions of our road classes to remind me and I didn't know if Pat and Andy would have had that information yet and in the back of this packet is an inventory of exactly how many miles we have of these kinds of roads so it's very useful information so basically the state has updated its Town Road and Bridge Standards the Agency of Transportation and the Agency of Natural Resources combined to do that it was sent out to each municipality earlier this year and it's a result of many discussions with many towns including Essex about the new standards the town's public work standards were adopted a couple of years ago they meet or exceed the new state standards but it's still recommended that you adopt the state standards doing so allows you to comply with the standard set up by V-Trans it's helpful for going after grant funding it's also helpful in the event of a FEMA event getting that ball rolling and starting to try to recoup some costs from storm damage there is a little bit of complexity with the Class 4 Road Standards these new standards introduce hydrologically connected or non-hydrologically connected segments that's one definition that I'm not super up to be is that where one of the things of confusion might be coming in that definition of hydrologically connected I mean I can parse out the Latin roots of that statement but knowing whether or not it's just the same stream runs along the roads and connects them or if it's something more complex than that it's a little bit more complex Annie Costandi lays it out pretty well that's one of the attachments to the memo but it's basically a few different standards if the road crosses a water or wetland state water so a stream of some sort that's one instance if it flows into a stream or wetland runoff from the road if it flows into there it's hydrologically connected and I think there was one other one that I'm forgetting at the moment but basically if runoff from the road affects storm water systems of some sort or whether it's wetland stream something else it's a hydrologically connected segment it's not as simple as saying this entire road is hydrologically connected or this one is not there's a lot of sections within those roads and that's where it gets a little a little confusing so you will be seeing it's part of your reading file and Dennis will speak to it hopefully on the 19th but creating some a town policy around how to handle those different sections but for right now I think it's enough to know that the hydrologically hydrologically connected segments set up under Act 64 which is the state standard do come into play and it's Dennis recommends that you accept it in part because that's sort of the FEMA event it's a lot of those instances where it's FEMA is going to get triggered if a road washes out or a culvert washes out because of that so this speaks to that and again I can see you on the on the radar on the books for FEMA going after FEMA compensation so Dennis and Aaron recommend Hope Public Works Department took a look at it and recommend that the standards do be adopted and it's one of those things where yesterday is the best time to do it just in case we do have an event yeah so I can try to answer any questions or take them back to Dennis if you have any and the screens went into Pat did you have any questions yeah going through all the documentation that we got as part of our packet I did see that there was some back and forth in emails that Dennis sent to the state specifically around class 4 roads and whether or not FEMA grants would apply to those and the packet said that it seems like it's unclear at this point or at least that there is could you talk a little bit about that so I'm sure that I'm understanding it like does the Vermont say that we need to like adopt those standards but like does that mean that we are or are not then required to maintain those roads or sit like you know again like just the back and forth of it I thought I followed it but I want to be sure that I know kind of what position we're in if a class 4 road does wash out are some homeowners going to come to us and say you've maintained the ditch on the side of this class 4 road for the last 5 years so now you have to replace the whole thing like is that what's going on here or the way I read it and I think Dennis will be able to speak to this in more depth in a couple weeks I can try to get you an answer before then but the way I understand it is basically it's unclear and the state doesn't quite know what FEMA is going to do but the recommendation from our staff after speaking to the state is that we do accept these standards we do them for the majority or the entirety of the class 4 roads because it's going to be really hard to come back and say well resident A you are part of a hydrologically connected section so you're covered resident B I know you're 200 yards down the road but you're not on that hydrologically connected section so you're out of luck so their recommendation is to do it for the entire road so that we don't have to run into those issues couple of demos in the packet talked about various segments of different streets and I'm just wondering somewhere identified as fully complying with standards and some of them need some work are these going to be additional projects that are added to the list of projects that we already have or did we already know that these segments needed attention that I do not know just wondering if there would be an additional cost not that we have anything that we can do about that one could imagine that if there are costs they will be spread out over time to address in a prioritized way anybody else have any questions about this so what you need from us is to hold on to getting back to the top of the memo so we're you're asking us to adopt the new road and bridge standards and then to sign off which I have here on the standards Andy? I move that the select board adopt the new road and bridge standards is completed and recommended by staff and sign the standards is there a second? second any discussion? I apologize before we continue to vote we had a resident who had asked me if she could speak on the topic so I'd like to do that before we finish up ma'am sorry I've almost overlooked you Lisa Laverge I do know that I spoke to FEMA because Wesley Pahola did wash out and the residents had to pay like $45,000 out of their pocket and Dennis contacted Robert Bancroft who's come to a couple of meetings for us who said that the agreement with the State Department of Transportation and FEMA did not go through so unless the town maintains Class 4 Road FEMA will not kick in and pay for emergency services is what I understand that to be and that's been the past so in the past FEMA did not give the residents any money because the town doesn't maintain the Class 4 Road okay thank you that's not great understood for everybody on the road the other thing is that requested that they do another review of the hydraulically connected segments for the road it wasn't done 2017 it was done like four years ago I'm getting an exact date I don't have it but there's actually been erosion on the road and a culvert's worn out that aren't in sections that are considered hydrologically connected and so speaking to I think it was Fitzpatrick's services and the Chittin County Regional Planning Commission did the study and I've let them know that there's been erosion and there's a development that's filled the ditches with sediment right now and I don't know if they will do another review of the road because it's clearly not to the standards that it was like three or four years ago but that might happen I think if you sign this they'll automatically be included if they add additional sections on the road okay thank you for sharing that I appreciate it okay any further comment? Lisa if I have a question when the road wash how it happened for you was that during the Hurricane Irene stuff okay just want to make it clear that there's instances where there are real world scenarios and only some numbers which is why I want to thank you so sorry, now that we've started discussion do we need to change our ordinance to compare this? what comes next? that's what comes next I don't think you need to change your entire ordinance I think you just need to create a policy to put us in the ordinance and the beginnings of that what's in the reading file today so that means you'll be coming back to us in an upcoming meeting with a new revised policy for us to approve okay okay let's try that again we have a motion and a second is there any further discussion? all those in favor please signify by saying aye the next item of business is designated local leader to participate in the second annual Vermont community leadership summit Greg? so the Vermont council on rural development last year they started the first annual Vermont community leadership summit I attended last year, thank you you nominated me as the local leader and it was absolutely worthwhile we sent a few other people as well I'm interested in that okay all right, do you need a motion from us on this? to nominate Caitlin okay would anyone like to make a motion to nominate Caitlin Corliss? my wife's a library trustee to avoid conflict of interest I won't be nominating but I will be voting that sounds like a safe stance to take, would Pat or Annie like to nominate? yeah, I got it I move that this select board designate Caitlin Corliss as S6's local leader for the second annual Vermont community leadership summit I second, thank you all those in favor please signify by saying aye aye I look forward to seeing Caitlin there next item of business update from the love committee since Max is not with us today, Andy would you be willing to do that? oh, I have to do it if you don't want to, we can always defer to Greg no, no, so we met again and again and discussion, most