ed i would explain challenge voters according to the town clerk most are voters on the checklist that have moved and not verified their new address when the town clerk receives a Vermont property transfer transfer tax return they send out a request to the seller if there is no response the voter is kept on the checklist for two election cycles which is equivalent to four years after i had submitted this proposal on Wednesday to the select board i was able to locate the house and senate government operations committee deliberations on h445 the under hill charter recall i listened to those over the weekend and would like to share some of the comments made by members that may influence your decision and perhaps make a slight amendment to this proposal in the house government operations committee deliberations basically the question was is there anything significant or unique about 15 percent of registered voters and legislative counsel tucker anderson said no you might be thinking of the requirement of 15 percent is used for ordinance reconsideration votes there was a motion by representative peter anthony and a second by sx rep tanya bohosky and it was voted out a committee on a vote of 10 zero and one unchanged in the senate there's a question about um majority and sharewoman senator white said although if if it only one by one vote it still passes just as when we are elected we win by one vote we still win just as in the sx select board election last march between elaine haney and tracy delphia after the recount tracy won by nine votes so there is a case to be made for a simple majority so if there was one change to be made um i would consider simple majority versus two-thirds happy entertaining questions i guess just to it wasn't nine it was actually two pardon me after the recount for my race it was two votes oh okay thank you i was i didn't go back and look i was just my recollection well i remember thanks thanks for the correction it was close all i know is it was very close i guess i would ask what is the real purpose of this proposal is only going to impact the select board because they're the only elected people that it will affect well um i think it's a an accountability clause um voters have the privilege and the responsibility to elect their town officials but presently that we have no um recourse if there is an action by an official and if in a real democracy voters should have a chance to weigh in on that and they feel strongly enough that there's an egregious action by a town official they should be able to exercise that as you pass get his hand up too so in fact go ahead thanks andy uh i do have a couple of questions um it's a pretty small number we have over 250 towns and villages in vermont so i guess i'm wondering you did much like don mentioned this seems like it's the answer to a question that has not been asked um i just i'm curious about the specificity of it why you feel that that sx needs it when the vast majority of towns in vermont do not um the second is that if you're proposing a simple majority is that from what i've read in most of the other towns already 10 percent is the lowest record petition signature i didn't see any lower than 15 however on the examples you provided for the number of signatures on a ballot and then you also are proposing changing tonight to a simple majority um many of the ones that you have presented have two thirds and i think that is largely because the recalls or the need to recall is usually for serious issues by making it a simple majority and by lowering the threshold for the number of petitions it seems like that's just a way to get rid of somebody that people don't like um that's not really what a recall is for um we've seen this relatively recently in our country in california um which costs them millions upon millions of dollars for a recall that was doomed basically from the start um from the sheer number of people who voted to keep their governor we would not be in a completely different situation it would cost a town of sx uh obviously money to do this so i just wanted honestly i would like to see a reason if we had had a select board member who you know for some reason you know chose either to completely ignore all their constituents by flipping over the table at meetings i think that would be you know obviously an issue that needs a solution um i have not seen that and honestly any of the representatives that we have here um so uh i apologize i asked a couple of questions in there um if i can distill it down yeah more specifically why sx when so few vermont towns have these rules and to why so we why are the requirements so weak compared even to the examples that you've given us first to answer your first question um if you read in the packet there were numerous articles in there about towns where they had issues with town officials and they then had to go through the um process of petitioning to put it on the ballot to get recall language into their charter um i would refer to see that the language is in our charter not wait until and if someday in the future there is an an issue does that answer the first question uh sure yeah okay um every town that does have a recall provision has slightly different language and and that's why i provided all 15 to give you an idea of what other towns um have in their charter um because of the size of our town the um the difficulty of getting signatures on uh a petition i mean five five percent is required for most all petitions this is 10 percent this is twice the six that's 1640 votes or excuse me signatures that's a that would take a considerable effort and i don't think anyone would attempt that unless it was a pretty serious offense i'm not sure that i agree with that second statement um but i understand the first um i would say that i would prefer to see language that would be more in line with either 15 to 30 percent um like the uh other examples that have happened across from on in my opinion okay i i don't think that having those kind of numbers i think it would just be words on paper i don't think it would you want something that's not easy but it's attainable and and i discounted like eight of them because the because the thresholds are so high that it wouldn't be attainable so i i chose what i thought was reasonable but not easy so did you yeah i have just a question um so it sounds like there was an assumption made that this only applies to the select select board but the wording that is in there is any elected town officer doesn't that apply to beyond isn't there like isn't the town moderator elected moderator any elected town official any any any so what about the school board is that the school board we're in a unified school district so we have three different districts so that doesn't apply and they have their own charter i just thought the way it was where it was kind of vague in terms of who it applies so that yeah we can't can't it can't include town if uh excuse me um school board members the school board directors so part of the reason we've we've asked the bread to come here is there's two options for us one is we could say go away and come back with a petition and force us to do this if we don't want to take it up in that case we have no say in the language or we can say yes we want to go forward and we can craft the language however we want based on any public input that we get or our own opinions or our own um it's an awkward thing to be putting together a process for