the select board meeting for Monday, April 19th. First order of business is to approve the agenda unless there's any changes. Anyone have any changes? Yeah, I would like to make an addition about community correspondence and put it under select board business after letter D about the trainings. Anything else? Yeah, if I could add liquor licenses for axes and the wine vault. I don't know if everyone's getting, but there's a lot of feedback coming from people's discussion. Yeah, I forgot all about it too. It might be mine.  So what I also suggest is anyone else mute if you're not trying to speak. OK, so I'll take a motion with those changes. I make a motion to approve the agenda as amended. I'll second that. It moved and seconded any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Consent agenda items, meetings from April 5th. Liquor licenses for Michaels on the Hill, Maxi's and the wine vault. And the re-employments, three year terms, ending April 30th, 2024. Martha Stackus, Planning Commission. Tom Kinley, DRB. George Lester, DRB Alternative. Bill Mitner, Recreation Committee. Paul Lawson, Recreational Committee. Steve Lach's Speech, Tree Committee. For four year terms, ending April 30th, 2025. Joan Beard, Conservation Commission. Krista Battles, Conservation Commission. And for one year terms, ending April 30th, 2020. Steve Lach's Speech, Tree Warden. And Transportation Advisory Committee Representative and Alex Tuscany for Mad River Resource Management Alliance. Take a motion. I'll move to approve the Consent agenda as written. With the, they got changed. There's two liquor licenses that got added. With the additions, yeah. Second. It's been moved and seconded. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All right, moving on to public. This is an opportunity for the public to speak on anything that's more not on the agenda. You are more than welcome to speak at any point when we get to agenda items, if you would like to add any input. It's a little hard to zoom, so there's the feature that you can raise your hand or you can put in the chat that you'd like to speak on an issue.  I don't hear anyone from the public. So we are gonna move on to select board business interviews. We'll start with the Planning Commission. Two positions, ending April 30th, 2020 and April 30th, 2024. I'll just go in the order. So we are gonna start with Alyssa. Hi, Alyssa. Hi, everyone. How are you? Good, if you want. I mean, we're gonna, since we have quite a few tonight, don't feel unless the board has a bunch of questions, don't feel like you need to go into too crazy of detail, but we're excited to have anyone who's willing to volunteer. And if you wanna give us a little background for maybe someone on the board that might not know your background and why you wanna join the Planning Commission. Great, thank you. I do have a full page of notes, but I'll try and be brief and abbreviated because I know not everyone does. For those who don't know, my name's Alyssa Johnson. I live on South Main Street. I was lucky enough to serve for three and a half years as the Economic Development Director for revitalizing Waterbury and the town. So in that work, I had the opportunity to really get to know a number of members of the Planning Commission and to work with them really closely in a professional capacity. I did do a total, I've been to 60 Planning Commission meetings professionally and another seven since I resigned from the position in December. So continues to be a real area of personal and professional interest. I guess the piece for me is that, I feel like I have a strong understanding of the work the Planning Commission is doing. I've been in the room for a lot of the conversations for the past couple of years throughout the zoning rewrite process, which you all have become well immersed in, I would say in the past couple of days or weeks. So I have a strong background to kind of pick up from where that work is and be able to continue to move it forward. I think it's really important to have set of guidelines for the community that are clear and transparent and easy to use in addition to working with the Planning Commission. As part of my role, I also worked with applicants going before the Development Review Board, which was a nice side of seeing the work that the Planning Commission does in planning and creating bylaws and also how it's put into practice and maybe sometimes the disconnect between the two or just beyond the idea of just planning in a general sense, what it actually looks like on the ground. I've really appreciated the Planning Commission's openness to collaboration. I worked with them on a signed bylaw and some other interim regulations and they always were very willing and receptive to hear my comments. So just in a broader sense, I've appreciated that transparency and would want to continue that. I am a young professional and a renter, so I do think that housing in the community is important and I appreciate the opportunity to be involved in planning for how we can have a community that is welcoming to all of the folks who want to live here. My day job now is for the Vermont Council on Rural Development. So I guess my last point would be, I just think Watery has a huge wealth of assets. The community and the folks who live here and volunteer and participate in the community and then also physical things like, Bill will love the wastewater system and EFAD. I work with a lot of communities now who go through a whole deliberation process and what they decide is really important for the future of their community is a water and wastewater system. And we already have it and we want to see it being used well and incorporated into our planning. So that's my last piece, but yes, my overall thing would be I've been deeply involved with the planning commission now that it's not a professional conflict of interest, I would really love to join. And I don't know what your process is, it looks like there is two terms, but I'd be in it for the long haul. So if the three-year term is open, I'd be happy to serve and happy to answer any questions. Thanks. Great, thank you so much. Board members, any questions for Alyssa? No, I'm just kind of glad to see she's sticking around. I think her knowledge and input be valuable to the community. I kind of second that. We've worked with Alyssa so much with RW and I think she would be an excellent addition to the planning commission. Okay, any other board members? That is a good question. Can someone explain the two positions and do we decide on, or I mean, we can certainly ask Steve if he has an interest in one or the other. I'm not sure what the process is there for the two positions. My guess is that somebody left the position, so there's a year left on that term and then the other one is the normal three-year term. The board has the discretion to appoint whoever they want to fill whichever term. So Alyssa's expressed interest in the three-year term. I'm sure she'd take the one-year term if that's all that there was, but it's really the board's choice. Yeah, great. Any other questions for Alyssa or we can move on to Steve? All right, thank you, Alyssa. Hi, Steve. Hi, how y'all doing? Good, same. If you wanna just give a slower background on yourself why you're interested in the planning commission and then if you have an interest in either the one-year or three-year term, and yeah, or is yours. Alrighty, Alyssa will be kind of just the opposite of Alyssa. I've not been to 60 commission meetings or any other such meetings like that here. I've been living here in Waterbury about eight years. Lived in Essex since the late 80s until moved to Kentucky a few years ago, spent a few years down there and then came back and decided to settle here in Waterbury. It's a place we ended up coming to play on weekends and enjoyed when we lived up in Essex.  And so I've been back here about eight years. Just seems like in the last few years with job responsibilities have gotten a little bit lighter. I've got a few fewer nonprofit boards that I serve on. And so it seemed like a good time to kind of get more involved with the community. And in the last year, working from home, now I'm not just here in the evening. I'm here all day long. So it's made much more of a connection. My day gig, I'm a CFO and a facilities guy. I've done a lot of campus planning, campus financial CFOs. Right now I'm the CFO for the Society St. Edmund, which is the order of priests that founded St. Mike's. I work up there on the St. Mike's campus. And I also have a financial consulting business on the side. In the role, my role is on campus. I've ended up doing a bunch of campus planning. I've worked really closely with select boards, councils on large construction projects that involved campuses and also involved the communities that we lived in. I was a CFO at VSAC when we did the downtown development up in Winooski. So depending on how you look at the behemoth there on the traffic circle, that was either good work or work that you don't like, but it was a big community development project that I was involved with. So I've always had an interest and kind of an affinity for some of these kinds of community and campus development plans. When I saw Carla send out the note on front porch forum a few weeks ago, like I said, I've been kind of looking for ways to be involved. I ran for JP last time, so I'm at Justice of the Peace for the community now. And this looked like a good opportunity to take a look at what was out there. The Planning Commission, as far as the zoning, working the regulations, really I think providing a foundation for kind of good and appropriate growth. It just seemed like a good match for my interests since it was open. It seemed like the one to take a look at and kind of jump into the ring. So I'm happy to be able to be involved more in the community more in some of these kind of planning aspects that I feel like I do have pretty good background in. And then as far as the terms, Alyssa is eager for the long one, that's great. I'd be happy with the shorter one and then to see what happens the next year as the next year comes around. Great, thank you very much, Steve. Yeah, I mean, I have a question or two, but I'll let the rest of the board go first if they'd like, got any questions for Steve? Yeah, Steve, having grown up here in the state and seeing change from when I was a young guy, boy till now, when I was younger, I came accustomed to the ruralness of Vermont and now I'm in the construction business because back when I was fresh out of high school, there was really only two opportunities back then. One was farming, the other one was construction. Vermont hadn't been opened up to the rest of the opportunities of the world. So for me, it's always been a struggle, double-edged sword kind of thing between earning a living in the business that I'm in and seeing my landscape around me disappear. From your perspective, how do you feel about development in Vermont and our future growth and where we should kind of should be heading and what we should be protecting in? Yeah, that's a good question. I grew up in a real small town in upstate New York, much smaller than Waterbury. So I'm a rural guy myself. And when I first came to the late 80s, it was to work at St. Mike's. I'd never been to Vermont. I was from the other side of the lake a few hours but hadn't traveled much, hadn't been here. Got here and loved Vermont, the ruralness, the kind of controlled aspects of growth, the kind of making every effort to preserve to preserve the environment, certainly. And I've been a sustainability VP at one of the colleges, one of the really green colleges. And so have been really interested in that aspect and had forests that I've worked with. So it's a balance. I'd love, it would be lovely to have everything stay rural in the way that we'd like it. It's also not practical and not fair, frankly, as we get a little bit older and we've kind of found our places to be and our ways to live, we've got to provide opportunities for my kids, one of whom still lives here in the community and struggles to find housing and things like that. So I think that one of the things that's attracted me to Vermont, I've moved here three times. So I came here the first time, moved away for a job, came back within two years, took this job in Kentucky because it was a sustainability job and really an interesting place and was there for about six years and then it was time to move back to Vermont. I keep coming back for that really wonderful balance of the outdoors, of the environment. And a place that is active and is kind of culturally relevant, especially for such small towns. We've kind of got the best of both worlds as far as the outdoors and the ability to enjoy arts and be able to support local businesses that are doing things. So I'm very much interested in that balance that I would hate for us to just kind of revert to what I've seen in some other parts of the country, whereas if you've got a piece of land, you can build anything you want and they do and it gets out of control quickly. What I've seen here with the focus I've done a little bit of reading and research on where we are with the updates of the plans for especially the downtown. And I think it's an approach. It's an approach that balances the need and the desire to grow intelligently and appropriately with still really preserving what we've got. That's to your point about moving away and coming back as fools that are too stubborn to ever leave regardless of the circumstances. We have a nickname for people that move away and call them boomerangs. They always come back, you know? Once they get a taste of Vermont, they can't get away from it. So even though they try, they always come back. That's it. The grass is green or even the middle of January. Yeah, for sure. That's all I had, Mark, thanks. Anybody else on the board? Steve, you said you lived in Essex. Any opinion on what you saw that Essex was doing differently than Waterbury that in good or bad way? And then I guess my question to you is that, I think housing is something that I've been a big proponent. I'm an employer in town. I watched the struggle of my employees find housing. I got hit up today with an adult friend who can't find housing and wants to live in the community, but it struggles to find it. I think there are some solutions there that I think some of this work on the zoning rewrite will actually hopefully entice some development in the downtown area that moves the density, hopefully downtown and keeps it from sprawling too hard. But I think we definitely have a vacancy rate issue that I would love to see the Planning Commission really take on and make a plan for a five, 10-year goal of additional units, I think to approach that problem. But any other thoughts on housing? I think the other thing too there is that grand list growth over the last couple of years really helped keep our tax rates somewhat stable and I think that that's an important thing that we can't forget. But yeah, any thoughts on the housing, specific housing ideas?  