recent discussion was mostly about the discussion guide for the upcoming focus groups I think the intent was that that would be finalized by, was it today Greg, or is it end of this week? the focus groups it's open until Wednesday but I mean the discussion idea that's been sent off, it's been approved so we made our comments to it and we allowed staff to do the final approval on it after the edits were made that we asked for I think it went on Friday looks like more than 50 people have signed up to be on focus groups I did get a question about whether the governance subcommittee would be selecting the participants and we've told KSV that we don't even want to see the list and so that will be done independently by them they'll only feed us the results afterwards and they'll even be, the intent is they will redact names from the transcript before they give us the transcripts as well so that we don't try to guess who said what because he will be calling on people by name in the meeting so that's underway we also looked at some infographics to be used to stimulate the conversation so that there's some we laid out the options for governance provided some definitions and those sort of things there's a common ground to talk about when they have their discussion groups that was included in the packets but else that's about it if anybody still is interested in the focus groups there's a survey available until Wednesday for people who are interested in signing up I think you can find it at www.greatersx2020.org Andy can you confirm how many focus groups are there going to be all together there's going to be six of them there's going to be two that are village only two that are outside the village that will include both eight one and eight three participants so that we're getting both the more and less rural parts of outside of the village and then there's going to be two focus groups that are mixed with village and outside the village Andy did you have a question I don't know if it's doable or possible but when I subbed for max being out of town on Friday morning I noticed that Ken had so kindly videotaped the subcommittee meeting and I don't know if it's in our budget or allowable to have channel 17 at the subcommittee meetings or not I just thought I'd mention it I'm venturing into waters I don't know about we can reach out to channel 17 I believe that both Essex and Essex Junction are at their full quota of meetings that they record each month for what we pay for and we probably would have to hire them extra but I'd be happy to inquire and find out what that fee would be but at the moment they're not being recorded as you know our next meeting is the 22nd at 6 30 p.m and then the two meetings after that are September 5th at 8 a.m. and October 17th at 8 a.m. What time was the August 22nd? 6 30 p.m. Are you anticipating meetings in between those dates? Only if necessary but I don't think so Those coincide with some of the checkpoints for KSV Greg did you were you going to add something? That's what he's going to say, read your mind So this sort of leads right into item 5 F approving the use of the infographic about potential merger Greg? So as Andy mentioned when the government subcommittee met on Friday staff had pulled together a few infographics available for the focus groups it was looking at the potential governance options it was just a short bullet pointed item of the different proposals and some also some graphic representations of the different proposals and representation issues. We did not have this greater Essex 2020 answering your questions about the November 2020 merger vote was not available for the government subcommittee meeting but we put what is pretty close to a final draft together shortly thereafter because the government subcommittee had voted to approve some the use of those other informational materials for the upcoming focus groups we wanted to get approval from the boards before we added anything else to the focus groups so I wanted to give you a chance today to look at this two page sheet it's a fair amount of information on the couple pages but trying to provide a lot of information complex information into a fairly digestible piece of paper that can be handed out at the focus groups to be a chance to get some feedback on the infographic at that time accordingly as we go forward but it speaks about the upcoming vote on November 2020 what the vote is about some information about potential benefits questions to still be answered that we'll have to consider as we go forward it speaks to a little bit to how the town and the village town of Essex and village of Essex Junction governments function today and then on the second page there's a timeline about what started in June of 2019 this year with focus groups and kind of moving forward looking at the November 3rd 2020 vote with expected events and timelines and dates along the way answer questions for Greg Andy there's a little paper clip thingy that says what's a charter on the first page and it says that it's a legal document but it's a municipality most Vermont towns don't actually have a charter but they do exist so I'm just concerned that that's a little misleading to say that you have to have a charter in order to be a municipality I don't have suggested other words to use but I mean the Vermont Statute establishes I mean it tells you how what you need to do to run a town but most towns don't have charters I'd like to make a comment about that you're absolutely right most towns don't have charters but the village and the town of Essex do and so it's explaining what a charter is because they each have one I don't see this as misleading people that some towns don't have charters and an assumption that all towns do see it as defining something that we have to have so and just a counter to your observation I'm sorry I'm sorry staff can take a look at and see if there's a word or two of charters a legal document that can be used to establish immiscibility and has been used in Essex and Essex Junction something to that effect under the key benefits there's an item that says reducing the number of times residents vote I'm concerned about having that in there because it's only one vote that would be eliminated by specifically by the merger that would be a village annual meeting we still vote on all the same other days so I'm it only the number of votes reduced it only affects people that live in the village and it's only by one so I'm not sure that that's really a key thing it certainly didn't come up as an issue in the survey that we just ran either so I'm not sure and I understand that there are other possibilities for things that can be done to reduce the vote but they're not don't necessarily have anything to do with the merger you know merging the village and the town will not what I like I know my bonding on the table too much no no it just kind of everything's good oh it just sounded like okay sorry not your fault totally derailed me here so anyway so I understand so merging the town the village won't change when the school that has no effect on when the school votes are that can be a completely independent effort to talk to the school district to say can you move your budgeting process so that your vote happens on a different day that coincides with another vote that we're already doing that has nothing that really isn't a merger to discussion it can be something that happens in parallel it can be something that happened if we don't merge so I'm just reluctant to have that in there as a key benefit okay I'm talking too much no what happened while you were talking is that I had a thought and then I think you answered it and unfortunately for you I moved and caught a lens I'm sorry about it oh so you don't have a question no I feel like Andy talked it through very well and got to what I was thinking of I'm sorry Andy okay so I disagree with that calculation and I want to take a minute to explain why I disagree so village residents vote five times a year they vote at town annual meeting on the budget town elections the next day village annual meeting on the village budget village elections a week later along with the school board and then the national elections in November town residents vote at town annual meeting town elections school board elections and November elections so village five town four if we were to merge and have one budget we would conceivably be eliminating the village annual meeting which is a voting opportunity and the village elections which happen a week later so that's two votings even though we still vote on school board elections at the same time but we are eliminating two votes for the village there is a potential to reduce the number further which is the school board leadership has expressed interest in aligning their voting with the towns whatever it is we end up doing as a merged community so there is the potential to reduce it further and then finally there is also the potential that if the residents decide based on a merger plan that includes this option to do Australian ballot for our voting and not have one meeting at all but just do everything elections of officers and the approval of the budget in Australian ballot then we would reduce the number of voting times even more to the point where village residents would vote twice and town residents would vote twice we all just vote twice one day for town budget elections and school board and one day in November for national and state so it will change the number of times that residents vote it might be more specific to say village residents but it does change the number of times we vote Pat you had your hand up I mean at some point I did think that this was going to come up so we did have time that I asked for on the agenda at a school board meeting to discuss it to get a sense for that full board whether