eliminating one of your own members um in fact in the most recent example in underhill the only successful actually the only successful recall ever in history was done in underhill where it was a it was an issue the the the petition there was a petition to do the charter change and followed by the the vote and so it was a started right at the beginning with the whole progression as a different scissors and lead thing um so i guess the the one question that we need to ask ourselves is do we want to take this up or are not um one of the reasons they have it at this meeting is the the date to warn this is late to warn whatever's on town meeting ballot is at the end of january so we only have a couple meetings between now and then if we want to take this up and put it on that ballot and not potentially have a special have to have a special election to address this question if it comes as a petition because it could come as a petition with only five percent of the vote right just a question since we were talking about the um the vote to to reconsider the topic of merger i know part of the standard i'm sorry part of the standard um for that reconsideration would it would have it would have had to pass with two-thirds of those who voted voting in the affirmative um so that's sort of a protection to against a single issue vote and 500 people showing up and overturning someone's election to a position uh was there any thought in including that sort of a provision that already exists in the reconsideration language i am i maybe we're getting a little mixed up there's no consideration in this uh proposal right not for elected officials but that language around you know protecting against 500 people showing up and casting a ballot and someone being recalled um that language and that standard of the two-thirds already exists in the reconsideration language um as was needed to be meant for merger to pass on reconsideration um i i i'm just curious if any thought was given to including that sort of a provision as an added protection again against like 500 people a thousand people showing up and recalling a person that was elected by 6000 so in um a number of towns um it some of the languages that as many voters that voted in the election to elect the official initially had to vote yep well that happened in an annual election where you have multiple issues multiple candidates generally on the ballot so there's it draws a greater number of voters versus a single issue um special election which generally draws fewer uh voters just like in under hill and winzer where 23 percent of the voters registered voters voted in the reason so that's that's why if you're overturning basically the decision of in my example 6000 people i think you should have a standard that needs to be met so that you have a representative sample of those members who elected that person just food for thought yeah there's a there's a right the there's a complication though that if we mail ballots to everybody for town meeting which is when select board members are voted and then you have a special election and you choose not to mail them you'll never have enough enough votes to satisfy that criteria so it's a we're in a weird situation where now we're allowed to mail ballots and probably often will for our bigger elections but for a special election like this i don't think we would want to spend 20 thousand dollars to to send out ballots for for for a recall uh especially since people that were being recalled um so yeah so i guess yeah this is a this is a this also ties into uh the fact that there's a potential for separation in which case our population will be cut in approximately but it's all relative and so then so then your your your assertion that it's difficult to get 10 percent you know it's it's it's going to be difficult enough to get 10 percent changes because that's only a thousand there's only 200 more than you need to get one today so i'm a little i'm i'm i'm leery of going with with with 10 percent but i guess i guess uh the the more fundamental question is do we do we want to do this for one and the other is do we want to control the language um we don't want to do it and we don't want to control the language because you say brad go good luck getting signatures five percent and we'll we'll we'll hope that you get them by the end of january it won't happen probably by the by the deadline but um right so that's it was certainly happened by the next election well the the the concern is i think within a certain number of days of getting the petition from you we have to have an election right i think it's within 60 days and we're seeing the petition so would have the so if you give us the petition in april we've got to have a so is it better to have it in conjunction with the annual election or is it better to have spend the money or a special election yeah just the thought yeah i'll ask a question how how important is this to be on this ballot day versus working on the issue in a timely thoughtful manner and making a thoughtful push to put it on next year's not this coming march but the following march after it's been thought through reviewed and and it's a compromise versus and the reason why i put this on the ballot was exactly that it's now the middle of december i have no idea how many signatures he had but you know we had other things to talk about and we're on deadline for a few other issues do we ask the select board to work with this group and come up with some language maybe by a committee or some group and come back have a discussion and then put it on for a future agenda that's assuming that it's brought directly to back to the select board because if it's by by by petition then you can't change the language and it goes to the voters right is that oh and by the way it can and then the select board first of all then it i mean i'm first of all then it goes down to the state and the state could kick it out for whatever reason they want second uh the following year the select board could come back with a new provision and put in whatever they want and get enough votes and move it out so i'm doing a friendly if it's important to the community or the and or others do you want to work something that that makes sense where everybody is is comfortable with language and thresholds because i'm going to tell you something it does we if we do mail out 14 000 ballots and we have to get poll workers and we have to do things it better be a serious infraction exactly to remove somebody and that's where language matters exactly i agree i agree it shouldn't be easy and then it's only been used twice in the in vermont's history and and for good reason but um you know i'm and i'm well i'm more than happy to work uh on on it with whoever um our town attorney wants to know he sent me what issue are we trying to solve i think i explained that i i don't want your explanation yeah yeah i i don't i would rather have it in the language then to have something happen and then have to go through like it will take at least a year uh to to to uh you know to get the petition and get it on the ballot and go through the legislative process um but as i explained in both you know this the this the house and the government operations committee little discussion about it perfectly happy pat passed unanimously through both onto the legislature that was for that was under hills and theirs was 15 for the signatures and a simple majority so i was just so evan's using the