It's hard to see. I mean, one of the things I see back in Essex, in Essex Junction, we lived in the junction, was what was that nice little downtown area. It's hard to see it right now because of the density of growth that's happening there. And yet, at the same time, there's clearly a need for housing there, especially for affordable housing. And so I think that that's an appropriate way to go. The attempt to create a downtown for Essex up the road on 15 is kind of a curious one that I'm not sure works because it's still so vehicle-centric. And that's one of the challenges with a town like Essex, the town of Essex that really doesn't have a downtown. It's kind of spread out. That centralized kind of downtown development planning doesn't really have an option or an opportunity to take until you've got a certain density already there. And so it's interesting to see what they're doing up there. I think that it's essential. We need to be doing it, but we need to find ways to do it well and try and find a way to entice and encourage folks to create housing that is multi-family, but also that allows for different income levels. It's the young professionals, the ones that you see in the front porch forum, the ones that I see and I hear about that really are struggling to find places here that are affordable. Well, they're not finding places at all right now, but the affordability is a real issue. And if there are ways that we can use some of our planning regulations and whatever kind of carrots that we have along with sticks to encourage mixed use and mixed income housing, I think that it behooves us to do that. It makes the community stronger. I don't think that any of us want to end up with a community that only the richest can live in. The richest and those who are already here. Thank you for the response. Any other board members have any questions or comments? And then do we need someone on the board to make a motion to place in the two terms? Anyone have any other comments or questions for either candidate or I would entertain a motion for placement. Just to comment before we make a motion, it seems like Steve was willing to do the one year term and Alyssa would be the three year term. Is that okay with both of you? Good question, Mike. I was just thinking the same thing. Which one they wanted. That's fine with me. Works for me too. Therefore, I'll make a motion to appoint Alyssa Johnson to the three year position on the planning commission and Steve Coucher to the one year position on the planning commission. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Great. Welcome to the planning commission. Thank you so much for your volunteering and we look forward to working with you. Very much. Thanks and see you next week for the interim bylaws. Thank you all. Appreciate it. All right. We are moving on to the. Development review board alternative. Alternative. One position ending April 30th, 2024. Joseph works. Where are you at in my grid? There you are. Hi, Joseph. Same, same thing. Give us a little background about yourself while you're interested in the position. And if the board, any questions feel free to follow up with questions for Joseph. All right. My name is a Joseph works. I live here in Waterbury center. I've been here since 2011. I moved from Vermont from New Jersey. There's a lot of places I could have retired to, but we decided on Vermont. For a lot of reasons. I worked, I came up here and started at the alchemist. I worked there for eight years. And then I left there and then I, I worked for the United States postal service. Delivering all those Amazon packages that. Everybody has been ordering since the pandemic hit. And I just looking for a way, since I was 16, I've always served my community, mostly in the public safety sector. So I just looking for a way to serve the community. And a friend of mine is on the development review board. And he said there was an opening here. And maybe there's a good way to start. To serve the community. I don't have the experience that a lot of you folks have and planning and things like that, but I'm willing to learn. And I'm just looking for an opportunity to serve some way to help make Waterbury. A better community. Great. Thank you so much. Board members, any questions for Joseph? I have a question for Joseph. Hi, Joseph. I have an affinity because I was an XDRB member. It's a very worthwhile board to be on. But question, I know you said you didn't have any experience. In planning. Do you have any kind of a good. Grasp of construction and plans and those kind of things. Because you'll be reviewing those kind of documents on the DRB. Yeah, I was a fire inspector in New Jersey. And so there was plan review there. Pre planning for fire department. Fires and stuff like that. I was a fire inspector. So I understand the construction and, but it's more on the fire. And I worked for a carpenter for several years. And so, you know, I know how to take things apart and put things back together. And in regards to that. And I, I've seen in my community where I came from. Good things that happened with planning and some things that didn't. Good things. So, I mean, I have a lot to learn. I understand that. Thank you. That's a good way to go on is go on as an alternate. This is a matter of fact, I know from the DRB a lot of times, we've used the alternates when, you know, a primary member, you wind up sitting in and learning. So that's a really good way. Thank you for that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Any other board members have any questions for Joseph? Yeah, I will take a motion. I don't have any questions either. Thank you for considering. Volunteering and I'll take a motion. If anyone would like to make one. I'll move to approve Joseph works backer for the position. On the development review board as an alternate. Ending April 30th, 2024. Second. Second. Further discussion. All those in favor, please say aye. Welcome to the DRB. Right. Thank you. I look forward to the opportunity to serve. Thanks for stepping up. Thanks. We'll have fun. Moving on. It looks like we have a similar position as the planning commission. We have three positions. Ending on April 30th, 2024. Another one ending on April 30th, 2022. And one ending on April 30th. 2023. What's that? Oh, that's right. Okay. So we have three open positions, but two candidates tonight. Correct. Good afternoon. Hi, how are you? All right. How are you all doing? Good. You were in the meeting, I think, for the other interviews. So, yeah, give us a little background about yourself. I know. The board and we've interacted with you a little bit about some issue with. Frisbee golf, but yeah, give us a background. Well, worked pretty closely with the wreck board and the select board since November. I hope we're really since over the past year. But I just think it only makes sense. And it'd be more effective to just be on the committee, but in terms of my personal experience, been around time for 35 years. I, I coached on the wreck fields for. I think we're getting some feedback. Maybe. Are you in the same room? Sorry. I heard it too. It happens when you have two people on a zoom. That's okay. I think we're all right. But anyways, at 16, I was coaching you soccer and I ran the. And I'm concession stand for the football youth football. I coached in this town on all the fields. I coached for eight, seven or eight years. I've been involved with youth on the middle school golf. I helped. I was there the day that we put the playground in at Hope Davey. I raised my kids out in the mouth of use area here. I fished in the window ski. Made a, actually I with Julie Roy, we landscape. The gazebo park down night. That is, no, that's the, what's that? Rusty Parker. Yeah, right. Rusty Parker. We actually landscape that with the children's room about 15, 20 years ago. So. I've just always, uh, I really value recreation and outdoor activity, especially in, um, in younger folks, but it's also good for us as well. But, uh, so anyways, that's, that's kind of where I'm coming from. Okay. Um, questions from the board. Is there anything outstanding Tom that, um, that you'd like to see either added to the town or. Um, I think, um, there's a lot of work being done now with, um, Hope Davey and that seems like it's moving in a very positive direction. I think, um, especially with COVID, it's really highlighted the value of outdoor space and any community. And, um, I feel like any town that you go to when they, you know, you know, you'll see all ages making use of outdoor facilities and I just think it's a real, uh, I'm for positive change and for, um, whatever needs to be done to try to improve the facilities that we have. Uh, create as many opportunities for people as we can. Um, I think it's, I think it's, I think it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, uh, create as many opportunities for people as we possibly can. Any other board members have any questions? I guess, um, my one question is just, and it'll be the same for, for Meg, just how to navigate. I know we've had some issues with the disc golf. Obviously I hope that we can come to a solution on that, but how do you navigate joining the rec committee when maybe there's an open issue and how do you try to approach that being on the committee and working through it? Cause I know Nick's been involved with that. Um, but. I've sought the involvement of the disc golf community for months and, uh, this morning I emailed, uh, David frothing him asking him to attend the meeting this evening, which he did. And he asked me, what about Clayton Davis? And I said, well, I talked to him and he has not wanted to be involved. Um, and he told me that, uh, on the course about two or three weeks ago, but he came tonight with David frothing him. Neither one of them would have come if I had not reached out to them. So it's not about petty individual, you know, best interests. It's about what is best overall for the community. And that's, that's where I'm passionate.  And you have to be collaborative. If you want to move some of these, uh, things forward, you deal with it with a select board all the time. Um, so. I have risen above a lot of the, uh, the differences in outreach and proactive, um, interactions and that would be no different if I, um, an actual rec committee member. Yeah. You're coming on the plan for the future. I think it's. COVID, I think he's definitely put people outside a lot more than previously, but we saw with the skate park, uh, you know, we got, we had some issues with noise and, and, and also just maintenance of a skate park that was kind of a, a subgroup created it. And then there wasn't really an ongoing maintenance plan. And I think the rec committee can really help Waterbury plan for growth. And, um, it'll be interesting to see exactly how the skate park, um, design or idea comes to fruition. But I think, you know, there is something to be said for trying to figure out where things might need to go if they're not working where they currently are. So I think, um, there are some options there, but it really is helpful to have a group like the rec committee fully focused on, on those activities and helping us as a board. Navigate those needs and wants and, and we can try to help figure out if there's funding available. And if not what we might need from the community to, to create some of those items, but, um, any other board members have any questions? I do have a question. Um, I don't mean to be disrespectful or anything, but I, and again, I don't know both of you, but Tom and mega, you are of the same household. Yes, we are. Okay. The only reason I just bring that up, I always get concerned with any board or any kind of committee with multiple people from a same household as to, you know, how that could control voting. So maybe if both of you could comment on that, if you, you've discussed that with the recreation committee chair. Well, I, you know, it's easy from a distance to think that people are joined at the hip and thought, but we actually, we have very different opinions on many different things. And if you spent any time with us, you would be more than well aware of that. And, uh, we have quite a few differences, um, even around, uh, what we're doing with the rec committee. So whether we're, you know, on the actual committee members or that we're, you know, working, uh, in collaboration with the rec committee, um, that will, that will be no different. I can relate to that. Me and my wife will also have very different opinions on things. So I put, so as the, as the, uh, rec committee chair, I'm sure they're aware and if you've discussed that with them, that role, Frank has encouraged us to join. That's been very involved with Frank.  I mean, yeah, on the committee and, um, and that's, and we hadn't even really thought about it, but given that there's openings and given that there's an interest in an ongoing collaborative process, then it seemed like it only made sense if we're going to be doing it anyways. Understand. That being your answer to, I think I'll just go right to Meg since she has not an opportunity to speak. And then, um, we can maybe the board can ask either one, any questions after, after she's done. Go ahead, Meg. All right. Hi everybody. Um, I'm Meg Valdor and, um, I'm interested in serving on the rec committee because recreation in the town of Waterbury has really been the thing that I have loved the very best. I raised two children here and from the time my daughter was nine months old, I guess she was in the shallow end of the Waterbury pool. So she went on to actually become the head lifeguard, um, swim team and all that stuff. My son as well. So we were really involved with that. And then, um, yeah, all the teams, the softball and the soccer and, and basically anything that there was for kids to do in town, my kids benefited more than I can ever say. And I have like gratitude to this town forever for the opportunities that it affords to young kids. And that even includes the library and the programs and all that stuff. So I've been really drawn to the rec committee, uh, because I really have a passion for, um, really opportunities for young children, uh, families, and actually all age groups. And I think Tom, you know, just started to say that he and I are very different people. Um, we're not joined at the hip at all in terms of stuff that we're interested in and passionate about, although we have, you know, commonality, of course, um, I'm a public health professional, um, now retired, but I spent a lot of my, uh, working life actually working with communities and especially disadvantaged groups trying to facilitate, you know, lots and lots of really, uh, different sort of viewpoints, sort of, uh, how can I say competing, um, wants and needs and trying to find solutions. So truly that's where I come from very solution oriented. Um, in terms of being in town here, I served on the children's room board, uh, when my kids were young and, um, very active with that. I'm a member of already now, which is the garden club. And I'm really excited and hoping that we can really go forward with pollinator gardens and really doing a lot more bringing, you know, all sorts of people into the outdoors and also rejuvenating some of our natural resources. So that's something that I'm super passionate about. Um, I became a Tai Chi instructor. So mindfulness for kids. I sub in the schools. I'm involved with mindfulness and recreation for kids in the schools. And I've also done Tai Chi classes at the library and at the senior center. Um, yeah. And basically I'm just really passionate about, uh, the outdoors in general and about everybody having access to you know, as many activities and natural places as they can. So. That's, um, you know, really what brings me and more recently, it's true. I've been involved with, um, you know, the hope Davey natural area. Um, and that's really been really a process. It's been really eye-opening. And I have just the utmost respect for the rec committee. And I think that we're really poised to, you know, make some really positive changes on all kinds of fronts. And it's really good working across lots of different groups of people. And, um, you know, we're committed to that. So I'm committed to that. And I'm saying we, because the people who live in this house are very much committed to that too. So. I'm hoping that I can serve the community in a more, you know, formal sort of position and go forward. And I'm super excited about all the stuff that Nick is doing in terms of really growing programs for kids. Um, would really like to, you know, have a hand and a voice and in guiding those efforts forward. So. I think it'd be great. Great. Thank you very much. Um, board members questions for Meg. Yeah, Meg. I really appreciate what you said about being solution oriented. And I'm curious if there are some opportunities in town that you particularly see, um, that you either have ideas for or that you've just identified as maybe, um, problems for lack of a better word that you would like to help find solutions for. Thanks, Danny. That's a great question. Well, just because the hope Davey natural areas so much in conversation right now. Um, I was actually involved way back when, when Ben and Jerry's put the first. Path through there, like built that footbridge and then the path. So we were actually just at a community meeting. Uh, this evening and started talking about that. So in terms of an opportunity, like speaking with young families, and I think it's exciting that there's so many young people, you know, who are moving in and I see lots of, you know, little kids and stuff. It's just great. I'd like to really find some ways that we can bring young families and young people, small children, like back out into the hope Davey natural area. Okay. Very much a shared sort of a situation, but it's been really interesting talking to different families and meeting people who are out there. And I don't know a lot of people.  