there would be an approval that if the town merger did indeed reduce votes the school district would be willing to then follow suit and the answer was yes so in an official capacity the school district and the school district board is not just signaling a willingness to talk about but a strong interest in consolidating the number of votes further by putting those on to a common day if this happens and that's contained within our minutes from previous meetings and it's subject to change it's not like me coming here and saying in my opinion I think the school board probably will is that we've had a discussion about it and we've said this is something we're interested in this is something we want to do we want to reduce the number of individual voting days because by the time school board comes around that's number five in the voting cycle Annie so if I'm understanding better correctly it could be potentially not something that we could say in this moment here but conceptually what I understand from Patrick as a concept is that we could be looking at a situation whereby it could be that the school board would say if the merger vote goes through then this that could be I understand that that's not to do with Andy's right it's nothing we can do anything about I'm just explaining back what I'm hearing to ensure that I understand that do I understand correctly so are we then ruling out the possibility of the discussion that folks have brought forward with regard to the hybrid voting system where the final budget vote would be on that same day that we now do the school budget voting not at all saying that that's one of the reasons why I'm very concerned about saying we're going to reduce votes by going down to two if because we're then today by putting these words in here and the discussion that we just had saying that we're not going to consider hybrid voting because that would then requires to have that middle of April vote that we still have today so the line on the flyer says the number of times residents vote it doesn't say reducing the number of times residents vote by two or three or four and we are not talking at all about whether to adopt that hybrid voting recommendation that the Essex Governance Group made that's not the point of this conversation at all so I'm sure the government subcommittee will discuss that at great length and there will be a lot of public participation about what kind of voting to do all we're talking about here is whether or not to include the phrase reducing the number of times residents vote to me it's not so specific that it's inaccurate but it's only specific to people who live in the village so if that's the case they are residents let's add in the key benefit that municipal taxes will go down in the village now because we don't know that we haven't done the math yet we're working on the math we can't make assumptions like that we can make this assumption because we know at least one vote will go away I think we're both parting hairs here and I don't think this is an argument worthy of the time we're spending on it I think the line ought to come out that's just my position Annie did you have your hand up I did I hear and Andy very well but I think just conceptually that any number even one even for half the population which it just about is right it feels beneficial and intelligent to me to leave it there but I hear you Andy but I feel comfortable with it being there and I feel comfortable that it's something that just gives people pause for thought and for a further conversation which is what this is all about is thought and further conversation I would also add that when the select board and the trustees accepted the recommendations of the Essex Governance group among those recommendations was a commitment to have same day voting this is in my opinion a step toward that and it's not dictating what it's going to be but it's my assumption based on that acceptance of that recommendation that both boards are committed to doing what we can to reduce the number of times our residents vote to increase the convenience and increase the participation so but Andy it's clear you disagree and that's fine we're just discussing this we're going to include things that only benefit people specifically in the village then I don't agree with this any other questions or comments about this infographic we'll be with you in a moment thank you oh I forgot to say this is really nice good job regional planning commission has a really talented person I'm very sorry that I didn't say that part because it's that's a lot of things to have to put forth in a style such as this so I'm very embarrassed that that wasn't the first thing that I said while we took it apart I'm so sorry it's beautiful I know for fact that there are some people very concerned about the word taxation and where it's located I see personally that the foundational work is so intelligent it's got a very equalized situation for previous merger attempts the heart and soul of Essex which was so valuable the shared service delivery model of the Essex governance group and thoughtful growth and action I see that as being very intelligent and very appropriate foundational work sandwiching that and very importantly so I see the words public engagement service legal guidance taxation governing board structure and elections and community identity I wonder if it might not be a good idea it seems to me it's kind of an order of how we need to go and I don't know if we want to rearrange that in any way to alleviate some concerns or just feel confident that all the information is there that's what I want to say it took me a really long time to get to that I'm very sorry anybody else has some thoughts about that I think I had participated in some of the editing of this they and Evan and Greg asked for some input and there was definitely not any intentional sandwiching of that known by sandwich I meant it well I meant that those important features were supporting I didn't mean sandwich bad I meant that that was very useful supportive sure and I appreciate it I appreciate that but what I'm trying to say is that the paragraph below the wheel yes is unrelated to the paragraph to the wheel it's saying these are the foundational things that we did and then the next paragraph is and here's some more stuff we still need to deal with and then taxation governing board structure and elections community identity are the three biggies that we still need to deal with well this is the thing I think the fact that it's big is not inherent in the graphics that's what I'm trying to say I'm sorry even longer it took than I thought I would have to if the rest of the group agrees and wants to make that change we would have to leave it up to the graphic designer to figure out a way to make it look bigger not larger just more prominent yes I get how some people might feel like the word taxation is in small print on the lower left corner of the document making it look like we're trying to hide it or something in my opinion looking at that list it's the number one thing on the list reading left to right so we could probably ask Greg please I can reach out to Regional Planning Commission Emma Vaughn and see if we can do a box or a different color to call it out just to make it stand out a little bit different she has any ideas make it more prominent and Jay Lane just spoke about it that it's obvious that taxation is the first on the list of things and maybe that will make people feel more confident and that's what I'm looking for I'm looking to make sure that that everyone feels confident that we're here to listen to find out, learn study, grow and then vote thank you for hearing me no problem I mean my only comment on this is that I think this is I've not criticized us before but made note of the fact that I think that sometimes we get to in the weeds about certain things this is an infographic that's being used in a focus group that 50 people are going to be participating in put on by a third party that we have hired out to do this does the select board really need to sit here and look at this infographic and decide taxation is for font sizes too small like I mean I respect great respect for why you would want to bring this to us for approval but I mean I don't need to see this put it out nothing in here is a lie nothing in here is inaccurate I mean every sentence on here is true argue and discuss and cut hairs about how true it is to how our portion of the population is going to be but I just feel like the whole process of us needing to weigh in on this is just I mean it's unnecessary and this is the first and probably a series of documents that we'll be creating to share with the public thank you for reminding us to keep our eyes on the bigger picture I saw some hands in the audience unless board members have any other further comments does anybody need to put my other glasses on does anybody have any questions or comments about the infographic would you state your name when you stand up thank you yeah I've looked at the infographic and yes there's no lies it's accurate but it's also misleading and I would also point out that somebody already has worked with the group on the text of this document so you start reading it says why merge and it leads over to key benefits including right underneath it is a list of current benefits that have already been achieved cost savings from combining services those are not reasons to merge those are already savings that we've had they are in fact reasons to not urge because clearly there can be cost savings had by not merging it's demonstrated right here so I would suggest that the current section the currently activity sessions would talk about things that we've already done they're not part of what will be done if we merge so I find that that section is a little bit misleading