word importance and rather than i i think like what is the urgency and i i i heard your answers and and i i know you want to put something in place so that we have it if it's needed but to evan's point we have a lot of things that are time boxed that are on our plate right now and in order to do this correctly it would be nice to not have it have unnecessary urgency yeah i was actually not going to say this but i know that i've i've mentioned previously about having a standard charter change committee um to work with residents to get public feedback to draft this language um i feel it would be more appropriate and i i know we're not supposed to be talking about adding more stuff um so i'm sorry uh but i i think it would be more appropriate rather than us being directly involved in crafting language that could eventually you know we could weaken or dilute language that could have the potential of affecting us directly um i see that is sort of a little bit of a gray area and i would rather have a separate entity work to create language to make a recommendation to us um because i don't i'm not particularly comfortable with crafting language that could either strengthen or weaken a tool that could be used to recall my election if that makes sense i'm not sure it's appropriate which is where a secondary body making a recommendation to the select board would would come in handy and what would that committee look like any other committee made up of residents we have a wealth of knowledge in our community with attorneys lawyers paralegals folks who have municipal backgrounds folks who are involved in blct women in government organizations of that sort also having connections with other municipalities such as under hill um be able to talk about the pros of the cons and not take a chunk of meeting not that this isn't a worthwhile cause i'm not debating the the that the the the importance for the whatever um but just being able to devote more time to actually crafting language um and making a formal recommendation um with formal public input if that does that answer your question sure yeah absolutely i'm more than happy to to work on it i'd be part of that i think i've done a lot of research and i think i can lend some yeah i've i'm glad you brought that up tracy i was debating whether to go there as well as the question of whether we should have a there are there are communities that have charter committees that that look at what other municipalities have in their charters that we might benefit from and and and pursue them because we don't we don't spend a lot of time doing that right and that's and i and i know exactly what tracy said when we don't want to be adding workload so um so there are a couple hands up in the public do we want to go listen to public comment now um any comments in the room i mean when i come up Irene renner thanks to brad for pushing my buttons and getting me to think differently i never thought that i would see the day when we could vote people off this island those who drafted our town charter did not include a recall provision it's not the vermont way is it i mean relationships have always mattered here in a place where you'd eventually wind up making a casserole for ailing for your ailing neighbor or they would pull your car out of the mud with their tractor you couldn't afford to get all mean and nasty about mere political differences but times have changed and social media has been a big part of that change civility can no longer be taken for granted in a town the size of essics or in a smaller town like underhill where they passed a recall addition to their charter in march and then voted to actually recall a misbehaving member of their select board just a few months ago recall as i understand it is not to punish a member for speaking up for a marginalized part of this community recall is not to isolate a member for being assertive or for being reclusive or any other personality trait they bring to this table but recall is a way i've come to understand for voters to admit that they were misled it's a curative action similar to the way the staff and select board can make mistakes with tangible reproductions as happened in 2016 we were then advised by our attorney to make a motion and vote to cure that entire mess thereby absolving the town of liability if not guilt this year's phenomenon of an phenomenon of an elected official feeling emboldened rather than ashamed after being caught in a texting trist that vilified his own constituents has pushed me from no way on recall to the side of yes please it is time the voters have a way to cure their mistakes as daunting as these actual corrections will be to ascertain because not every elected official who breaches the public trust has the common sense and the good grace to bow out when they've crossed the line of indecency it is time that voters have a recall option as part of the essex town charter i'd like tracy's suggestion to form a committee and i hope that it would be done promptly as to evan's concern about timing there are general elections in april of 2022 and november of 2022 we can do this and we can do it before march of 2023 thanks so much for your time thanks iran uh annie cooper hi thanks andy um it's quite a curious uh curious uh presentation um not presentation uh i don't mean presentation in that sense i'm in the presentation of the idea um it's a curious list of people that signed it and it's interesting to say the least i um i would very much like to be part of the committee that works on this i think that would be intriguing and interesting and certainly lively um i do agree that having this in place uh several years ago to recall iran ran and when she was in the condom that the middle school would have gone over uh quite well so i i see i see the validity in it but also i don't know i don't love it um i'm sure a lot of people would like to have this on the school board right now and have this katie recall i think it's interesting as a topical conversation i also think that voting and having a say in our community is important and um if it turns into a circus of vote and recall and vote and recall we're not doing our community uh a service i appreciate the discussion and thank you for your time thanks annie arland smith yeah andy um i don't know if you can answer this for me or not but i i believe that there's protocols built right into um i don't know what you want to call it rules and regulations for the way that um uh select board members so if they were to do something egregious uh something horrible uh detrimental to the town so on and so forth there are ways for somebody on the select board without a recall by the voters to be removed if they are actually doing damage is that a correct statement no no there's not there's not there's no the only option there's no way to remove somebody there is not okay the only option is to wait for their term to end and vote vote somebody else in okay which leads me to my next point um and and i commend the gentleman for putting together all the data that he did um but the data could also be looked at a different way of 250 towns in the state of vermont only four of them have the charter or 14 of them have uh have the charter um it's only been tried twice and it's only been successful once and i believe that's in the history of vermont if if i understood that correctly um my concern would be because every person is only on the board for three years there one vote amongst