I don't want to get outside, but, um, Yeah, I'd really love to see the community, um, Start to do some new planning about how some of these areas can be used across wider sorts of people, not to take things away from groups that are using them. I think we need to preserve all of our activities, but I do think that we have the opportunity in 2021. And I think that we have the opportunity to take things together. And I think that we have the opportunity to take things together really heavily, right? Like in our community across the state, across the nation, right? Like people are outside and people are recreating. So. I really think that we have an opportunity to sort of relook at where we're at, you know, kind of take the polls and be mindful about engaging people appropriately. And really finding a path forward, you know, to the community. And then, you know, I think that we're in the same place as we were before. So. I hope that answered your question. I'd like to answer that question. I. Consider two areas. For a potential growth of town facilities. And that's one with, um, In the area of disabilities to have more disability access to the current resources. And I think that's one of the things that I would like to point out is that, you know, if you go to any hotel and it's happening across the country, there's one pair of lawyers that are sending people to pools. Just to show that they don't have a lift. For disabled people. And what they do is they threaten every hotel. And that's why every hotel has a lift for the pool. But, uh, you know, there is not a lift at the water. So, um, I just think there should be some way for wheelchairs or whatever to be able to get out and enjoy, um, you know, special needs, uh, youth and whatever, even the elderly should be able to get out and enjoy some flowers and fresh air and whatnot. Um, the second area that I see potential for. Is diversity. And, um, I've spent a lot of time on hope Davey. I'm a 55% male and there is very little, um, there's very little diversity and there's, there's no, uh, disability access at all. Um, so I think there's a ton of room right there to open up, uh, uh, town resources to a subpopulation that, um, uh, doesn't have as many opportunities as it might be able to have. have. Any other questions for Meg or Tom? There are three positions available with different time frames. Any particular interest in specific terms? I don't, I don't think we, I don't really have an opinion about which one. Right, I don't either, Mark. I'm wondering if the town, you know, would have a, a preference with your experience filling many spots. I'd be willing to serve in whatever capacity people felt was most appropriate. Looks like we have a one and two and a three. Is that correct, Carla?  Let us, do you have a particular, I don't think both of you can be the same because of how they start your term. So I'll let her pick first. Okay, if I have to pick first, I guess I would pick the two-year term. All right, I'll take the one. Okay. I will entertain. Oh, go ahead, Mike. I have one more question. Thanks, Tom, for addressing this. You kind of stole the words out of my mouth with your comments about diversity and inclusion. That was going to be one of my questions, but how would you also make town, either one of you, town recreation programs more inclusive on an economic basis for, you know, lower income people?  And you're going to just have to gear up in a whole different manner and have specific programs aimed at populations. Maybe you can work with the school, the school resources and special ed departments and whatnot and try and, you know, identify specific need populations that might be, might be best served. Thank you. And I have a small answer to that. Sure. I mean, basically, 100% trying to be as inclusive as possible and available to everybody. I have to say that I don't know enough about the funding right now for how, you know, how certain things actually are supported, but I see that as, you know, joining the committee and having a chance to actually learn about that and then, you know, making a focus. I can speak as a parent long ago. It was really, really difficult and I think it's the same now for folks, right? Like there's not enough spaces maybe for everybody who wants to be involved and then of course, you know, other factors come into play that people can't access programs. But I'd really love to see Waterbury as I'm sure we all would to be able to be available to anybody and everybody who would like to access that. So that would be, you know, like a very much a top focus. But how we do that, I don't feel like I have the information to say. And let's do it. Yeah. Thanks. We all need to, we all need to learn and figure out and, you know, if you're on the board, the more you learn, the more you could help help the community. Absolutely. Yeah, and answer some of that. Nick will be able to answer a lot of those questions. Some things are funded by use fees, some of them are funded. You know, usually the rec program in a hole runs in the red. But it's always nice to see Nick's done a great job of creating some programs that have seemed to balance cost versus on both sides, whether it's our cost to run the program and then on the other side, use your costs and trying to keep things affordable. We have struggled a little bit of, you know, facilities and not having sized facilities that might allow for some work, as I know that some people use, you know, the summer programs as a form of childcare and we have, at times, and I don't know if it's gotten any better. I don't think it has in terms of use of, you know, thatcher brook or other schools. You know, we've always kind of talked about those facilities as sitting there, but not necessarily been able to utilize those maybe as much as we'd like to hope and see. But I think there's a lot of reasons on why that might be the case, but Nick or Bill could probably speak to that better than maybe even some of us. But yeah, it's a, it's, and then of course, like special project stuff, you know, we will try to fund things and it's always great to have a plan and really know ahead of time where we're trying to take something so we can budget well ahead of time because budget seasons always has a lot of asks and we hope to try to take care of things as much as we can, but sometimes it's difficult to fund it as we're trying to control spending and taxation. So yeah, any other board members have anything or I would entertain a motion? I move to, what's the word? A point, nominate, a point, approve. Meg for the two-year term and Tom for the one-year term on the Recreation Committee. Checking that motion. Okay, it's been moved in second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Hi. Are we able to say thank you? Welcome. Are you in the dark? I wanted you to say that. We can thank you too. I can't find any light. No, it's okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. We look forward to your input on the committee and look forward to working with you and hopefully we can make Waterbury work for all ages and yeah, thank you. That sounds great. Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much. Mark, I have a quick question and I'm not sure if it's for you or Carla or Bill, but so what happens to this last position that's open? Is that something that can still be filled later if there's someone that's interested and then we would go through this process at another meeting? Yes, we don't, you don't have to be put into the, the terms can end and it can be a vacancy and then if we find somebody who's interested in the role or multiple people that want the same role, we can interview on a point. So it doesn't have to be specifically when terms end, but it's always nice to have somebody take over right when a term ends or some people don't fulfill their whole term as mentioned earlier and, you know, a vacancy will be created and we try to fill those positions. Danny, many times you'll see commissions and boards, you know, do have vacancies and that's just the reality is finding volunteers willing to step up and that's always, you know, a project for any, any of these different committees.  Alright, thank you very much for your volunteer and we're going to move on to Conservation Commission. Thank you. Thank you. One position ending April 30th, 2025. Kelsey, Applegate, where are you? And I hope there you are. How are you tonight? Good, how are you? Good. I think you were here for the other interviews. So give us a little background on yourself and why you're interested in the Conservation Commission. Yeah, so I moved here recently after separating from the military. So I did, I did five years as an airport manager for the Air Force active duty. So moved around a lot and finally got the chance to choose where I wanted to live. And I was really drawn to Waterbury for, like, for the access to the outdoors really was kind of one of the main things. And this, you know, we have it, we have access to a bunch of mountains for skiing and mountain biking and hiking. A lot of super fun stuff out here. But we also have this cool like a price ski kind of culture and a lot of good food and seems like a lot of really good community. So when I moved here, I really wanted to get back to the community. So I, you know, I saw this on French front porch forum and really wanted to volunteer. And I think this commission would be really good for me because I'm working on transitioning toward like a conservation career, something with environmental justice. So it's a big passion of mine, you know, both for the just the beauty of the outdoors and also for the importance of the environment on people's quality of life. So I'm, you know, I'm a big skier and just always, always outside if I can be gardener and big hiker for sure. So I'm passionate about helping people access the outdoors, but also, you know, conserving the environment for like for quality life for, you know, I think people have a right to clean water and clean air. So just from moving around a lot up until now, I've got exposure to a lot of interesting communities and different ways of doing things. But I'm also here with, you know, a fresh perspective, I want to, I want to volunteer, I want to like get to know the community and get to know what waterberry needs for me. And then hopefully use some of my project management and planning kind of experience with the military, but also get my hands dirty.  I want to help plan, but I really want to build and conserve and get to know the local businesses and see if we can build relationships with them to make waterberry, you know, to give waterberry good access to outdoors, basically. Okay, well, thank you very much. Welcome to waterberry and thank you for your service. Any questions for Kelsey? Kelsey, as a former member of the conservation commission, former chair of the conservation commission, one, thank you for your interest. But I do like to ask, how do you feel that we could achieve a balance between development and conservation? Yeah, that's a good question. That's a really good question. Yeah, that's definitely something that, like, that I was involved in in the military. The balance is different in the military, because the mission always wins. So, you know, if there's a wetland that's affected by flying operations, sometimes that's, there's not a whole lot we can do about that because we still have to fly the jets. But I was involved in a lot of projects to, like, to move wetlands and do studies to figure out exactly how we're impacting the environment. So, I have been involved in that balance before. I'm definitely excited to be on the civilian side now so we can, I think we can achieve a better balance in our town here. But, you know, I think there are definitely a lot of factors like the wild, that's crucial, like wild spaces are crucial to fighting climate change. So, they have value in and of themselves. But the, but people interacting with nature I think is super, super important because we are animals and we can't survive without nature. We can't survive without just the raw natural resources without the food and water and air. But also, I think that humans can't thrive without access to greenery. There's tons of studies that show that that's so important to our mental and physical health. So, to me, that's the balance. I think if we think of it from a human standpoint, I really like what folks were saying about diverse access to spaces from the Recreation Committee. So, I think they'll be awesome to work with. But I think thinking of it from a human standpoint and a long-term kind of standpoint, it's never going to benefit us to bulldoze down all the forests in our area. That might be good for short-term gain, but long-term we need those spaces for our future generations. Thank you for your answer and thank you for your military service. I appreciate it. Any other board members have any questions for Kelsey? If not, entertain a motion. I move to appoint Kelsey Applegate to the Conservation Commission for one position ending April 30th, 2025. Second. That's a long term. We already have a lot of work done in that time. Thank you. Moved and seconded. Any further discussion? I just wanted to say that if I started asking questions, I wouldn't stop because I have huge concerns about our open landscape and the way we treat this planet. Too big a discussion to have tonight for sure. Oh, yeah. Moved and seconded. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Kelsey, welcome to the Conservation Commission. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right, moving on. Tree committee. Mike, I am not going to try to do your last name, but if you want to tell us how to say your last name. Thank you. It's Mike Losciavo and thanks for having me, guys. The main reason I think why I'm here is hopefully to provide some tactical efforts for how we could bridge that gap between conservation and development. First and foremost, my mother was a tree committee member prior. She just retired. Karen Maurice. She was also known as Carrie Gray. But I grew up in the White River Junction area, a little bit south of here. I went to UVM and kind of like a boomerang. I left the state. I joined up with Staples. I joined their commercial and corporate division and their outside sales division. And basically, if I was willing to relocate, I was, I had a 15-year career ahead of me. And I had a chance to live in Philadelphia, Buffalo, Rochester, just north of Pittsburgh. I lived in New York City, just outside of New York City in Hoboken. About seven years ago, I had a hard look in the mirror and I just didn't feel really good about myself and what I was doing. So I came back home to Vermont to visit my roots. And I ended up starting a landscape company. But we focused mostly in gardening. And my mother was very inspirational to me at that. Who would ever think that a parent would almost become a business partner. But she helped me understand how living organisms work and how they're dependent on one another. And I would always, she's a master gardener and she's going to make things grow incredibly well. A lot of you have had a chance to work with her in the garden. She's in the garden club. She does her best to be active. She's got quite a lot of gardens at home that keep me quite busy. But the relationship between trees and shrubs and mushrooms and fungus and the dependency that wildlife has. For example, the Goldwing warbler. That one particular bird migrates a long, long way. And it needs to have food just like when we drive for a road trip. We need to have food to get to Florida. Well, we're down to, I don't know, I don't know what the number, I think it's around 4%. But we have about 4% of original forests. When you look at America, these are the forests that were here before we came over and bulldozed it all over and tried to replanting it and failed miserably. But hopefully we're learning. And I started a gardening company and I've had the chance to work with Woody. I take care of the roundabout in town. If you guys ever take a look at that, I'm sure you do. See it each and every day. Part of the reason why it is one of the best in the state is because of how well it was planned and how it's being taken care of. And you know, there's a lot of work involved in gardens, as many of you know. And you know, the decisions that you make each and every season matter. The things that we plan matter. You know, I used to think that sometimes just clearing out an area and putting a hedge is maybe the right way to do it. But those natural systems that are in place matter. And I've been, you know, for example, like the Shutesville corridor, these animal corridors and these animal migration paths, it's important that each and every city have tree wardens, assisted tree wardens and they work to fight disease. Steve has a great program going with the tree community right now. The Emerald Ashport is really getting involved and getting this town involved so we can get federal funds, state funds put into place.  And there's a lot of people that play Frisbee golf that sometimes leave things out on the course and talk about collaboration. And that was a great question that Mike asked Kelsey about the balance between conservation development. Because guys, we are in the red zone. We need to figure this out. And there's a lot of towns that are figuring it out. If you look at Essex Junction and Burlington, and there's a lot about the state that I don't know. I've been back for about six years. But part of the reason why I'm in Waterbury is my mother has been here since 2001. And it has grown tremendously. And I love it here. I love the community. I love how small it is, but how big it is. And I also love the fact that you have a lot of attestators that come here. And we can be a great example for them. And how you can mix development and conservation. So these are just things that make me passionate about what I do. And I'm also thankful for having you guys time. And Steve also for having me apply for the tree committee. Thank you very much. Yeah, I mean, obviously, I think you're more than qualified for the tree committee on the roundabout is gorgeous. Any board members have any questions for Mike? Before you ask a question, I just want to thank the select board too, though, for agreeing back when we built the roundabout that we wanted to take care of it. And we wanted to have enough money in the budget to pay for the landscape. And it's a gateway to the community. Mike does a great job there. But it's the commitment that the board made on the recommendation of the staff. And Mike is also takes care of some of the landscaping here at this building.  But I just wanted to say that it talented people. But we've got to make the commitment of resources as well. And I appreciate that we've done that because I get a lot of positive comments from a lot of the people that Mike was just talking about out of state about how well this entrance looks. Well, if what the exciting thing is that the pollinator garden that's right next to the library, which was installed last year, this will be its first season. So no pressure. But we certainly would love to have that contract again. Let me just look right. Any other questions for Mike or I will take a motion. No, I just wanted to say that Mike, whenever I get into any type of a conversation about climate change and you always get varying opinions one way or the other, I just like to remind people that mother nature does fine just fine without humans. But humans don't do very well without mother mother nature. And my, you know, everybody's worried about the carbons that we're putting in the atmosphere. And a micro turn is, it's just as big for the Earth's surface itself. And I tell people that here's how I try to explain it to them. I say to them, imagine earth being a living being, which it is the surface of the earth, kind of like a person is a living being. And what if I took the porch to half of your body and burned it beyond recognition? How well do you suppose your body would function after that? We are the most invasive species on the planet. Appreciate you coming on board. Glad to be here. All right, anyone want to make a motion? I make a motion to approve Mike Glosciavo to the tree committee for a one year, one position that ends April 30th, 2024. Seconded. All right, it's been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? All of those in favor? Please say hi. I'm going to recognize the chat here. Maroney, there was an opportunity for public comment. Zoom has created a little bit of a different scenario that allows the public to kind of throw in comments into the chat. Obviously, at any point in a meeting, you can speak to the topics at hand. The public session is for anything that's not on the agenda. I guess I would ask, I'm not sure what to do here. I'm trying to read it as we're going. It seems like we're only missed the public session up at 7.03. I don't know if the board wants to recognize Maroney so we can speak or we could speak to it on item D on the select board business. Well, you're looking at the, you're looking at the request, Mark. I think you've got better position to judge that or not than we do. It's like maybe it would go well under that item on the agenda unless timing is an issue if he's not able, if Maroney's not able to stay. But otherwise, it seems like that would be a good time to have that coming. Roni, can you stick around and speak to what you're putting in on the agenda? Yes. First of all, I apologize. I didn't know this was on the agenda. I thought I missed it. I noticed the public comment was only five minutes and I thought that, you know, so I'm happy to stay on. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, we've been trying to make sure the public's aware that they can speak during any item, not just the public section. So we will go to you when we get to item D. Right now we're going to go to item B, which is the amount of property tax interest to be charged on May 1st. Yeah, so I apologize. This is on here again. A couple of meetings ago we brought to you the fact that, you know, interest was ready to go. There was a motion made back in November. We had a long discussion about it and ultimately the board decided that we would kind of turn on the accrual switch for interest on April 1st and it would be posted to bills that go out to delinquent tax payers on May 1st. I thought I heard someone mark in particular suggest that it should be 1% given that it's, you know, difficult. He asked how much more delinquent taxes are outstanding and I gave that report a couple of weeks ago. It hasn't changed much. But ultimately we even went back and listened to the meeting and the motion just said start the accrual of interest on April 1st and the first bill goes out on May 1st, but we didn't decide whether it was 1% or 1.5%. The normal thing that happens is when the taxes are due in November, if they're late, 1% is added in the day after they're due and another 1% interest is charged on December 1st and then beginning on January 1st of the following year goes to 1.5%. We've waived it for a long time, so the board really needs to decide whether it's 1% or 1.5%. Anyone have a thought on that? I would just say the only thing I would lean toward 1% for the fact that these are still tough times and just another thing we can do to help. Anyone else? I feel the same way. I support that. Anyone have an opinion otherwise or I think the board will give 1%? Somebody needs to make a motion. I make a motion to approve that property tax interest to be charged on May 1st to be 1%. All those in favor or any further discussion? All those in favor please say aye. Hi. Sorry, I was muted. Discussion of item C is discussion of interim bylaws public hearing to be held April 26th at 7 p.m. The reason we added this to the agenda was that we kind of were presented the interim bylaws at the last meeting and I don't think a lot of the board had an opportunity to go through and we were going to give an opportunity for the board to discuss. We've already publicly warned the regs so we can't make any changes this evening but it's more discussion on anything that we felt we might be willing to talk about beforehand. So I'm not sure exactly. Go ahead, Bill. Yeah, it was really a chance for the select board to, as you say, have a couple of weeks to read it over. If there were any questions or concerns, Steve is here with us. Steve did most of the drafting of the interim bylaw. The planning commission did weigh in. So this is just an opportunity for the select board to ask a few questions or get some clarification so that when the public hearing comes up that you're kind of fully informed about it. Someone did ask if it was actually illegal to talk about this before the public hearing. I did reach out to David Roode, the attorney at Stittle Page and Fletcher, who's been helping Steve with this and he said exactly what Mark just said. You can freely talk about this, discuss it amongst yourself, ask questions of Steve. You just can't make any changes what's been worn. So you're free to have that. Steve is here with us tonight from home, I think. Go ahead. Okay. So as has been said, we've had the public hearing. Warren, can everybody hear me okay? I'm usually on your meetings from work but we do have good wifi here. So I think what I would suggest is next Monday at the public hearing I'll do a more thorough walkthrough of the bylaws for both the select board and the public and there'll be plenty of opportunities to provide detailed questions at that point. I think where we left off when we had a discussion about this when you decided to warn the public hearing is a couple of the areas where the planning commission did some work on the draft subsequent to the earlier draft that went to a public hearing back in February. And that has to do with the thresholds for size for various uses when they're when it goes from a permitted use which just requires site plan review to a conditional use which requires both permitted and conditional use review by the development review board. So I think that's one issue. We have three uses where the planning commission is recommending putting an upper limit on size of the use just in this downtown zoning district the proposed downtown zoning district and those are food and beverage manufacturing which includes breweries and they're recommending an upper limit of 4,000 square feet for that for those uses in this district that light industry and then a specialty school which is basically a private school. So the other aspect to which we touched on earlier has to do with the maximum building footprint and this is a dimensional requirement and I can also share the screen if that's helpful if there are particular areas that you have questions about after after going through but they are recommending a maximum building footprint size so we can talk talk a bit about that as well I think it's a 5,000 square feet we can take take a look and I can provide you some more comment they've done quite a bit of analysis of existing buildings in this area. So and I wanted to reiterate to the board that when you have your public hearing next week and take public comment and and have a chance to review any comment that's written sent by email or in writing you can make substantive changes to this draft before you adopt it that that is allowable under state statute it's different than permanent bylaws where when you hold your public hearing if you have substantive changes there has to be a second or subsequent public hearing on a revised draft but the interim bylaws process is meant to be expedited so it is appropriate talk about you know aspects that that you might be interested in in making changes in at some point so I think with that mark just to soon let the select board guide guide this if it'd be helpful I can try a screen share with the draft itself if there are particular places that you'd like to take a look yeah I think the screen share would be fine I actually believe I might have a conflict so I think I need to recuse myself from discussion and become a member of the public for this portion of the meeting so Chris if you could take it away okay or does anybody have any questions there pertaining to the interim zoning regs at this time I have questions about the most recent email we got um from I think the group that mark is was I just talking yeah I can hear you we can hear you um do I ask those questions now or at that public meeting just for clarification on some of their changes okay um so can I have an example of what food and beverage in close place is 10,000 square feet just so I have like a reference uh sure so um the alchemist brewery on crossroad is approximately a 10,000 square foot facility so that was allowed in there as actually a light industrial use back when they moved out of the downtown after tropical storm Irene so that gives you an idea of the scale there the um did you want any other examples not how mark how large is the footprint of your building on boundaries or the relay I think it's 11 and a half thousand or maybe just over 11,000 square feet so you know which building that is Katie the one that where PK is yeah so the whole building including Fisher or just the PK portion you know the whole building when I and when I say 11,000 square feet that might include the upstairs which is a thousand so maybe the footprint itself of that building is right around 10,000 square feet okay and then another question I had in that same email they talked about a stone shed is where is that is that nearly Charlie O'Brien's place or what the end of foundry street okay you have the method is true okay yeah that's 40 foundry or 35 foundry excuse me and it's a little over 12,000 square feet in footprint okay and then maybe mark this is directed towards you so what's being proposed I believe is the 5,000 square feet and what your group suggested was bumping that up to 10 but possibly settling for eight is there like a specific reason why you would settle for eight or why you're pushing for 10 yeah I think it's not necessarily pushing as much as concern of back to what we were talking about earlier in the meeting with some of the interviews of enticing development in the right parts of town and