it kind of implies that these are savings we will get as part of a merger they're not I went to two governance subcommittee meetings where they talk primarily about things that are going to be on the focus group itinerary and the primary amount of time spent in those two subcommittee meetings was talking about the two options that are going to be presented and how to couch the taxation issue that was the bulk of the time so to say that taxation is just one of the small items that needs to be in the lower left hand corner anybody who asks in town what is merger all about they're going to say taxes so I think that's another misleading component it should be equal footing with the three items above the circle finally I've been living in Essex now for 15 years I've been so long I didn't meet many of my neighbors for five years when I moved into my house so we don't talk very much we're not that plugged in I've just sort of become a little bit conscious of the whole merger situation and I've learned that in 2007 the town voted to not merge so this is a rhetorical question don't expect an answer why are we still talking about merging we voted no thank you Daryl could you stand up and give us your reasoning my name is Daryl Staltz I live on Seneca Avenue in the junction and I also live in town I don't know if my question is specific to the infographic or more about the process all together which of course the infographic touches on the am I correct that the government subcommittee is preparing a plan to present to you and the trustees for your acceptance or approval is that right yes defined plan yeah defined plan they are doing the research they do not have decision making authority for any particular plan bringing their research to both boards and the boards will make the decision of what to do next so they can't come to you and say they want somebody else to approve it they have to get your approval and the trustees approval you'll see your own correct okay so there's a village the Vesca junction there's a town of Essex there are people who live in the town outside the village but there is no town outside the village no municipality no group that collects taxes render services etc I pay taxes to the village I pay taxes to the town and I participate in both of those processes the idea has been floated that there needs to be a representational group for only the town outside the village to serve whatever their interests are which nobody's really made clear yet if we were to do that to give representation that would literally be giving representation without taxation another idea that's been floated is to somehow rearrange the trustees and the select board to make one board for the village and one board for the town outside the village which would mean that I as a village taxpayer who also pays to the town would I would be taxed without representation that would be taken away from me my ability to participate in the town part of that neither of those options are acceptable to me so if this is hopefully the right time I just want you guys to know to please reject any attempts to do that I understand thank you anybody else have any comments Irene first I'll address the topic that Dao brought up indeed the people outside the village are recognized by the new merge school district they have four representatives and the village has four representatives elected from each district historically for decades and to this day many many tax dollars have come from outside the village residents through a town only highway tax just because appropriate representation has not been afforded to those people does not negate the millions of dollars collected from that special population under that tax my comments about the infographic have to do with the first paragraph please scroll to the very top under first things first there's a paragraph of two sentences the second sentence says town and village residents are all residents of the town I understand that town equals town it seems like a no-brainer but I believe what you mean to say is that town outside the village residents plus village residents are town residents yes they're all town residents but to misuse the word town to mean something different at the beginning of that sentence then you do in the middle to me is the culmination of the type of misleading information that Ken mentioned when we are in local government we are not allowed to be political and partial about issues like this that are going on a ballot and therefore I would like to see in addition to key benefits include an equally sized box an equal heading of key challenges include key disadvantages include or something like that that puts the pluses and minuses of a merger proposal out there for the people in the focus groups to equally assess what you are asking them to do I don't think it's fair to anyone to just list benefits and not to have a corresponding section of the challenges and the disadvantages and I'll stop with this thank you so much alright thank you for your comments everyone do board members have any further questions or comments on the infographic Annie? I just want a reminder well I'm glad to see that the previous merger attempts will be such a solid piece I just want a reminder first there was a vote for yes the first vote the original vote was to merge you look like you're getting ready to I guess I should say something we have gotten in trouble before Irene's right for not having balanced documentation having pluses and minuses listed this could look like a sales job rather than an instructional job I don't have anything to offer to tell you what the negatives might be and even though the intent of this is to be used for the focus groups and for a limited number of people it will be out on the website so anybody can see it so I have some reservations about that yeah I guess I just have some clarification of that being completely open to this I want an actual opinion to fall in one way or another but as elected officials with respect I think that we are allowed to not only have opinions but to put those forward and advocate for them I mean when Barack Obama was trying to pass his health care legislation he and those of his elected political allies very much used what they had within their power to try to get legislation that they believed was a benefit past I mean we as a select board nothing prevents us from saying that we need to stay neutral in this process like we ourselves we should not be using staff resources to do that like completely agreed in this case but this is a document that KSV basically has produced oh it's coming to us is no am I about that we're producing it for them for the focus groups we're producing it for them for the focus groups so go ahead I would just say that we absolutely do need to have our eyes open to the challenges of merger we're not exactly sure what they are yet in specific enough detail to be able to do that but we know we know there are going to be downsides and we know there are going to be challenges and we know that there's going to have to be compromises to achieve some sort of fair plan but we don't know what those are yet and the purpose of this document is to be a part of those focus groups where we will hear from the residents who say what about this what about that this is going to affect me negatively I don't want this to happen this is going to affect my taxes the whole point of this is to get those challenges so I don't feel bad about having benefits on here because it's true we do expect that these benefits are going to happen to some degree and the fact that we have currently what we have listed on here that we already do together is evidence that we have merged a lot of things already and it's already working really well and so we would be remiss to talk about that but we definitely absolutely have to talk about the negatives when we can identify them specifically so that we are not encouraging the people here then we're already in a great conversation because I don't just want to know what I think about merger I want to know what Irene thinks I want to know what Ken thinks I want to know what Daryl thinks I want to know whatever in this depth of Irene I appreciate your time Ken and yours Daryl then we're already doing it right and the whole point of this is to get into the the meat of it with the people in the focus groups and if the people in the focus groups get stimulated in this way this is not something we're handing out as here's what's happening because we're getting to that so I am removing my desire to change it and I appreciate the dialogue because I think this is what we're after anyway perfect Andy in the survey that just completed some responses and one of the open ended questions in there was what is your vision for a merged community and something like 47% of them came back and said I don't know you tell me what the choices are and so I'm concerned that we're framing this to 47% of the people that responded don't have any thought about where things should go and I think we're framing this too positively we're only showing what we want people to see we're not saying I think we should just throw this whole thing away I know it's a beautiful piece of work but I'm concerned that it's putting a frame on something that isn't allowing an alternative viewpoint of what may be wrong with the options we're 47% of the respondents say I don't know you tell me and this is what we're telling them I'm concerned we're literally doing the thing we're saying here's what we think and then you launch further discussion so the people said you tell me we are giving a framework and then we're asking you what do you think what more do you think I'm sorry I thought I saw Pat's hand that was a joke I was going to be maybe we should have an accompanying document that has the monopoly man running