five um the amount of damage that they can do to the community is minimal on their own um and they have a three-year term and if they're not doing or serving the voters in a way that they should then obviously they should never be reelected again um which goes back to the voters hands putting this provision in there as we discuss um could lead to several what i would call witch hunts which could be extremely expensive to the town over years um to put special votes together um because somebody may have said something or did something that that we didn't like um and that we didn't see as proper in their position um but their terms going to end a maximum of three years i mean if they were foolish enough to do something right out of the gate it's a three-year three-year wait period they cannot do a tremendous amount of damage if this gentleman is is um true that he's not in a hurry um could the petition be worded in a way that he chooses when it would be put onto the ballot so he could if if it takes him a while to do it if he misses this coming march does there have to be a special election or could he choose if could could the actual petition be worded that it will fall on the next whichever vote is coming up that we're going to have to pay for anyways um i personally don't see a need for this i think the data that he presented kind of proves that there's no real need for this i do understand under some extreme weird circumstances that maybe it could be a legitimate tool but so unlikely and i'm more concerned with it being used to the witch hunt tool um and costing the taxpayers a lot of money for those so those are my concerns and i would be interested if somebody would know if that petition could be written in such a way that there would not be a special election required to vote on it thank you harlan i don't think the wording of a petition could override state statute so i don't think there's any way to um to to collect signatures turn it in and say don't don't don't bother reacting to it for another for several months um and and the other thing i don't know is if there's an expiration on signatures i know some of these many of the communities have a a 30 day or 40 day or 60 day period that um signatures can be collected in if if the oldest signature is older than 30 days the whole petition is invalid um those kind of things so i don't know if there's a standard for that for a petition that would come you know if you collect all the signatures and then sit on it for nine months i don't know if it if they explain her or not i don't know what they're i don't know what the if there's anything there but i but no but harlan does specifically ask your question i do not believe that the wording of a petition can override state statute okay i would just hope that the group that is that has put this forward if they truly feel that this is just some protection that they would like to see further down the road um if you decide to send it back to them which is which would be my recommendation is to go get the petition put the wording in and let's see how it all shakes out uh that they would time it properly to get on the um next planned vote so that they're not actually costing the taxpayers a tremendous amount of money for a special vote um and i know that would be tricky um but as he was speaking to begin with that uh the process shouldn't be easy uh it should probably be complicated and even this piece of it should probably be complicated to bring it forward um unfortunately and nothing against him and i understand his point and i understand that there could potentially somewhere's down the line be an absolute need for it um i think it's a i think it's a slippery slope and i think the data that he presented if you read it a different way um doesn't support the need for it so my two cents thank you all right thanks harlan uh ali serta hello thank you um i have two points one is um this kind of consideration this is really serious stuff um you know you're basically talking about a process that would undo the will of a majority of voters within our community um and i think to do that that's this is our democratic process right so to undo that i think it has to have a very high bar so i'm not saying i wouldn't be unwilling to consider a recall process but i will tell you i will expect it to be very laid out that uh you know 15 percent i'd go higher than that and i will say in this community it's not hard to get that if if the will of the people want it thank you annie cooper for a second vote on merger it can be done in a very short time frame um but i would say i want to know what we could recall people for i don't want i don't like that person i i want it to be an egregious offense i want it to be something that reaches a certain level that could be you know really offensive uh and not just somebody's opinion about what is truly offensive and i think that needs time and i think you need the community to come together and decide what that what that looks like i'm not into arbitrary numbers and i'm not into arbitrary standards of conduct so that's my two cents thank you and thanks alise uh eddie davis um yes hi i look at this objectively on two sides on both sides of the fence in the beginning when he said you know when he was when uh he was talking about um you know well we're trying to do this as a preventative thing so the next time around you know um if somebody does something egregious will be prepared it's like um the reason i'm on both sides of the fence is because you guys know how i feel about running at saxon hill it's like listen years and years and years us hunters have been you know we haven't shot anybody you're it's like you're saying you want to put a preventative ordinance in eight one when no one's been shot you know well they have actually uh eight year you know the professor but my point is it's that kind of logic that i have to learn that all the signs on saxon hill they say wear orange i wear my orange and i i'm having faith that i'm not going to get shot but do we wait until someone gets shot that's what i'm trying to say on both sides of the fence here is i agree with tracy that tracy was saying listen the people six thousand people elected us we've got a really good select board we're very qualified and they're doing great there's nothing's wrong all these other towns nothing's wrong only in the 14 towns that he spoke about they're putting this on so i'm looking at it on both sides of the fence do we wait till someone gets shot and then put it in or i mean he needs to think about that because there's two sides to the coin here and right now we have a great select board that people voted for all right thanks patty i'm gonna bring it back to the board do we want to guess there's a couple options here right um do we want to try to push forward and develop language for town meeting do we want to uh tell tell brad to go find a petition to bring it back to us which could have an arbitrary date for a staff to vote um do we want to ask town staff to establish a committee to look at not only this potentially other charter provisions or admit to this you have thoughts you know i think we've got a lot on our plate right now i think it would be potentially challenging to uh and and i i i agree with what tracy said about the it's it's it's challenging for us to come up with language around how to remove one of us um the the under hill select board explicitly chose not to craft their own language because