trying to create density where it's needed and I think the sizing that was originally put before us that Steve had proposed before the planning commission took it was 10,000 square feet I think one of the questions I was going to have as a public member tonight was is there a scenario that works just like permitted versus conditional that you could create a permitted up to 5,000 but conditional up to 10 I think there are ways that a larger building could look smaller on the streetscape but still allow for that sizing and scale that you know could entice some developers to be interested in doing some large hopefully residential projects downtown I think the stone shed has been one that I have been interested in I know the group the WA DC and others have talked about as a potential opportunity I know there was talk years ago about the Stanley of Watson halls and opportunities I know those just got leveled or maybe one of them got leveled but you know there's there's a certain size and scale that's gonna entice someone to maybe take on those projects and I think our concern is that without allowing that size we might never see those projects come to fruition that would get a developer to want to build a significant amount of units that we need to help with the demand issues that we have I mean those units up on Blush Hill that was 60 units those were rented almost immediately and still people can't find housing so I remember years ago there was other apartment owners and meetings concerned about those units going up and it's not even close to what we need to to address the demand for housing and that's causing prices to become unaffordable in my opinion and I think the WASD WA DC is as well so I think I think scale is really important and I understand the planning commission's concern on scale and size and streetscape but I think that 5000 is just too small Mark maybe before we move on to further questions I could just speak to the dimensional requirement and permitted versus conditional use I think we have to deal with scale of uses in in the use table and in the definitions and I can move to that in just a minute I don't think we can apply a standard of a permitted versus conditional use to to this dimensional standard it it needs to be an upper limit the other thing I wanted to mention is that this entire downtown zoning district is within the design review or downtown design review overlay district so there are there are standards of review within that overlay which deals with issues such as character the area compatibility with adjacent buildings and and this type of thing so there there are design criteria that the developer review board is is required to apply to to new buildings or buildings that are are renovated or where there's a you know a change in the facade of the building that that type of thing and there are criteria that deal with historic structures in particular as well so I just wanted to to explain that aspect but certainly within within all of the uses it it definitely is appropriate to have what I call a threshold for permitted versus conditional use where conditional use would also deal with character of the area and the criteria that are within that oh mark I wanted to take a second and try to get some clarification here on on I know there's been concerns in the past whether it was Jason Wolff or who it was that suggested that you know when we talked about raising the footprint square footage maybe to four or even five thousand uh I made a comment about you know my concern of allowing perhaps too big of a footprint or fear of you know no process that you can go through to weed out possible adverse impacts when you get above a certain square footage and that's where I thought the conditional use part would come in handy but somebody said that made the statement that that extra step conditional use may scare a potential developer away number one I kind of wanted to know where Steve in the planning commission you know what was the reasoning for landing on five thousand square feet and to your point and I understand your point of the ten thousand or eight thousand square foot how how can we meet in the middle on some kind of a process that allows you know allows a bigger footprint but with some form of perhaps better secure understanding that the impacts will stay at a lower level I guess not and not occur I mean how how do I'm just looking for a solution here to like I said before back at the other meeting I said just be wary of how much you give because once you give it's difficult to take back and I still think that holds true but yet I understand exactly what you're saying Mark so what's the right answer I guess I'm asked Chris I'll just speak briefly to the review process I think most people in the development community who are involved with even larger housing projects are very accustomed to conditional use review and it's it's not designed to prevent development in any way it's really designed to provide opportunities to condition that development so that it's appropriate and that it is it works well with the the surrounding area and with community services that provide it so I don't think we need to shy away from the conditional use process in terms of where this figure came from I did an analysis of all of the commercial buildings in this proposed downtown zoning district and the average size is about for the footprint is about 3200 square feet however there are there are three buildings that are over 10,000 square feet and there's the shopping center which is about I think over 30,000 square feet so we definitely have larger larger buildings and we don't have a lot of larger lots the stone shed lot the pommelows the waterway square shopping center those are two of the larger lots and the 51 south main street which is about 0.8 acres so there are definitely some larger lots but most of the lots are relatively small so I think there are some things working in our favor to keep the scale but that wouldn't prevent someone from purchasing two or three lots and combining them perhaps and and putting a larger a larger building on but but the Planning Commission was is definitely concerned about scale and that's that's where this this figure came in and I put 10,000 square feet with a question mark for discussion purposes with the Planning Commission but I think at some point you know some type of reasonable compromises is fine and these bylaws are they're good for two years and then they can be extended for a year and so when they become part of a permanent bylaw proposal which I hope will be in the next phase that the Planning Commission will work on we can all we can change any of these requirements you know we we probably want to be careful about that especially reducing the size of something that's been figured out but there will be opportunities since these are interim to learn from our experience and and make some adjustments as we move forward were there any other aspects that select board members or others wanted to focus on I can if you wanted to look specifically at any of the uses I know mark you brought up the question about the limit on upper limit on the food and beverage manufacturing and light industry and I don't know if you know if you wanted to take a look at that or if there are other issues that people wanted to speak to I mean there were there were a few other minor comments there on the on the the letter that was sent by the uh wannabe area development bitty regards to the the bylaws I don't know if any board members want to bring that up or those questions. Yeah I would like to speak to one in particular it's the section 1602 applicability which reads all uses not specifically allowed in the downtown zoning district under the center and bylaws are specifically prohibited and no select board review is available and so on and I wonder if we are creating a future situation like we're in right now where we're not conceptualizing things that might come up in the future and you know really closing doors when it seems like maybe we can reword and the WDAC is at the group had some proposed language and I know we're not making changes today but I'm just curious if there's a reason behind that uh really prohibitive language and if there's room for um you know helping us not get in the same situation we're in right now. Yeah Danny perhaps if I could speak to that we got um help from our attorney Dave Rue the one uh attorney that Bill mentioned who advises us on land use laws with the firm Sitzel Page and Fletcher and he's a specialist in land use law so Dave Rue helped me and the planning commission work on both the the purpose clause right right here and the applicability so if I could just speak to the applicability um the state statute um for interim bylaws allows the select board to allow uses that are um are expressly prohibited or or are not allowed let's put it that way that's a better way to phrase it um the select board has the authority to choose if you will under the interim bylaw statute to allow uses that aren't specifically allowed under the interim bylaw so um what this does is it limits the select board's authority under that enabling statute and it treats the uses allowed under interim bylaw like any uses in us in the regular zoning regulations so um someone couldn't come in for instance and propose um something some general industry use or something in the downtown district that's not specifically allowed so uh there's still all the same rights of appeal and everything under that there there is under any uh permanent bylaw if the if an applicant doesn't agree with the zoning mistress determination they can appeal that to the development review board but basically this puts all of the review authority for for projects in the hands of the development review board otherwise uh projects could essentially bypass the development review board and go directly to the select board so it could really uh politicize if you will the development review process in this district so our our attorney recommended that we we place some place some limits otherwise the the the enabling statute rules and and it gives the select board a wide birth or a wide range of authority in that case so that's why this language is here and why the planning commission spent quite a bit of time on it and it was specific this is specifically where we came out with the with the attorney I would not recommend changing it but that's where I am and um yeah if I may I I think also um and Danny you you came on to the select board um kind of in the middle of this whole process but one of the things that uh that staff recommended in the select board agreed to was that um you know it's much more preferable in my mind and I think in Steve's mind um to handle development through a regulation through a zoning regulation uh as often as possible as opposed to through just negotiation with the select board and we kind of crossed that bridge because when Perry Hill partners appealed the the decision of the BRB uh they've appealed that to court and the law allows the select board to to settle lawsuits uh so there's a situation that the select board could negotiate with the developer and come up with a solution based on whatever the negotiation is like between the developer and the board and I think it's best that rather than settle that particular issue through a negotiation of a lawsuit that it be handled we hope through this interim bylaw and um we're going to talk about the lawsuit in a minute but uh I think self limiting the select board to say we're taking an active role we're addressing some of these issues through the interim bylaw but then let the bylaw work as a bylaw and let the the development review board have it say um I think it's a pretty slippery slope if you end up taking that language out and just letting the select board for a two-year period just kind of whoever comes in to to say oh well maybe we'll allow that uh it should the the development community in my opinion should kind of have an idea what the community's expectations are for uses in a district and I think that this is kind of uh you know splits the issue between the overly restrictive long time antiquated bylaw that is permanent now replace it with this interim bylaw and then let the planning commission come up with a new bylaw for you know two or three years down the road so I would recommend leaving this language in as well so for clarification this this can and likely will change when there's permanent bylaws in two or three years correct yeah these will expire and um our hope is they won't necessarily change I mean the planning commission could adopt this exact language as the permanent bylaw that the interim bylaw has a shelf life of up to three years it's two years with the ability to to extend it for a one-year period and then at that point a permanent bylaw has to be in place so um you know the it doesn't have to be different than this in two years this could be the bylaw that gets adopted I just just wanted to make other one other quick point and that is that under permanent bylaws the select board does not have the authority to allow projects that are not specifically allowed in the bylaw so this is something unique to interim bylaws in the enabling statue which is more to address kind of emergency or very pressing issues Steve I don't know if we we still need this screenshot up or everybody's good with it we can pull it down and yeah so good Chris did anybody have any other specific questions or places that you wanted to look or shall I just end the screen share and you can move on Mark Mark's got a question go ahead Mark yeah I mean obviously I I recuse myself because I'm I'm in a tough position here as a building owner in this size and um what's happening to my building of 40 Foundry is that I am going to be included in this new map and so this rule book will pertain to my building and and what I'm struggling with is these size limitations on different you know where most of the uses have a permanent and conditional there are a couple uses which I happen to have in my building that have a size limitation where you can't even conditionally go larger and so for example I have a brewery that's about to sign a lease to go into 2500 square feet my building is let's say it's about 10,000 square 1010 5 and footprint they can't grow bigger than 4,000 in my building now two breweries could be right next to each other both being 4,000 but for some reason what's being proposed is has a limitation that only allows you to grow as an individual business to 4,000 so I don't see why we created upper limits on these two I think there's just two of them I'm not sure there might be a third one I just think it should go to conditional and allow somebody wants to go into a space like my building or I don't know if the stone sheds even usable it's probably a knock down but I you know personally for me I have to protect my interest in my building and my potential new tenant who right now under the current rule book for my building would allow them to grow into the entire space which is what I presented to them before seeing this now ceiling on sizing so I really want to see that changed I I also think that I've been working for a long time on trying to see larger residential projects in the downtown and if you get on google maps and you look at the size of the building I'm talking about at 40 foundry I mean years ago we let a grocery store that's like what's that 20,000 square feet within a dash additional 10,000 square feet in the downtown and now we're trying to limit it to five I just think it's too small it's not going to get it's not going to get the momentum to try to get more housing projects at a larger scale every time you build more walls it gets more expensive you need those shared walls to entice developers to come and