away with a bag of money towards the junction from Essex town I thought it was funny I'm sorry that was kind of important I have to say there are other documents that are going to these focus groups that aren't in front of us tonight that have the three options laid out that have other information that are important to having the discussion I think this is a sales job now I'm adamant against this and I'm going to vote against it against approval of it I don't think we've given it fair consideration with regard to being unbiased and we also unfortunately haven't it's occurred to me now haven't shared the other documents that were prepared for this or those other things it may be that the other things we prepared are enough and that this is over the top sales as a member of that committee would you mind sharing with us the other documents that are going to be given to the focus group people that you've approved I could try to pull them up if I can just respond this isn't no way meant to be a sales job it only has pluses it's trying to capture the discussion that the boards have both had about why you're doing this what you thought the benefits were why you're looking to do this I understand if it comes across that way we can try to adjust it but I want to say strongly staff is not trying to sell it I'm sorry I apologize for that comment I'm not I'm an accused staff of doing anything underhanded I'm just saying that I think that as a board here we need to do diligence and make sure that we're not putting something on this bias excuse me it's informative people need to know that there were previous merger attempts people need to know that Horton sold it all that work they did these are important things for people to know the community needs to learn these things to trash this entire thing because of there's so much information on here that's useful people need to understand what it has been and what it could be and if you don't have these components available for people to even begin you can't get from the yes it's yes it's meant to be positive not in a any other way but for growth excuse my tonality Andy I see this document as entirely information sharing when are things going to happen what are the things that are going to happen what happened in the past that's all I'm sorry Evan I cut you off the comment was should there be a key challenges box and so if you feel this is overly optimistic maybe we take the comment and the sentiment and somewhere in here we put some key challenges that have yet to be decided I think the bottom line could actually maybe be retitled we have challenges of taxation we have challenges of identity we have challenges in economic development etc etc so maybe without throwing the baby out with the bathwater like that as a challenge over the next couple of days and produce it now we're not going to be able to bring it back to you in time but if that's the challenge we accept and we'll update it would that be acceptable Andy? yes this woman is so smart I'm so curious oh do board members have any other questions or comments thank you for pointing her out Andy Lisa I just looked at this on Irene's phone but I've had some conversations about it and a couple of people approached me about the representation and they felt that the proposal is biased in the merger and that there will be more people from the village on the new Governing Committee trustee select board merger than in the town outside the village and I just looked at that I don't see anything about that I was kind of doing some homework myself and I looked into like the grand list and they're pretty equal number of people pretty equal by a little bit and it's not big differences in the taxes that I found and the number of people that live outside the town of the village it was kind of hard to find that info but people that approached me and were really concerned about having more people from the village and less people from the town outside the village in part of the new Governing and I didn't see that mentioned here I think it's a big concern and I think that really needs to be highlighted if that's the way it's going to be I saw Mr. Tech shaking his head it was really hard to get my numbers and look but I went online and I looked in the town reports and I was trying to compare them to the residence is pretty accurate I believe I got that from how many people live in each one it's pretty similar and they're paying similar amount of money is coming in so why isn't that number going to be equal and that's been a concern from some and I have to admit I haven't read as much but people have approached me and felt really concerned about that and I don't see it on the infographic about how that's the fair representation everybody's represented Thank you Brian Brian Hi, I mean the Stack Board has actually heard this pitch of mine before but some of the people out here haven't when I lived in Austin in 2012 there was a similar problem all the town city council members lived all right downtown it's like 27 miles wide so there's a referendum to create 10 single member districts they put it on the ballot and it passed one of the reasons it passed and I hope that the board will consider this when we talk about wards going forward was that there was an independent commission to draw the districts so you guys know that I support that one of the another part of the proposal I made in January I think was that Irene posted something on Essex Vermont about this very famously gerrymandered district in Chicago shaped like a sea the reason that shaped like a sea is because of the Voting Rights Act they had to put that district together to keep a Hispanic majority district it's why it's shaped funny because the Eisenhower especially goes through the middle so I think what if we want if the goal here is merger and trying to bring this town together I propose that the districts, the ward lines, straddle the current village boundary because if we're going to get rid of it we shouldn't encode it into law going forward that way representatives of any of the five or however many wards they are will be forced to be responsive to people from the Westford border all the way to Pearl Street that kind that's my opinion thank you Darrell I'm a bit confused about what the measurement of balance because I see a sludge board here that represents the whole town and there are three people in the village and two people outside the village that's pretty much as close as you can get to an even split right you can't have two and a half people from each people seem to want to lump in the village five right the village is the village and the trustees represents me as a taxpayer to the village they do not represent me as a taxpayer to the town that's what you guys do so it all looks very even to me thanks Greg you had a Margaret and then Irene well I'm just going to reply to that again I've lived in the town outside the village pardon me for not standing up that's okay since 1974 and I've never gotten to vote on anything that the village does it's just doesn't and the village people on the other hand have always gotten to vote on what the town does so that to me doesn't seem like equal representation and I just have a point of order does anybody besides me remember I think there was a merger vote before 2000 there was at least one more attempt there have been dozens over the years this has been a decades long this is a decades long thing Irene as you know I think merger is a bit of a misnomer because we already are merged the town outside the village and the town inside the village have a number of functions that are run by the select board budgeted for and run out of this building and the village does something on certain functions and that's perfectly fine and when the village wants to change that's great the future of the entire town of Essex should be determined by the select board alone we do elect all of you to determine that future and to run those townwide functions to have joint meetings regularly with the trustees and to be talking about merger with them it's objectionable to quite a few people who live outside the village because the entire town's future is being decided by 10 people and that is where it has become crystal clear to many people that representation is not it's not equitable and it is nowhere near the example that the merged school district has set for us by having four people from the village and four people from outside the village and that's working along just fine thank you Darrell one more time as long as I'm writing checks to two different municipalities we are not merged you get the representation you pay for Greg you had Greg's been having his hand up for quite some time just quickly I'll show you the infographics that the government subcommittee approved on Friday for quick easy to see focus groups different governance options options one, two and three option one with one municipality one governing body, one tax rate option two, one municipality with one governing body and a special tax rate for specific services so different tax rates status quo is what we have right now we have the two governing bodies the select board and the trustees the tax rates representation options these are what's being considered this is the latest population estimate as of 2018 it's really close 10,982 to 10,929 inside and outside the village looking at the representation options one is to just do out large elections another one is to have two wards and another one is to have that large representation there's some fine print on there I just want to point out that it says that this is only an example there could be more than two wards get to your point lastly still going to correct double check on a couple of these rates here so this one's not quite finalized but it shows the different tax rates with the status