of that i mean i like the idea of the third option best i think that that gets us to the right the right answer but i i also am sensitive to the fact that our town staff is also right very extended right now adding another committee if you formed a charter committee does it have to it doesn't have to be town staff does it it could be however you chose if the select board forms a committee it has to follow all open meeting laws and so you have to have meeting minutes you have to i got that but warnings and all the all the support around it i understand that part but does it say you have to have the managers and the assistant managers and the financial director on that committee or could you just have a committee that follows the same rules made up of what i'm saying brad a select board primer or try to however you want to make your committee up but not have to burden the actual paid town staff with it isn't it could you legally do that for cheat wrong don't have to have to legally be on a committee but what we do is support that committee even if we're not at the meeting um we're typically the ones who are sending out the notices making sure things are posted online um tracking down minutes to get those posted those procedural things that are required by law or the ones making sure those are i got that but what i'm saying is if they formed a charter committee Greg they they decided to have five or eight or seven however many people and they work on whatever they want to present for charter changes they could do that as a committee without you having to be involved at that point is that correct until if the committee's appointed by the select board right they have to follow open meeting law right so we have to staff right have to make sure that they do the postings get the minutes done get the agendas out that's where staff support comes in i don't know if that answers your question they don't need to participate that's my thing you don't need to actually be at the meeting is what i'm trying to say they could meet without you being present as long as they followed the but there's a lot of things that go into getting a meeting set up making and then follow yeah i know i know nothing like sitting for three hours right and a half right now i'm just saying i if we could want to move this forward to a committee i just didn't want to add anything else to the town employees that's all i'm sure if i could i don't know what other communities do with a charter committee maybe they meet once a year for a couple of hours maybe it's twice a year we could certainly look into something like that and see what some other communities do in that realm it's up to you guys um i just given there's so much i i mean we talk about is i don't know what somebody you get elected you get elected for three years a lot can happen in three years it may be something you want to look at i'm just saying that at this particular time it is late in the calendar if there's an ability to work with the idea instead of trying to get it done by the middle of january when we have other things on the thing do you want to do that and work with the petitioner that's up to you the other the other thing that such a committee would need is a lot of legal advice so i think it would be a expense associated with it so that's the other thing that we haven't necessarily gone for our budgeting either so that's where there's a little bit of some some rub is in there too rad did you want me to comment could it be put on the november ballot if uh um in conjunction with the the election in november so that you didn't incur the cost and then that gives time to work on uh language and if that was the case if you could do that you know i would not you know push a petition but be happy to work with whoever whatever group or it's on language and hopefully be able to present something for the november and the opportunities for a voter town meeting school budget vote and even numbered years november that we could get something on about right without adding an additional election so yeah you know yeah because i wouldn't want to see this drag on for another year or two if possible right so um i guess the best opportunity thing to do would be here to make a make a proposal well i don't know the quick go ahead go ahead racy um hearing that about november would be what would meet what you're looking for if i heard you correctly november that november 2022 would would be amenable to what you're hoping to do i'm i'm sorry i can't i'm i thought i just heard you say that november 2022 yes the the next election um after town meeting day would be an acceptable time frame sure i mean if if this is too short of time and in you as a board feel that we need to spend more time on the language and how it's going to impact the community and getting you know just uh i'm willing to work with a group and um postpone it to november instead of trying to push a petition to force the issue yeah and so what i would like to propose is that we could have staff look into other towns that have charter committees see how often they meet what the scope is of what they work on and bring it back to us um as as feedback to inform our decision going forward whether it be you know to set up a standard committee or go down another path right and that path could be to tell you to go get signatures for a petition and ask you to please not to cause an an extra election i mean any i see just doesn't say that what tracy just said isn't committing us to put in the other committee and choosing to work with you on the language but it's clear we need more information before we sort of choose your own adventure i mean committee could bring it to the select board board in in anticipation of november right yeah and the select board could say nah we don't like that language and we passed the november election you know and then you know i don't want to see that happen so and would want to work with the committee get it to the select board um to make a decision well before that deadline understood so i'm happy to work with you and work a little for staff a lot better than marge yeah okay so um thank you brad thanks the board for the discussion and uh let's brudge on okay thank you very much appreciate your time thanks brad thank you okay so business item 5h discussion and potential action on tentative agreements about shared services between town of sx and the sx junction so what do we do here i i uh wasn't here for the last meeting this was discussed but let's see are there any further changes in the mlu that anybody needs to wants to bring up for any comments on the language that's in the packet any of them yeah are you specifically asking about the mlu uh typically we've gone through them um document by document but i think you guys did you did you finish this i guess on uh this meeting um there's no there's no no i think they just accepted the changes that okay all right the bill has accepted the proposed changes and that's what was left the only one question is there's no shared services financial shared financial services agreement anymore right yep there's that still coming i think brad said it's coming on yeah before that's meeting on monday okay so anything we need to discuss about on like on the mlu all right then the the uh delinquent tax agreement that changed to the tax collection agreement when it's gone back to the delinquent tax agreement and all of the language about who's collecting taxes has been