do projects that we truly need in the downtown or what you're going to end up seeing is maybe the demand forces the sprawl up other roads like Perry Hill where I really think that we should focus on trying to entice some projects in the downtown and a 5,000 square foot I think is just too small so those are my two major ones I feel terrible that this brewery could end up finding out or they might not even sign the lease I might already warned him that this might happen but you know I just don't think that rule makes sense and I'm just in I'm an outlier in this problem but it's a real problem for my investment in that building there and I want to see that that just goes to you know just a conditional just like a restaurant you can have any size apparently but you can't have a brewery any size in the downtown and I think good you know I just in fact at one of the prior meetings there I think I had expressed my opinion that I was okay with you know setting up maybe a 5,000 square foot limit for 5,000 square foot but having the ability to upsize into you know 6,000 to 8,000 to 10,000 through a conditional use process which would then you know depending on the business would take a look at those adverse impacts if any and try to address them so that to keep them to a minimum I'm certainly not against scaling up if as long as it doesn't you know adversely impact the the neighboring buildings and in the downtown as a whole and I I think what you're talking about Mark you know I'm no brewer by any stretch but any breweries that I drive by don't seem to be making a lot of racket you know so I think that's something that we could consider at some point maybe when the public meeting comes around we can talk a little bit more in-depth about it but I just wanted to jump back real quick to the comment made about Blackboard intervening and changing rules at WIM um overriding the the planning commission's bylaws I think two things I mean if you started down that path I think you'd be hard pressed to find people to volunteer for the planning commission because what difference would it make you went in and worked your butt off to try to make a set of rules and every time you turn around Blackboard overruled what you were doing and just our blanche did whatever they wanted I think you'd have a hard time and you also wouldn't kind of miss out on the the collaborative process with the public you know I know it's hard to get public patrol up to anything but at least they have the option to do that through the process that we currently have um so and I just I I think you'd set a bad precedence uh and and you know you'd start to have select board members be called self-serving and uh and maybe some people would get on the board for that for that purpose you know so I agree with Bill and Steve both I don't think we should walk that path but uh I think there's there's solutions to your concerns Mark and still and still maintain a expeditious process you know that's that's what I want those are the comments I wanted to make quickly clarify oh no I'm sorry I just want to clarify Chris because I just don't my question was um maybe misunderstood just the I don't know the process as well as a lot of people being new so I didn't understand that that wording implied that that any appeal a review went to drb I thought it implied that there was no appeal a review and if it wasn't included in these um bylaws then zero no chance so um Bill and Steve clarified that the that the review is by the drb and not the select board so I was by no means suggesting that the select board should have um you know that kind of like overarching power or anything like that no I know I don't didn't expect you were that you were uh suggesting that but I think Steve was stating that that the legislative body at the state house gave the authorization for the select board to in fact overrule uh if in an interim situation if they if they so choose is that correct Steve yeah that that's correct Chris that option is there unless we have language that doesn't allow it right Marcus go ahead Steve what's the current building limit size downtown right now we don't have any limit on footprint mark this is a new requirement it's something that when the unified development bylaw draft was was draft was put together back in 2018 it's something that the consultant recommended for different districts and you know it's meant to limit like a big box phenomena in a certain district where you may not want a big box store or something like that in a certain district so so that's really the purpose to limit scale but um you know it's a figure where where you can you can put a limit that you feel is appropriate that that's fine just like on these uses I just wanted to make one quick point here these two uses in particular under industrial the food and beverage manufacturing light industry I would recommend that they stay conditional use at any any size because these uses can have some adverse impacts in terms of noise fumes things of that nature where it's really beneficial when conditions can be placed on a permit just to mitigate the impacts of those uses so I just wanted but this this upper limit could certainly be adjusted to something that you feel is appropriate that's fine yeah and again I'll reference the difficulties we had with the growing of the alchemist up there on the crossroad the neighbors being that whole thing was hell for a while wasn't it Steve yeah there have been issues and that's really where these conflicts come in is where you have adjacent residential areas and that's where the the drb review under conditional use is is very important you know we're fortunate on foundry street that currently that's in our industrial district and the proposal is to incorporate into the downtown zoning district but we're we're fortunate that we don't have too many nearby residential areas there but we do have a church and and so on so we can certainly have some further discussion about this whole topic that's fine okay is there anybody else it's Mike first of all I want to publicly commend the planning commission Steve Ken for really taking a leadership role on this issue I know this was it started off fairly contentious and I know I had some questions and I think we work through this in a very collaborative way I think it's really important I think we want we're wounding we're getting a better product I do want to hear what the what the public I know Mark had some comments my my biggest concern was some of the size restrictions which I think the planning commission dealt with in a very good way I think also the interim bylaws gives us kind of as they say it's interim you know this is something let's look at growing in a a smart way you know if if that's not going to meet the needs of the community maybe when we come to a permanent bylaw we're going to come up to a different solution so I just want to say thanks to the planning commission thanks Steve for all that you've done I think we have a much better product I'm anxious to hear what the public says next week and you know from there we'll we'll all make a decision that's it thanks Mike you're welcome anything else from anybody if if not we can close this agenda item out and I'll let mark take back over and move on like everybody's good okay thank thank you thanks Steve sure you're welcome hey mark it's all yours thank you uh this is moving on to item d for a select board business update on racial equity training um bill do you want to start and then I can chime in and then I know Maroney would like to speak but um yeah bill if you could sure um actually it was Danny I believe who requested this item beyond the agenda Danny came to meet with me uh week or so ago you know after the last select board meeting I kind of gave her an update as to where we were with this issue as far as training is concerned I think she's done a little bit of research I actually did try to call the Vermont partnership for fairness and diversity um on Friday I was late in the day and I just got a voicemail and because it was so late in the day I didn't leave a message I knew that Danny might want to talk about this so I didn't want to kind of tread on her toes so to speak so uh with that you know there's an issue that the select board has talked about a couple of different times she's looked at a couple of different options and here we are we haven't really done much yet so Danny why don't you take it from there sure thanks um so I know that originally Mark had um tried to work with the human rights commission and um did pursue for quite a while and and was essentially ghosted by them and didn't get a response so um I picked up and um I had a resource resource that I found real it's race equity and leadership trainings which offers training specifically for municipal staff and elected officials and the other is the Vermont partnerships for fairness and diversity which Bill referenced um and that came from a woman uh Mary I believe it's Ganon but I'm unsure um that Maroney had introduced me to because she was doing training for um the select board in Brattleboro and just today I received um some some other information from Mary Bill which I'll pass along to you um so what I had asked for Bill to do is look into those two resources that seemed very promising um with the hope that we could get something on the books for the select board and potentially um some town staff maybe department heads uh by the by early summer knowing that we're sort of at the mercy of what they've got available um and then my hope was that we could at least have something in the calendar to report back to the public for our first May meeting on May 3rd um so that is the update and um hopefully we'll have more to report to the public um in that May meeting and I believe we talked about this being outside of a standard select board meeting to make sure we can focus on it and find the time yeah like like you said I was talking with someone I believe the human rights council and they were talking about February dates and we're gonna get back to me and then I heard nothing um because I even talked to the select board about the previous select board um about trying to pick some dates that worked and then I couldn't get a hold of anyone so um apologies for the delay um I really do want to see this happen I think we all do um but there's just some logistics of timing but thank you Danny for following up on it and hopefully we can get this on the books and go through the training hey do you or Maroney um know um the the training that other communities have had has it been a you know a one you know one session um training one and done kind of thing or is this something that has you know stretches over a course of weeks or months do you either want to know what's been going on with that so Maroney just forwarded me something from Mary that I have not read because it was just this evening and it might be in there um I'm scanning it right now it looks like there's a select board members three two hour sessions um is an option or a one two hour session so it looks like there are a couple of options um but I I haven't read it in detail so I'll pass that on to you all right um Bill if I may jump in from my conversation with Mary um the model that they have is more of an ongoing not just one time and done thing it's an ongoing and looking at different angles of the system so but it might have more details and what I should forward to you Danny uh okay Maroney or Danny do you have a direct uh contact for her um I tried to call the Vermont partnership for fairness and diversity which is I believe where she works and um you know that's it's not a very user friendly voice messaging system the only one that I could find was the executive director maybe you have to go through the executive director but if you have a a direct contact it might be easy for me to get some information yes I I do have direct contact and I will definitely follow up with you and connect it to okay thank you thank you we know of any other towns that we could just reach out to you that are doing these types of trainings that maybe we could get contacts to them as well that's where this one came from I think it was Brattleboro but I don't know um of others but I could ask around I'm not aware of any I'm sure they're funny I've done it but I I don't know who I know that the um Harwood Union school board also goes through census review training I think they recently had one so I could possibly reach out to them as well one of our representatives see did I go through too yeah if you do Katie just get me the contact information directly please yeah I know I I mentioned uh several months ago you know I've been through diversity training when I was with USDA and they have some pretty good diversity training the problem is now with the pandemic you know a lot of that's all limited to you know federal federal employees so it's not as widespread so I thought that would be a good way to do something because the training was excellent but you know it it is I wish it was easier to get some of this training but sometimes it's it's a little difficult and we just need to roll up our sleeves and figure out how to accomplish it okay but it sounds like Bill you are going to help coordinate this for us that would be great because I think it's hard for us on an individual basis to do it um but then the board members will just have I'm assuming is this day or evening training or do we need to wait and find out or find out I'll find out what's available man okay um is the preference to the board evening yes absolutely I would assume that would be the case so um any other public comment on this before we move on we are going to move on to consider local emergency management plan far far oh excuse me I'm sorry I thought that I thought that Katie had added um an item right after this you're right was um the input it's sort of related to the racial equity training but it's a little bit different yep yeah sorry I apologize I'm working off of a printed PDF and I forgot to add that so um can I I guess I wondered if I could go first I did check with Maroney and he said that would be okay yeah go ahead so yeah because I had reached out um and and Katie was very responsive and put this on the agenda um and so I I need to start out by saying to Chris you know I've in my experiences with you um my personal experiences we've always had you know a you know really positive exchange and my husband and I always appreciated the work you did and um you know you really you helped me out in a few situations and we're really patient talking through stuff and you were very knowledgeable and so this isn't personal and I you know so you know appreciated my exchanges with you um and my sense is that you bring a lot of value to the select board um in terms of uh your perspective as a businessman and um and I you know I like your focus of trying to keep Waterbury an affordable place um but I I was um I I found it you know really disconcerting when all the stuff came up around race um related to comments you made in the fall and um it was really painful to follow the stuff on Front Forge Forum and I felt like it was it was just so um disappointing to see our community get so divided um and you know when I read the article in Waterbury um Waterbury Roundabout where you all came to a resolution where um Chris you agreed to step down as chair but stay on the board and I just was really encouraged by that because I thought well you know great you know there are a lot of people who are really glad you're on the board and bring value to the board um but you know there were you know enough concerns about the comments whether or not they were taken out of context and and misinterpreted it just seems like the racial issues are are so heated now you know across the country