quo and then right here we basically have the same stuff but it's bullet point form opposed to graphical form graphic infographic form can I ask that all board members receive a copy of all of these documents thank you Annie did Annie did you have a question you had your hand up yes it's not really a question it's more I would like to help no behind there Margaret this is the third meeting where I have felt that we have not helped Margaret understand something go right ahead Greg if you could do me a favor and put up the first of the three graphics am I correct that your grandchildren live inside the village they moved to Jericho so it's not an issue anymore I'm sorry I got confused for a second and please someone stop me well not yet Margaret more than once I've heard you ask a question about and Irene can help me if I get this wrong please the village is inside the town and so those who live in the village pay taxes that are to the town in its entirety but also only to the village so when they vote on things only within the village such as EJRP the town which is located outside the village cannot vote on that because those who live in the town outside the village don't pay the taxes that those inside the village pay so maybe I would have liked to vote on this so we could get those services but it was never an option it was just never an option okay I hope that I'm not being rude to you I know that I know all that my apologies but thank you well I appreciate you not being frustrated with me I'm going to take one more comment from Ken and Irene and then we need to wrap this up Ken so look at this graphic what word do you see that's most commonly repeated all three options contain the word tax if I was to make a word cloud of the topics that go about when it comes to merger the biggest words would be taxes taxes and taxes why you folks seem to be oblivious to that fact everybody talks about it why is it in the lower left hand corner on that infographic it should be right up on top it is the biggest thing that will change that most people care about we don't know how it's going to change I'll give you that most people kind of have a feeling though how it's going to change you take X and Y people are paying X plus Y all of a sudden Y goes away that's a larger group I know my algebra I think people have a sense as to where that's going don't mention it it doesn't need to be mentioned but taxes are the primary driving force behind this merger everybody thinks it may not be true everybody thinks it and your documentation shows it thank you Annie just mentioned on this there's a town outside the village and a village on the left hand side I believe it says town tax rate and someone like Darrell could be very confused because he does pay taxes to the town but this pie chart I believe only shows the town outside the village tax scenario and if that's true could we please say TOV tax rate to show that whether you live in the town outside the village it says it right on there then it's because so far away that I can't see it this should say okay I just want to make sure I change camera and fix that and it was thanks to Irene's comments so we appreciate it I just never got confirmation that that means it was going to change okay so staff has asked us to recommend the use of this infographic during the focus groups so unless there's further discussion I think we should go ahead and vote on whether we want them to do that would anyone like to make a motion based on the recommendation in our packet oh Greg sorry if you are going to make a motion I would ask that mention what the edits discussed tonight and not as amended you want it specifically with the edits as amended I would like to make that motion I would like to try my best I move that we oh no I'm not going to I'm scared I'm not going to make a motion on this I'll make it I move that the select board authorize the use of this infographic greater Essex 2020 answering your questions about the November 2020 merger vote as amended during the focus groups about governance change is there a second I will second any further discussion I'm going to vote yes on this because again I think that it's just not something that we as a select board really needed to kind of approve and see anyway I am I wasn't aware that this was something generated by staff I actually did think that it was a KSV generated thing so you know it's just not I don't think it's anything underhanded I just wasn't aware of it so I just wanted to make that clear because I had sort of gone on that discussion before I probably would have preferred if KSV had been people responsible for generating this since we're paying them that but you know I don't think that this is large enough of an issue to negate clearly what is a ton of work and is going to be utilized to provide information to a small set of people keep in mind that any client KSV has has to provide them with the information necessary to do their job yeah and I'm assuming that we should be giving we have a motion on the table and a second this is going to if this gets improved it'll go towards the focus groups but it most likely would be used after the focus groups as well as information on materials there is a motion and a second on the table are we ready to vote all those in favor please signify by saying aye opposed okay it passes three to one thank you and this will go to the focus group participants as amended so earlier in the meeting I asked if we could adjust the agenda to pull something out of the reading file and bring it up for discussion as a business item so we'll do that at this time the memo from Greg regarding public hearing for grant application for recovery housing at Forteath and Allen this is item 7E we're going to open up and discuss as item 5G Greg would you mind giving us the background please so Champlain Housing trust approached the town a few weeks ago if you give me a second I was trying to pull up the the information because it was in the reading file it's in the bottom yeah me too I want command and F on my I opened the most individual file so I don't have to scroll so Champlain Housing trust approached the town a few weeks ago about going after a grant application through the Vermont Community Development Program, VCDP to convert some of Champlain Housing trust's apartments apartment buildings and Forteath and Allen to recovery housing staff is still looking into it I wanted to put it on the reading file today to give you a chance to start to digest it their grant application is due early September so August 19th is kind of the one time they could have a public hearing about it you've not had a chance to see this so staff I made the decision to warn the public hearing so you can be able to consider it and give consideration to the project staff in the meantime is still working on information about what it means in terms of the town's commitment if the town was to sign off on this grant basically the the VCDP grants need to be applied for and given to municipalities so the town of Essex would basically act as a pass through in this case would get the money, give it to Champlain Housing trust to allow them to make the conversion and work with the Vermont Recovery Program I should get the exact name of the organization the Vermont Foundation of Recovery thank you the Vermont Foundation of Recovery so this is what it is I can try to answer I know a little bit more information at this point but we're still gathering more information that will have to you on the 19th do I have any questions about this project this grant application Andy mostly about the public hearing it has a location specified in it but I think we have a shooting ordinance hearing that night as well so we'll deal with that good confirmation this morning this afternoon that we'll have the hearing at the high school and we'll put notices up on the door do we expect a lot of people to show up for this topic I don't know Champlain Housing trust is having an information meeting for the residents this coming Friday August 9th they're doing their own we're doing it at St. Mike's we have gotten community development has gotten at least one phone call about this so there is some interest wouldn't surprise me if there's five or ten people any input from the fire chief or the chief of police on this particular project that's some of the information I'm scrolling through this is this a is this grant through VHCB or is it through the community development program that the agency of commerce and community development administers I tell I will have to check on that the reason I ask is because if it's from the agency of commerce and community development I can't vote on it because I work for them so I just don't want to have anything to do with that and do you do you feel that you have all the information you need from CHT to let us apply for this grant there's you still have questions we have a meeting, staff has a meeting with Champlain Housing Trust this Wednesday trying to pull together some information get input from the fire chief, the police chief town plan or finance department because this is a 30 year commitment for the town to track it so those are a lot of the questions we have information we'll be working to have before the 19th sometimes we could be a pass through for something but then the organization that holds the grant does everything I would love to know about the grant management that would be a good question a lot of times they also require an audit a single audit or something like that so it depends on whether it's annual every five years or whatever usually we do that this is a so as Greg was mentioning earlier it's one thing if they have the right to do it because of zoning the property is owned appropriately they do it and we are a pass through because we're the municipality this is actually