removed um which i'm fine with um i kind of have a uh any any concerns on this so pat i'm currently looking at the document i'm not seeing if your hands up so if you have a if you have a comment go ahead and make it uh yeah all right yeah i'll i'll speak up but no i don't i think we we went through this and with uh some explanation last week um you know about exactly how the money's collected and everything it just we felt i think we ended up on a place where most of us were okay with it in the language so this is what they're coming at or rather this is you know the result of that um but by and large i don't have any issues with as it is okay how about it any concerns anybody have any i have a couple so for the delinquent tax agreement i don't see an end date or ability to amend should we need it um i thought we were going to be consistent and have that language in each agreement but that was my only comment okay so end date and um modification any other comments on delinquent tax it so i have a couple so uh item number three at the top of well it's on the top of my page two um this i think the um trustees changed the wording um from caused by their access to same to the data acquisition efforts and i know that they were kind of struggling with how to represent it and that kind of got put in there i my opinion is a data acquisition efforts is is a narrow piece of what's happening and it should be something broader like technology migration efforts if if if they're not comfortable with the access piece i hesitate to say it but um it's not really it's the caused by that's the issue um so it almost seems like damage to town infrastructure stemming from their access to same because that could be anything related to the migration but i understand what the intent in the what that means okay so your suggestion is to change uh data acquisition to technology migration efforts to make it a broader umbrella since data acquisition is only is one specific thing right and then Tracy you're suggesting caused by to be stemming from yeah i mean either or i think it means the same thing i'm just giving another option in case one is more acceptable than the other should i keep going i have a couple go ahead go ahead um item number six on the bottom of page two i think this was added in if this contract requires an extension the party shall not unreasonably deny the extension and i don't know whether that came from legal or not but that seemed very vague to me yeah i was wondering about that language i i thought that what they i think that that was the trustees request um if i remember correctly from our last session and i think that it was mostly because they were concerned that you know if it did take them some extra time that they didn't uh or rather they were they were concerned if it took them time that you know a different select board might basically shut the door on them say you know we didn't agree to this um so it's gone this far but now we're stopping um maybe maybe that should be within the right of a future select board um but it's the language i think that they wanted just to be on the page that we're not going to you know if they need past june 30th for some reason 2023 that we're not or the select board isn't going to deny them um i don't know whether or not needs to be in here or not it's just but yeah i understand the intent i'm just concerned that it reads in a very subjective way than rather than an object objective way to say you know if if that future select board does not agree to extend it how do they define what how does uh the trustees or the the city um define whether that's reasonable or unreasonable and is that a leak i'm not a lawyer so i don't know is that a legal legal term that has some teeth to it or is that something that's subjective i think they'll might be on the line yeah the yellow line there well doesn't that second line there sue anyway the it's agreement may be amended or modified by mutual written agreement of the parties wouldn't that cover if that goes over that's an item item number seven right which i had another question on that that used to be item number 13 but i didn't know why it moved to i'd like what the significance was of it moving so we can ask bill about that language and that they unreasonably denying and i think i think i've heard bill use that language but bill's on the line he is on the line hey bill hi so bill there's question about uh in the it agreement uh section six there was some language added by the trustees um that says that the parties shall not unreasonably deny an extension if it's needed is that you know i've seen language like that for instance in connection with an assignment of an agreement usually says that you can't assign the agreement without the consent of your counterparty and the consent won't be unreasonably withheld condition or delayed and it's um if there is a reasonable basis for withholding your consent that's all you need but if you're just doing it out of spite out of spite or in bad faith that's not reason so i it's it's not i wouldn't reword it a little bit but that's uh the concept is is not foreign to me okay so so how would you reword it a little bit so it's more Greg you want to pull it up number six yep yeah there you i can i can propose some language and circulate it tomorrow or the next day so the agreement terminates on June 30th 2023 and then the concept is if we require an extension the town's consent is required and said consent will not be unreasonably withheld condition or delayed let me work on that that sounds good the following question is question number seven does that reflect the same intent that was language that was added in i think because somebody wanted to have language in there about amending the agreement and the discussion we had the last time was let's move it up uh from where it was originally which was at the end yeah and so i think that allows you to amend the agreement before it ends oh okay the other talks about extension that's all my my items all right anything else on it all right uh police services done this one a lot i don't see any changes in this no we finalized or effectively finalized it yeah okay and then there's a memo from brad saying that we should expect to see um some additional agreements uh or does it say that there's some clarification in here uh that i had asked for about the clerk and treasurer and it's it's the the way it's stated in here also it it is stated this way in their charter is that the they're asking the town to continue providing all the same services they've been providing during what they're called their transition year and then at the end of that transition year the clerk and treasurer functions would likely separate um unless another agreement is put in place also this uh i thought is there another memo finance he's suggesting that we have a clerk and treasurer's agreement as well sure you can do that and one's going to be a city clerk and one's going to be a town clerk yeah so andy weren't weren't here for this discussion but tracy actually um provided some like good context about i'll let you what were the words that you right not getting down to the leaf level yep yeah i did i did read that so i think this is an intent to have things at the is it the forest level i would call this the tree level tree level um i just i had some questions on the finance piece and and maybe maybe if this maybe i'm taking it down to the leaf level but um the the the line if