and in our state and in our community there's things going on in our schools and um and things that I've heard about you know in nearby towns um so it's certainly you know an issue that's not going away and I was just really encouraged to hear that it you know it seemed like you were interested in in learning and you were sort of happy to um you know compromise in this situation where you know the whole select board would get this training um and then I guess you know at a certain point yet you know it would be revisited as to um you know you're you know taking a position of leadership again um but I guess since you know I heard that you were vice chair and it seems like um so now you're back in a position of leadership where um it didn't seem like any racial equity training had happened and I don't know if there's any other um you know sort of individual education the board members have been getting on their own um but you know I saw also a parent that whenever the chair has to recuse himself then you assume the position as chair and so we're kind of back in the same position and I thought that um you know I guess I was just really encouraged to see um the training happen and then some you know movement in a positive direction on this and um and I guess I really would just love to see our community working together on this it's just it's really hard to see um everyone gets so divided and takes sides so I just think it would be great I don't know if it's uh you know easy for for you guys to just you know take another vote and have somebody else be vice chair for for now and then um have the training and then um you know it's really I've been doing this work for a while with with a couple of groups and it's really tricky stuff and um and the more I get into it the more I the more I learn and there's like so many different perspectives and pieces of it um it's not that easy um but I just think you know communication is a big piece of it and so if your words were taken out of context that's also part of it like you have like I've just noticed myself having to um pause before I say something having to do with race because it's it's it's so easy to to say something that that doesn't come across right to certain people but people are going to make mistakes and um I think it's just a matter of um you know having education and learning how to move forward on this so um so if it's something you know the board can consider um I would I would just appreciate that and um I'll just turn it over to the next person who wants to speak. Thanks Amy um anyone else want to follow Amy up? Looks like Alexia. Hi Alexia. Hi um my name is Alexia Vanafra this is the first select board meeting that I have ever attended live I have watched many of them uh in the in the last uh 10 months or so um first I just want to say kind of as a plug for I don't know what you're planning to do as far as Zoom once you know things quote unquote go back to normal but I really really hope that you continue to allow attendance from home because boy does it make it more accessible for a lot of us who have little kids and other reasons not to want to go out into the snow or whatever what have you um so just wanted to put that plug in um I I guess I wanted to see I was I was just curious when Katie added this was it for the purpose of having the public comment or I didn't like I think I we went straight to public comment and I guess I was hoping that this agenda item would be kind of introduced or grounded somehow so I guess that's my first question yeah so I had initially added it um kind of like to go with the discussion of the board training and to see where we were with that because I had received correspondence um from two parties Amy being one of them about where we were with the racial training schedule um and about the discussion about the vice chair so that's why I added it in case Amy wanted to speak um to it and anybody else okay thank you for that um you know we we have uh you we have asked uh to have some time set on the agenda on May 3rd specifically around this discussion um we um meaning uh the Warke the Waterbury area anti-racism coalition's outreach and engagement team specifically I and Erin Lander and Maureen McCracken reached out to each of the board members uh except for Danny because at the time uh she wasn't really involved in uh the discussions around um and when the harmful statements were made uh in the summer and in October and again in January I guess I do want to just be clear about that what we're talking about is not a specific word a more specific incident but actually kind of a pattern of of harmful statements so I guess I would just ask is this our like I I I wonder if the board could give us some um some idea of whether you are planning on putting some time for discussion on May 3rd because if so I would reserve um you know I would I've posed questions that I hope that each one of you will answer um Danny is certainly welcome to answer them as well um my suggestion would be because I think they're you know they're they're they're certain answer they're certain questions they're taken apart because it really focuses on different things and different impacts so my suggestion and my hope would be that if you add time to the May 3rd meeting about this that you would actually answer each question separately including each sub bullet separately and I would be certainly happy to pose those questions or assist in any way but I guess my question is one is are you deciding to add time to the May 3rd and also I am curious uh from a procedural standpoint uh to Amy Hoskins point what can a vote be retaken thank you so to give you an idea on agenda items any select board member can add an agenda item or sometimes bill or you know a member of the of the municipal municipal staff will add an agenda item so that's the easiest way to get anything on the agenda um I fully support uh conversation on May 3rd I think that's that's totally fair and it gives the best thing that can happen is we warn it with that agenda item on there it gives the public an opportunity to see that it will be discussed and gives the most opportunity for public input um and then in terms of you know Chris's vice chair there's a there's a bunch of different avenues I think um Chris could step down we could we could as a board vote to remove Chris's vice chair um I think there's definitely a conversation I I received some emails with concerns on Chris um being elected to vice chair um I think historically yeah I'm around yeah I'll go to you in a sec um I think historically we've seen these chair roles as you know helping to facilitate a meeting so it helps to have someone who's um participated on the select board in previous years that can basically just run through an agenda there are just little rules and procedures that even I as head of the select board struggle with so um you know obviously Chris has been on the board the longest um it's helpful to have somebody who really knows how to navigate um just even just the meetings themselves I think we learned a lot in the last year that um positions like chair potentially have more opportunities to speak and words matter and words can definitely create hurt and pain and I think we as a board have said we are willing to learn try to be better um definitely have tried as a board member to learn research and and try to figure out how to bring education on to the board and even I've um struggled with it before Danny was on the board she had reached out to me and I really did try to line up training and it's it's surprisingly complicated um and I really do hope that we can find a path and once that path is set it's a regular thing that the board can participate in and we appreciate groups like work that can help us maybe navigate some of that just education and or educate us just as a group and talk about what's happening in the community and how we as a select board um can help with the agendas that you have so um Maroney I think you had your hand up next so uh give me the floor well thanks mark um really appreciate it I know it's uh it's over time so I won't take too too much time but to begin I just want to thank you all um very much for all the work that you're doing and I know you are this is a volunteer position uh and as someone who's newly elected as the uh uh library commissioner who recently got my first uh angry email from a constituent um I have I'm even more appreciative of the work that she do so sincerely thank you um I'm speaking tonight as an individual resident of Waterbury not on behalf of work I'm glad to hear that work will have a conversation um down the road with you all um the last couple weeks have been really tough and you know with all the shootings going on and watching the trial of the murder of George Floyd um it's brought back traumatic memories of 2020 um which including uh what Amy has already touched on um what Chris when Chris called for segregation segregating the police as a solution to stop um police killing of black and brown people and at the time I started petition uh which uh over 500 Waterbury resident calling on Chris to resign um Chris refused to resign instead stepped down as a chair even any statement he didn't recognize the harm done about he's promoting segregation um of law enforcement rather he kind of played the victim and many of us were willing to live with what Chris um you know with him stepping down knowing at the time that the select board including Chris would commit to ongoing anti-racist training and I personally reached out to you some of you individually and had conversations in our private conversation you recognized that Chris not only was wrong but that his proposal of police segregation was out of touch not to say racist and I am curious to hear about what specific action um you know you have taken or Chris has taken to a knowledge and also publicly apologize for the harmful impact of his words in action uh it seems to me that without holding Chris accountable the select board has nominated him as a vice chair now I'm sure you have all of your reasons um you have reason why you did that and I'm not here to question your motive I'm just here to let you know that I'm disappointed your decision was pretty much a slap in the face to me personally and to all the black and brown residents of Waterbury it was also a slap in the face to so many constituents who voted for you and so I'm just here to let you know that even though this is not election year um we are still watching you we'll continue to hold you all accountable and we will continue to be here and hopefully work with you moving forward so thanks again for all that you do and thank you for listening thank you any of the board members I just wonder when Chris the ends gets to defend himself in any of this I'm not a social media guy I'm not a computer guy I'm just a working stiff barely made it through high school I'm dyslexic I have problems reading I have problems understanding the English language my math skills are great if you read the seven days article in the seven days article when I made the statement segregated part of the police department I even stated in there I'm not sure if that's the right word I'm not a professor of the English language what I thought I was saying was a separate division of the police department of minority police officers to go into minority communities to help defuse the problems stop the killings stop the problems or at least mitigate them till we could find a better solution instead I was called a racist and if you watch tv at all about a month ago mont state agency of public safety from mont state police hired their first Somalian black police officer I was sitting on the couch eating my having my coffee for the morning watching the channel three news when the interview came on the first words that came out of that officer's mouth was I'm going to be able to represent people in my communities and he went on if you want to google that conversation do it you'll find out that I was way ahead of the eight ball on proposing something to stop this ridiculousness that's going on in this country I never took sides on any of this all I tried to do was help and because of my weakness in the language barrier I made a mistake but if you listen to the whole damn conversation you'd have got the premise of it you to understood what I was talking about there was nothing nothing racial about it it was because I cared about what was going on and I cared the fact that people were getting killed senselessly and I was trying to make a suggestion to stop it part of this was political by one of our elected officials here at the state house it didn't want to lose his seat he blew it out of proportion and to mr. Minters comments moroni remember when you came to the board and you wanted the mural put up down in town I asked you is there a more gentle way we can handle this there's got to be a better way so that we don't create division so that we don't create animosity so we don't have vandalism I said can't we do something more inclusive people of different races in the mural in engaging each other holding hands embracing each other you didn't want any part of it but then two months later three months later you come to the board and you want the board first you ask me and before I could respond to you to put it on the agenda you got somebody else to put it on the agenda and what you ended up doing was wanted a declaration of inclusion accepting all people isn't what that that what I was trying to do at that particular meeting when you wanted the mural put up isn't that what I was trying to promote the same thing that you managed to get the select board to adopt you know what sometimes there's cultural differences there's barriers there's weaknesses in people they make mistakes we're humans and now you people started this organization to become judge and jury of who's complying with the way you think you know I'm a little offended when you talk about offense I don't mean to offend you by saying this but the word training offends me how about understanding instead you know I and half of what the paper wrote about me statements Maroney show me in writing show me on video where I ever said anything about black and brown people moving to this state that's what caused the problem show me that and I'll resign it was a ball face lie along with other things that the paper printed because they're the paper they're the media they like the stir the pot I'm no more racist than anybody on that board right here anybody on this zoom right now I've got friends of color people I grew up with a minorities who I love and enjoy and respect and ask Noah Fishman how many times I respected I disrespected his wife I was always good to her always cordial to her always respected her you people got me labeled wrong the fact that I was ahead of the game on a lot of these things and said I was all the racists and that's what I wrote to live scolati I said Chris was right on two fronts but was all the racist because of it no I was the forward thinker you guys want my ass out just tell me you can find somebody else to solve your problems I'm sorry I had to come out Alexa before can I say something really quick I'm so sorry directed it of course yes Chris whether I do respect I don't want this this is this is why you have made it seem like it's a between it's an issue between me and you it's not so please stop making a personal I'm not if you want to have a conversation with me personally I will be more than happy to do that and I have given you so many opportunities so let's not have that do that here let's talk if you want to do that in private so thank you welcome that conversation maroney you know I did ask you to meet with me and you and you didn't respond so I just figured you weren't interested but yeah you