but they're asking us to be their sponsor for this which implies that we're in favor of doing this we wanted to bring that to the select board's attention it's not just the same that these units they own the buildings already they want to renovate the units and then change the type of the type of activity that's occurring within them so we want to bring that to attention the lady is coming in two weeks so again we don't know if the public will come there to this meeting but they are going to be on a tight timeline it is not the type of thing that it's sort of just perfunctory so we wanted to bring it to your attention and then over say the next week or so if you get a chance maybe to dive deeper and you have some questions we'd love to get those questions in advance and have this entity prepared to be able to answer I have a couple more questions could you provide us in the materials for the next meeting when we have the hearing could you provide us with the section of the town plan that addresses the housing that we are fully aware of what we are accounting for in our planning and if the housing study that was just completed has anything to do with recovery housing could you include that information and then when CHT does their resident meeting where they talk to the residents about in the area about their thoughts I'd love to get the minutes to that or at least their notes from that and then we'll get to this project thank you Annie I feel a little dopey asking this what you just said it was they own the buildings and they're changing what their use is what has the use been is that already in the hearing I'm not going to read thoroughly I'm not sure if it's in here but the basically Champlain Housing Trust took over this former UVM housing about two years ago of those units roughly half of them not exactly half but roughly half were converted to condo ownership units for affordable housing through the affordable housing program these other units were originally conceived of as affordable rental units I think they've been used as such to this point but there's no deed restrictions like a lot of the time they'll have rental units that are affordable and perpetuity for 30 years they don't have those restrictions on them which is why they are considering this conversion to the recovery housing thank you I mean obviously I'd love to hear what the police and fire chief have to say around it but it seems like this would be a way for us to walk the talk about helping deal with the opiate crisis and addiction recovery and if we can provide a safe place for people who are trying to get their lives together after a traumatic event like that I'm 100% behind it from what I understand this would be the first recovery housing in the area for families not just individuals who are doing recovery away from their families so it's a big deal, Annie Patrick made me think maybe we can invite Riley Allen to that created a recent film about families in crisis she probably has a lot to say or I don't know too silly you're welcome to come to the hearing okay so that was not a decision point for us I just wanted us to have a more robust discussion than leaving it in the reading file so thank you for allowing me to bring it forward if there aren't any other questions or comments on that we're good, okay let's move on to the consent agenda so at this point if you don't mind any comments on the reading file we just sort of pulled one out is there anything we'll get to the reading file after we do the consent agenda so with the consent agenda what we usually do is does anybody have anything in the consent agenda that they want to pull out and discuss separately to vote on separately it looks like Annie does I'd like to make a change to the minutes of July 23 so let's vote to pull those minutes out of the consent agenda and vote on them separately can I have a motion for that I move that we amend the agenda to pull out the July 23 minutes for correction and approval is there a second second please say aye alright so Andy what would you like to do about those minutes so line 255 says the original motion passed 5 to 0 I voted nay on that motion so you should say that the motion passed 4 to 1 with Andrew Watts dissenting 255 you said alright that's a significant change so were there any other corrections you wanted to make to those minutes that was it anybody else want to change those minutes ok so can I get a motion to approve the minutes as amended I make a motion to approve the amended minutes thank you Andy I do it every time can there be a second amending the July 23 minutes accepting the July 23 ok so the rest of the consent agenda can I have a motion to approve the consent agenda Andy? I move approval of the consent agenda with select board member comments 2nd 2nd further discussion All those in favor of approving the consent agenda, signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Now we are on the reading file. Does anyone have any questions, comments, or observations from the select board? And then we can talk about the reading file in general. It's a quiet evening all of a sudden. Well, I brought blueberries if anybody wants blueberries. I picked them this afternoon from my backyard. It's so nice. Didn't have to wrestle the bear this time? No bear. No bear out there today. Evan, you sounded like you had something to say about it. Oh, I just wanted to make sure that we got to any comments of the reading file of anything else. I was the one who got confused that we hadn't done consent yet. Okay. Andy. Sorry, I did want to say thank you for including the thank you notes from the agencies that we funded with our human services. It is nice that they sent us thank yous, and it is us that are thanking them as well for the work that they're doing for our community at large. Anything else about the reading file? Oh, Lisa? This is the reading file about the new policy for the... Yes, that is included in there. There's some informational material in here. There's not a new policy in here, just so you know. Right. It's background information. We haven't done the new policy yet. Am I still allowed to speak back? Absolutely. Make sure you didn't think there was an actual new policy in here. There is not. Thank you. I appreciate you're letting me know some of the protocols. I have a couple of things that I want to say. First, I'd like to say this Vermont Statute's online highway policy, I think it's always interesting when you take it out of context and what it was really for, and the road classification of Class 4 roads driven by the ancient road policy to take roads that weren't developed and reclassified them, not necessarily to develop roads and keep them a Class 4 road. I think somewhere town saw this as a way to save money, but it creates a lot of problems because towns are still responsible for safety and all the other things that go with it, and it wasn't the intent of the law and the classification to say, oh, we're just going to make this Class 4 road, we can develop it, collect money, and not do anything. On that note, I have a couple of things that I have questions about in terms of in the memorandum for the new policy. One, I'm going to go to, let's see, is it two? It's C. I've got a couple. The other question is that adjacent landowners would develop blocks, would actively maintain the road through gradient gravel additions. Excuse me, Lisa, where are you? I'm on page, this is the, I just have a memorandum, I'm not sure what you have, but it's 2C. I heard 7B and C. I think we're in 7B, but am I incorrect? I'm in attachment 4. Oh, with all of the documents that you have? We're in 7B. I don't know which one. Oh, okay. So page 14 of section 7B. Thank you for helping me find that. The expectation is that adjacent landowners would develop blocks, actively maintain the road surface. So I have some challenges with the word, with developed blocks. It's public road, and even the new private road ruling that the state, when a number of people live on a private road, everyone's responsible equitably, even undeveloped blocks for contributing. And this kind of excludes anyone with a developed lot, undeveloped lot from not participating. And it's actually a public road. So I don't think like how much I drive on it really matters because there's a park at the end of it.  And so I have an issue with that language in there. Also, the town has 600 foot of frontage that they haven't developed on the road. So that becomes a conundrum of does the person have to maintain town road and their ditches and your road? Is that like allowed? I mean, I don't know, but I would think there'd be a problem with saying the landowner next to the town property has to maintain the town property and ditches. And there's nothing in here about that. That's a second piece that I'd like you to consider when you're reading this. The other I have 3B, the standard for maintenance shall be that required in the town adopted state road bridge standards. I know what those are. I'm okay with that. But the town public works construction specifications for gravel roads. I'm a little confused about that. It's a class four road. Town doesn't have to maintain it. What standards? I'd like this to be very specific. There are 20 years of errors causing so many issues with what is responsible. Just the other day, the town sent me an email telling me it was a private road. Okay. I think it would be really clear what standards, which one it is and cite all of those in this for us to accept this because it gets changed later on or interpreted differently. And so the interpretation needs to be clear for everyone that lives on the road. There's also a question of the current state of the road. It's failed the erosion control. It's not at all standards. It doesn't meet the standards because so many people in the road don't contribute.  