there are shared finance non-personnel related expenses each municipality is responsible for 50 of the costs so i think since we're saying that i think we need to understand what those shared finance non-personnel related expenses what falls into that bucket um and given that that next line that that both finance departments are going to be at 81 main trade i assume that part of that is the facilities and and indirect facilities everything yeah okay so okay all right so he's gonna he's i think he's gonna come in with with amended an amended finance agreement that includes the bullets he's listed here is that yeah i mean finance we know obviously needs to be reworked so it's it's coming i'm assuming the point of this memo is just to give us some advance notice of what's going to be in it but until we get the actual agreement in front of us i don't know how much we can really accomplish with it right okay and then the last item is about shared boards commissions and committees the housing commission is is definitely a shared one the economic development commission although it's fully appointed by the town has worked in both but i don't know if that's the intent moving forward i don't think that's a question for the trustees yeah next next week right so the question i think that this last section asks is if this is to be helpful both boards could begin to thinking about which boards we're talking about i think it's only the housing commission right there's no other housing commission is shared energy committee and economic development commission have worked townwide but they're appointed by the select board right um joint stormwater committee right although there's a stormwater agreement you can't remember if that touches on the committee or not um try town try town that'll remain in place yeah that's yeah that's uh untouchable so so can we ask is that something that um we can ask staff to provide that list of advance of that meeting those housing housing housing stormwater the ones we need to understand and energy committee again works across the definitely helps out the village and then economic development yeah i'd say we can provide a list of all our boards and committees we can include that in the packet for the next meeting um let the boards discuss yep once you want to continue in what roles okay all right cool thanks all right that would be helpful okay the next one here in here is uh the assessor agreement i think we were we're pretty much done with this one all right but the change that was made at the bottom of page two number nine section nine where city is crossed out and replaced with town assessor's position is that is that still carry the the intent forward yeah because the village doesn't have an assessor oh they're saying oh wait a minute right so they are the i think the intent here is they we've asked them to support our assessor's department until the uh reassessment is complete which includes uh potentially includes all of the appeals and i think this uh right that city the change from the city to the town i think is a change from question of whether they will have an when they will have an assessor i don't know if it says in here anywhere no it was just this is because it because of the appeal of the appeal went longer they were they're willing to pay for any town employee's time that is involved in the appeal that's why that was changed yeah it wouldn't be the city because they don't have an assessor it would be the town that has to do the appeal because we have the assessor that was my understanding but to me it's a shift in perspective it's saying it's for the time expended by the town employees in their support of the town assessor's position right versus in support of the city's position so who's driving the time being expended whatever is needed for the legal the appeal process yeah in court yeah it's the appeal process that decides that they our assessor will have to use whatever time they need for that appeal and then this city is just saying that they'll pay the town assessor for that time which works out for us and i think that was just some clarification that's what's going to happen and that the city is basically committing to what we wanted anyway which is to use our assessor throughout the entirety of that process so i mean this was a good change for us yeah and does say then that the when the appraisal is complete but before any appeals have concluded the city may establish its own office of assessor so this says that they cannot establish their own office before the before the reappraisal is completed but they can do it during the period which appeals may still be continuing but i think the intent is to continue to have the town assessors deal with the appeals is that what this correct yeah yeah that was the intent that's the way we want it all right just uh for consistency this one has uh on a reasonable hourly basis the it one has something about based on the salary and benefit costs of i mean the it was more specific as far as exactly the director yeah what number was that too uh i on on the reappraisal when it's item number nine right after we're changing where the change is from city to town assessor position on a reasonable hourly basis yeah right and and then the last thing i saw in this is item number 12 it doesn't have the same language this is it has that doesn't have about the select board and the should see we're hand delivered to the other party and this has town of sx town manager city of sx city manager and i think all the others we've had be consistent to say all right language is not consistent in section 12 okay and the other ones don't just say or hand delivered it says to the other party at a duly worn meeting of the town select board or the city council is that what you're referring to just so the language was not consistent my other comment on this one is is it clear enough that when the reappraisal ends that this agreement ends i don't see an end date uh it says continuing a shared relationship um wait a minute the it says or continue to share assessor services with the town so seems there's an option for it to be or in perpetuity if they choose not to hire an assessor but it does drive a new agreement this is continuing a shared relationship will will be pursuant to a new mutually agreeable agreement acceptable agreement sorry but right given that does it maybe amended or modified or routine section 11 says be amended or modified that there's no end date and i defer to bill whether that's an explicit end date or termination date is needed or whether that covers it you hear the question bill i did and i will need to take a look at the whole agreement you can think about it yep thanks bill do we need an explicit end date i remember our discussions previously were along the lines of um we don't really care when they create their own assessing assessor's department if they want to pay for two but they're gonna they're going to uh the reappraisal is going to be done by the town mm the next reappraisal and then once that's over we can talk about future services shared services or or the city can go its own way can't send an end date because we've already said we would stick with it until the appeals the appeals are set by a court of law right not set by us so they can't have an end date to this and i didn't know whether it was until that all appeals are concluded if you yeah if you could word it that way but you you can't give a specific time because