asked me what you privately in your workshop and I'm not interested I want to meet with you in zoom not any workshop during a pandemic okay that's fine yeah I'm not I'm not a computer guy sure my wife will set us up and I'd revel in the opportunity thank you in some ways I think this is good because I think it's maybe it gives us some some things to to mull over in preparation for the May 3rd meeting I think it is important to you know especially as as an elected official to speak with respect in a tone that is respectful you know I was tempted to call point of order so I would just hope that for next time that we work on our tone the other thing and by that I mean by select board members the other thing I wanted to talk about speaking of private conversations I did want to just mention I had forgotten to that our ask is a multi-pronged ask we have invited each of the select board members that we wrote to to set up a private conversation with two of us more two of me and Maureen and Erin because I I would really encourage some of you know I would encourage you Chris to set up that private conversation because it's right it's hard to do this over public and I know that you are doing the best that you can with the knowledge that you have but so much of what you said tonight is harmful and problematic and I really really encourage you to to set that time up with us before the May 3rd meeting I really encourage you I will talk to you with respect I will talk to you you know from a place of curiosity but you continue to make really really harmful comments I've heard you speak about your various challenges regarding your education regarding your learning your dyslexia etc it can't cut both ways Chris you cannot take on a leadership position the way that you have for as many years as you have to wield that power when it's convenient and then to fall back on on your challenges when when you are being asked to be held accountable if you are found a way all these years to be select board chair to be a select board person and and now to be a select board vice chair then you have all the tools that you need assuming you have the willingness to do this work and as somebody in power and who represents me as a citizen of this town it is your responsibility to do so the end around that so I just wanted to say that and the last thing that I will leave you is I really encourage you between now and May 3rd to to pick up this book that's called so you want to talk about race it's available in audiobook it's available over Kindle it's available in print and also while I hope that you will actually pay Joma Olu for her labor and actually purchase a copy I have found a free copy on YouTube where it's an audiobook where it's you it's on YouTube but really it's a free audio version and specifically I would point you to chapter 16 which is I just called racist I just called a racist I just got called racist what do I do now okay because what she talks about actually is how so many of us white folk freak out about being called racist and use that as a way to be blind to the harm that we cause so if I run over my run over your foot with my truck and you say ow ow ow that was so hurtful and I look at you Chris and I say I didn't run over the truck you misunderstood or I'm sorry that wasn't my intention why are you being so sensitive you still have a broken foot regardless of what my intentions were and regardless of whether you I think you deserve to have the reaction that you have and so I really encourage you to read this chapter because I think it will bring a lot of light to why so much of what you're doing is so so insanely dismissive of of of those who have been oppressed for hundreds of years and those over whom we have just I'll just leave it at that thank you so I encourage you and I'll put this in the chat thanks Alexia I do I'm gonna I'll say I see hands are up I do want to just be conscious of time because we do have other things I think this is a very important discussion so I'm really not trying to limit discussion but I do also want to be conscious that it's 9 30 so um I really do want anyone to have an opportunity to speak I think this is gonna be a topic we will continue to discuss um Danny go ahead thanks I will um I will try to keep it brief I think a lot of what I want to say might be better saved for a private conversation or a personal conversation but as a as a newly elected member of the board I don't want to sit quietly during this conversation um I think Alexia was was really articulate with a lot of what I want to say and um I think uh Chris you you made some points about the word training and the word understanding that actually make a lot of sense and when applied to what is being asked of all of us as a group that's exactly the that's exactly the request is that we work to seek a deeper understanding of what other people are feeling so whether we call it a training or an understanding that's that is the ask um when you when you when you um this is really hard this is really hard because I'm newly elected and I want to work really well with my board member so I just want to acknowledge this is really hard for me and I'm and I'm trying my best as well um when we talk about the words that we use not having meaning in one sentence we we said segregate but that's not what you meant you meant separate and the word segregate means separate so so it is the same and I I understand that you you don't feel that way but um but these trainings or these teachings to understand can help us learn how how they do mean the same thing and so you're really really humble when you talk about your background and your work and your education and that humility is what so many people respect about you and it's what I respect about you and I think I'm curious if if that humility can also go forward in this aspect so rather than saying I'm not and I don't and I won't and you don't understand maybe we have all of us work to do on being humble and say if so if so many people are not understanding my words and are and are asking me to learn then maybe I can be more humble and learn and understand where they're coming from instead of digging in and just saying that they're wrong so um I I think I'd love to talk with you more not in a public meeting but I just I couldn't sit quietly without speaking up a little bit just want to say a couple of very brief comments um one I'm very disappointed that our community cannot be more respectful to each other I think that's a cornerstone I am disappointed that the board has not received training I know their bill mark has worked but that hasn't happened I would have liked to have seen it happen quicker I am disappointed and I'm going to say this Alexia mentioned there was email sent out to board members I never received an email the only email that I have received on this issue was uh the one that Amy sent out about uh considering Chris's removal that's the only email that I I had received uh so and there was nothing about uh having conversations with people so if you if if you're being inclusive I don't think you you're being inclusive because I haven't been contacted it's all I have to say thank you did I see anyone else's hand up go ahead Alexia like I am oops I'm muted hold on can you hear me okay Mike can you hear me okay yes or all of you can you hear me okay um I am so terribly sorry I looked up your address I like as you were speaking I'm looking it up right now please forgive me I sent from the work outreach email I sent it to uh to to crit so I guess I would ask is there so I sent this basically the same letter it was tailored to you to Chris, Mark, Katie, and Mike and the one that received it and you're the only one that received it I I was googling it I was checking my email and I I can't find it oh my gosh I am so sorry we have to be careful sometimes there's an assumption that because this has happened on other topics that emails are always read um so I think sometimes it's better to ask if we actually received it um because sometimes it's you didn't you didn't get a response because we didn't want to respond to it as we literally didn't see it um so um just keep that in mind on some of this no I haven't checked my spam folder to see if it happened to go to spam as I said I have cpvans at gmail chris is that your correct email okay I have that's who I sent it to I sent it to Katie she got it I have mark at waterberryreservoir.com making sure I spelled it right um and I sent it to michael.barred22 at gmail.com okay this is what I'm going to do I'm going to send it I'm so sorry I'm going to send it from um from my own personal email in case there's something weird and I will get that to you tonight I'm really I apologize that was unintentional for sure another plug for waterberry.com email addresses for the book yeah absolutely so my apologies I'll take care of that well um speaking to some of the comments about point of order I think we're learning how to navigate some of this I think this is um I've been on the board for over five years and this has been the most times I've recused myself this most times that I you know I think navigating some of this is it's not that the board doesn't want to fully participate and try to like you know I'm learning how to be a chair I've never been the chair really before and I forgot that you had you could do point of order and I don't want to cut somebody off and I need to learn um that and I have obviously a lot to learn um I think back to the comments about Chris being vice chair I did have some concerns when he was nominated um but I also believe that I've met with Chris Chris and I met for I it was probably close to four or five hours I don't know it was a it was a long time we had a very long discussion um and I encouraged him to stay on the board but go through training but I didn't ask him to step down as chair um I think that is the best opportunity to move forward and I think um that training is important and um I really do want to see it I I apologize obviously in the COVID world of owning three restaurants in the nightmare that is that and so I apologize I really did try I actually spoke to somebody at the human rights um commission so I the training is obviously important to the community it's important to the board um I want to extend my apologies that it hasn't happened sooner um to Mike's point and I know that um you know there's been concern that it has gone on longer than it should um I think we once we have an established plan I do believe um and I will personally help to try to make sure that that training continues and we don't just pigeonhole ourselves into one type of training but we also listen and learn and there might be other other ways to learn including reading um I've already loaded the book into my Amazon shopping cart so um again this is a very important issue I don't want anyone who's attending this meeting or not attending this meeting to not believe that um conversations around race inequality and um how we navigate it as a town I think you know looking back to the scenario about the conversation around policing I think we as a board and I've stated this before I have to be very careful talking about things that were that are not specifically under our control or on our agenda and speaking to a broader issue I think it is very risky it is potentially dangerous I think we have to remember what we can do as a board and what we have control over and I think that there are things that we're not doing that we could so I'm not saying that we don't have the ability to make change but I think when it comes to policing we should talk about our contract and if we believe that the state police are doing the right things to deal with racial inequity and if we decide they don't then we need to talk about creating our own police force those kind of conversations are things that we have control over and I think those are um you know we we are learning we used to not even have a police force as a town it was all under the village that only came onto our responsibility very recently and there was even talk about not even having one um so um I've had concerns specific to police in terms of that contract and the uh just the social experience of their interaction with the town like a local police force first how the state police um might approach just you know just dealing with things that are outside of what the state police typically deal with um so I think there are a lot of conversations to be had um I personally look forward and I think that a lot of the board does too the work that work is doing and um yeah I see Bill's hand is up so I'll go to Bill yeah so at risk of being misunderstood that I don't think this is an important issue I think it is but to the to the broader issue of what we're doing right now and how we conduct ourselves if the board wants to put this issue on uh the May 3rd meeting that's fine I would be remiss if I didn't remind the select board and the public that's watching that this is a select board meeting the select board is elected to conduct the business of the town and um interactions with your constituents they have many opportunities to talk to you as individuals they can call you they can email you and there are times when the public can bring something to your attention and we're having this discussion and it's appropriate but I have to warn you that things like the public deciding to raise their hand and say point of order this is not a town meeting this is not a chance for the public to to to um interrogate the board about how they feel about certain issues this is supposed to be the select board conducting the business of the meeting the town has given you a charge they've adopted the budget they uh approved priorities and we have to deal with these issues of running the town for the rest of the year and then if the public doesn't like what the select board is doing they don't like the progress they're making on certain things they get to vote for a select board member actually they get to vote they can change the majority of the board any given year we have five select board members three of them come up for election each year um I think engaging in this conversation is important but I also think we have to be careful about setting a precedence and I don't want Alexandra or Amy or Maroney to to to take this the wrong way but we have to be careful about allowing any self-appointed committee to all of a sudden decide that they're in charge of running the town and that you have to respond to their concerns right now about what's going on so this issue of racial diversity training um I think it needs to be broadened to just being civil because um a lot of the things that are posted on front porch form and a lot of the letters they get sent out that are suggesting that people don't treat others the right way based on race or or you know BIPOC community or what have you um the it's not just a license to to uh kind of run somebody else over with a bulldozer because you think that maybe they're not treating others well I think it's something that we all need to learn to try to make sure that we have civil conversations but I just want to warn the board that you have to be careful about letting um it's not a town meeting and and I would suggest to mark and whoever the the vice chair is uh to remember you know you're you're the chairman or the the chairperson of the select board um we don't have a mayor in Waterbury each select board member is an equal person they they the chairperson isn't does not have any more authority than uh the most newly elected member they are equals in their election and you elect the chairperson to run a meeting they they don't lead the community it's not a leadership position when it comes to the community and I understand why the perception is that way but I just w