I think town records say it's about $9,000 to do grading, bring road in, and only half the road has been paying and they've been paying about $4,000 because I haven't been paying the neighbor a share. Which means after many years, 20, it's not at the state it was when it was built. And so there's a lot of work that needs to be done on it. So when you say this new policy and you're enforcing it, it's sort of like, gee, I already paid my $30,000. Do I have to now upgrade it again? Question. So I'd really like clarity on that statement of the expectation for everyone that's on the road. I also think this policy doesn't talk about money that's being collected right now. The town is actually collecting a $400 road fee for maintenance, for someone's frontage. Now, the development says subdivisions are required to pay a fee. We have an association for part of the road. Some of that wasn't legal, wasn't done really well 20 years ago and it's left part of this problem today. But I think that's an issue is what's the town going to do? Are they going to keep collecting money from these new developments? Is that what they're going to do and what are they going to do with the money that they have? So I have some questions about that in terms of this new policy and restating the statement. I know this is part of, yes, some question for me. Yeah. Sorry, can you remind me? I know you said up front the area you were talking about. West Levy Hall Road. Thank you. Which is a class four road. I'm sorry to interrupt you again. Yeah. And I think what happens with the problem here is there's 17, somebody just told me there's a lot, 18 houses, families on the road. That's a lot for a class four road. Other class four roads in town don't have residents, so it's not as much of a big deal, I don't think, but the fact that there's a public property at the end and it isn't a no parking road. People park in this road. They do go and use that. They don't park in the end, but so there's public transportation going down this road that we end up paying for them. It's kind of a weird situation. I also have two questions about the town ordinances. In that policy, it references a couple of times the town ordinances. I'm going to read you a couple of town ordinances. Not the one you cite, but the other one. The town does not encourage residential or commercial construction utilizing class four highway as primary access as such development leads to scattered growth, burdens on municipal services and access problems for school buses, fire trucks and other emergency vehicles. Accordingly, it is the policy of the town to prohibit development on class four highways until they're upgraded by other interested parties to the public works department highway specifications. That's 20 years old and the town has never honored that. At the time this was written, there was one house on the road. They have not upgraded the road to where it needs to be. They've not collected the monies. There's been lots of clerical errors. So now we are 20 years later and this is an ordinance that's already certified. So when we cite an ordinance in the writing, I want to know which ordinance because we're clearly not talking about this one. There's another one, class four town highways, which have continuous right of way from class three or higher class road to another class three may exceed the 900 feet. So there's conflicting ordinances here, which actually, I don't know how many of you've been on the select board for very long, but these were brought to the select board's attention, I think 15 years ago by the town attorney that they were conflicting ordinances and the town has just chosen not to resolve that and continues to develop the road. We've asked that the town not honored that ordinance and not continue to allow development. They've done a really, I'm sorry for you, but it's done a really poor job in terms of managing the road, collecting the monies equitably. There's a neighbor who paid $12,000 in upgrade fees. There's someone else paid 30 and I got to tell you their final plans came in a year later. I have no idea. It doesn't make any sense to me. And then there's the sweet sir residence where it just got left out of the documentation. So he didn't have to contribute to making the road better. And so that's a real problem. Well, everyone on the road in the West City Hollow Road Association, we've contributed. We've been doing our best. And I got to tell you, I don't know a darn thing about roads. I've had to learn about roads and permits and all of this. So asking an individual and the other guy was a dentist or to maintain a public road with 17 homes on it, that's pretty challenging. And I think we've done a pre-kickass job over the years with everyone doing their best trying to figure out what do you got to do to make the road better. Because I've had to learn a lot. I've gotten out my knees and checked every culvert, which is where we discovered one of those was eroded and looked at them and go, what's going on with this? There's a lot of maintenance. And now we have the erosion and this bridge, the town of bridge, and the water development that's storm water permit. So I want you to think about that. Also, each lot, another, sorry, we're on document. I have a question for the select board. I have a copy of the Karen and Emery Bassett final approval plan. And it states that there is impact money given. At the time of the issuance of the zoning permit, the applicant will pay an impact fee for road improvements along the frontage of the four lots, including widening the road, laying three inches of gravel on the road. It's not a fee directly for paving the road. It's a fee for adding that gravel for the four new lots, for their lots. But the town has collected that money and now says they won't spend the money. They're going to keep it. They'll do what they want with it. They've already spent it. They don't work with the road association. They say they do. But they put four loads of giant trucks up there and they had a grader up there. And we didn't know about it until after it happened. That was only part of this woman's money. All of the money that she pays in this plan was for her lot, not for anybody else's. And so in this new policy, I would like some clarity about all these old errors and mistakes. What are you going to do with that money? And how's that going to be managed? We don't want the road paved. We would rather have money just to make it a good class three road. We don't want the town to take it over. We like living on a dirt road. We want everyone to contribute. That's the idea. But we also don't want people having their money taken that they've contributed to their plan, even though it's old, says it goes to their lot being used for other things by the town. I don't think that's right. I really don't. I've also reached out to the police department to ask about the safety. How can he approve the safety for building more houses on the road when it's not wide enough? It doesn't have enough gravel.  And yet says that house is road safe enough for more traffic. And it isn't. He won't reply. He won't tell me what his safety standards are. So I looked him up and I found them. He still doesn't answer. And it's not safe. And it doesn't meet the requirements. And the turnaround doesn't. So you have the other ordinance that says no more development, no more houses. We can't have. And so I'm really concerned about this restatement because it's missing a lot of parts. And so as you read this document, I'd really like you to consider that. That when someone buys this house on the road, they have an expectation. This is from Mr. Nye. I'm going to quote Mr. Nye who was on the select board many years ago. They have an expectation of having services. It's a public road that there's a lot of houses that the fire truck can get up there. Emergency vehicles can get up there. And that if that's not the case, they have an expectation to know that. And I think that also hasn't happened. I bought my house two years ago. I didn't know that. It's not easy to know that.  I come as myself, a new neighbor, but also for the association because I know they couldn't all make it tonight. But to share that information with you and to be looking at all of the ordinances when we're citing them, not just one, because there's a bunch of others that say you shouldn't be developing. And we have to be thinking about the road safety and what's happened in the past. There's been a lot of mistakes. It's not easy to fix it. But let's not make it worse. Your frustration with the process is really evident. And I really appreciate your taking the time to share in such detail what you've been trying to work on. So it sounds like something that we should look into a little bit. We'll get as much information as we can. And I appreciate your sharing with us. The last thing is to think about the Constitution. Pardon me? The Constitution. OK. Clause number seven. When you start asking the neighbor to pay for the maintenance on the road that's owned by the town, or one neighbor to pay for public road and another not to, you're getting really scarily into lawsuits. We don't want to sue you, OK? OK. But we want you to be thinking about doing this the right way so that it's fair for everybody. Thank you very much for that. Thank you very much. You really appreciate it. OK. I think that we were still on the reading file. Did anyone else have any more questions or comments? We are not in need of an executive session because we took care of that business earlier in the meeting. So at this point, I think we are ready to adjourn, if you are. Would anyone like to move to adjourn? Going once. Make a motion that we adjourn. Can I have a second, please? Second. All in favor of adjourning, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for coming.