yeah some appeals you go and they say come back next year because we're not dealing with it you know it's depending on especially with the court so we are there right now right it can't be date specific right so that one or it gets appealed to the supreme court some people may mm exactly so they can't have a specific date at that time because you don't know the the appeal time and any other comments on this one right or first refusal i think we there's still some more language in this two years to the back out mm-hmm it was agreed to uh last meeting i think the last one we saw had one it looks like one six months two one two i can't tell what's supposed to say now which came first the chicken are the two are the one not more than two years to close this transaction if they just choose to if we offer a right or first refusal they have two years to accept without this mess or close the transaction right up is that what it's supposed to mean the concept here is that they need to have time to uh have a bond vote yeah in order to raise the funds necessary to purchase the building it's not like a typical commercial transaction where you say you've got three months to close on this deal um with the municipality they need some time the uh two years seems like it's a on the longer side and i believe we push back on to one and now it's pushed back to two again but unless unless there's a inkling to sell 81 main street anytime in the near future this is probably not an issue that should take up a lot of your time yep anything else i write a first refusal are you okay with two years yep stormwater we haven't even looked at it all part of the reason that some of these were included in stormwater too is um these will be on the agenda next Monday with the for the joint meeting so it's a chance for you to look at it tonight um not necessarily with an expectation of making changes but just with the idea that you could see it review it before it went ahead so so generally the recommendation is that we continue all of the current capital projects as they are funded as they've been proposed and then when those are done then there's communities go their separate way on stormwater correct and so there will be potentially some town capital projects building infrastructure in the city which is what we had planned to do anyway at this point with the money that and the money's already the funds are already committed are already out there for this or you need we would be applying for grants to close and that's been a while since i've looked at this but that sounds about right there's two two two big projects left it's the um uh church of latter-day saints project and the town village stormwater projects most of those are in the town um the there's already been some projects in the village have been that have been wrapped up but the big ones that remain um and then what those once those are closed out yeah the concept is to each municipality to fund its own way forward okay so given that it's 10 minutes to 11 i don't think i really want to go through this paragraph by paragraph tonight unless anybody really wants so i guess the homework is to look at this um and feed comments to bill yeah this is one that has was was crafted by stormwater staff public work staff on the town and the village that agreed and proposed this yeah so please look at the stormwater agreement get your comments to the bill and then we'll be like we'll be discussing it with uh trustees on monday okay and then some of this other is just back up on the stormwater all right we're moving on to another next agenda item everybody's getting off quiet consent items okay i don't unless there's uh there's any more we need to talk about about the uh agreements okay okay five i discussion and potential action to hire town manager do we want to have executive session discussion about that what uh set up that you can do you want to have a discussion about what we want to do here what we want to say publicly and then uh come back in the session and say it do we i guess there's there's a couple options that i guess we gotta consider so maybe we do need to have the discussion yes so we'll uh we will uh go into the session for that and then the discussion about grievance um also definitely is uh executive session material so there's no need to do an executive session on the agreements but we do have the two other items we can circle back to those after the rest of the agenda so consent agenda move to approve the consent agenda tracy second thank you sue any further discussion i just wanted to make a comment about the um resilient urban forests for all grant i think that was a great piece of work and all hardly support that i did notice that it has a due date of this thursday so i want to make sure that they know that we approve that so that they can move forward they are aware thanks all right any further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye aye okay motion passes our consent agenda passes uh five zero reading file any uh comments here so Dennis gave us a preview of the uh uh capital plan please take a look at that we'll be discussing it uh january uh i can't remember yeah yeah so the request from Dennis is if there's anything that you need to know um let them know now so we can prepare for it um there's a but usual stuff in there um any other reading file comments okay so it's it's 11 or 1051 uh it's unlikely that we're going to finish i don't think we're going to finish two executive sessions in eight minutes at this time mr chairman i'd like to make the motion that we stay in session until 11 30 second thank you don thank you tracy um any further discussion okay all those in favor please say aye aye opposed okay so we will stay in session until 11 30 um i have that's adequate time i have the motions for the executive session cool perfect let's do that then so i move that the select court enter into executive session to discuss the employment of a public employee in accordance with one vsa section three one three a three did we need to include anybody or should we and then we don't need them uh we didn't list anyone but if you want evan uh your bill is available too um here may you bill we need you can say it we can leave yeah let's uh let's to to include bill else and let's have these two guys and the manager and the deputy town manager hey thank you sue is there a second second thank you tracy for the discussion all those in favor please say aye aye opposed no executive session for that two other motions yeah i move that the select board make the specific finding that general public knowledge of a grievance would clearly place the town at a substantial disadvantage second thank you sue thank you tracy any further discussion all those in favor please say aye aye aye opposed okay motion passes five zero and i move that the select board enter into executive session to discuss a grievance pursuant to one vsa three one three a one d to also include bill ellis our town manager and our deputy town manager second thank you sue thank you tracy any further discussion those in favor please say aye aye aye opposed any motion passes five zero we may choose to come back to um and i'm i'm i think our intent is to come back and make a motion so um scott you don't have to stay but um we will come back to the um teams meeting so that if anybody's still participating uh there they can see the final motion we make


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