nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice earl so welcome everyone to tonight's look board meeting i just turn my phone off if you have one police at least put it the silent i would be greatly appreciated thank you ok we're onto agenda additions and changes i don't see anything in or table that awesome so we're we're going to move right on it so we're going to go to item four on the agenda which is public to be heard that's a time for the public to address the select board on topics that are not on the agenda and if you're here for the firearms thing that is on the agenda so public  be heard is for other things that again are not on the agenda as anyone here tonight wishing to speak during public to be heard every i just like to mention that there is an election coming up next tuesday you can't  we have business item five a and it's that time of year where we set the fiscal tax rates for two thousand eight hundred two thousand and nineteen we had town meeting we kind of know what the budget is for the operation we just heard back from the state on what the education rates are so lauren could you give us some more details sure and the assessor has given us an amount of twenty six million to fifty eight three zero one as the grand less for this year which is the one point six percent increase and we use that to calculate that the all the rates except for the town highway rate is calculated by using a hundred sixty county outside a village on the general fund it tax rate would be point four nine three two my local agreement rate is point zero zero one nine that's made up of  money that we have to make up for exemptions that we voted capital tax point zero two and now these are recommended rates we did have to take the bottom line on our budget we added forty five thousand at town meeting and we also added had to add fifteen thousand and for the conservation fund in order to to figure out the tax rate and so the total is the general fund tax rate is recommended to go up three point two percent the capital tax is that it is flat down highway taxes going down point nine percent and the local agreement taxes going up five point five six percent which is really very tiny amount and then the homestead tax rate is these are given to us by the state is going down point to nine percent and the nonresidential tax rate for education is filling up five so questions from the board for lauren about our duty here to set the tax rate anybody ok c n d sand any concern that we're still have this highway tax this town outside the village only concern that we don't have there's no such legal entity really is a town outside the village and i'd like to get rid of it so that all town taxpayers are paying for town assets that were using that money to pay for and i believe there's a plan to do just that there is we would like to do it next year in the village there is a we have a separate department for capital transfers and the rolling stock fund gets funded from there the thought is to take that transfer next year put it in the street but it still it'll be like what we do in the town so they'll be aligned and then eliminate the highway tax at that time and they will bounce each other off can't do it this year and we had a concern expressed recently about representation in fact there's no there's no are you we course the select would represent all residents of the town that we have this subset is being taxed differently that residents that have a different tax rate than some other county residents those of where they live i don't think that we have the we should continue to perpetuate the practice of  having a separate tax rate for those individuals and we agree want to get that down to zero and we want to do that in a smart way and i think we have a path forward to to do that so we're in agreement we want to get rid of it so that we're not they don't answer the question why we can't do this or i don't think i personally if we get it this year i did look at those numbers at this point you know where we're at right now the town outside the village people in the town of bell outside the village would pay twenty fourth that dollars less and the people in the village would at that point pay six dollars more because they're picking up part of that hundred sixty five thousand dollars but that's the effect it would have been at this point we've already said the village tax rate we can't change that budget it's already done deal so that's the fact that it would have do want to entertain doing anything different than the plan that's already out there like say you know if there's a firm path forward to do this next year and in order to do it this year we have in equity it seems to me that we're trying to create two wrongs making a right and i just i don't see how that and see how that works i would rather leave it the way it is lawrence got because then everyone in the town would be paying the same tax rate so and i'm also concerned of the legality of such attacks we had it for so long you know one more year is not going to kill us but i understand what you're trying to accomplish here my understanding is that this tax has been in existence for decades  and it was initially established by a select board long ago not established but charged to the town outside the village by a select board long ago in order to offset the fact that village residents are paying additional taxes to the town so i think at this point because we're moving forward in consolidations in so many other departments that this is a great way to continue that path forward and it's the first time we're talking adjusting taxation in a long time since we did the public works budget here that we move the really works to the town public works so we need to keep chipping away at the different tax rates that we have and i'm really satisfied that staff has come up with us with a good path forward thank you that's really good news and it's a difference of two dollars to the village to actually put up a six dollars if we were doing made it today they would go up almost four dollars if we only have next year so it's a difference of two dollars per for every household so i don't think it's that big of a penalty for anybody in or in fact the town outside the village that's a difference of over twenty dollars or so i more inequity that we need to study in the next year than just this i'm all for eliminating it but if we don't have that representation and the ability for outside the village residents to have a presentation on their outside the village issues we've got bigger problems than the amount of money extra these residents have been paying for fifty sixty seventy years just because it was a village so i'm not happy about having it but there are other things that need to get fixed in were going to leave it as recommended and the other questions on the tax rates ok there are none i would entertain a motion with tax rates might i move that the select board set the tax rates for the fiscal year ending thirty june two thousand one thousand as follows the town general fund will be set at point four nine three two the town capital tax rate will a point old to town highway for town outside the village it only will be point zero one one zero and the local agreement tax will be point zero zero one six one the homestead education rate is set at one dollar point five three six zero the nonresidential education rate set by the state is one point six five three nine the town rate for the town outside the village homestead tax is two point zero six to one and the total rate for the town outside the village nonresidential is two point one eight zero zero like mine to have a second on that carry any further discussion on setting the tax for this crime a hearing on all those in favor s like to invite jennifer in our up as you know we are working on the firearms ordinance looking to see if any changes are needed we decided we do have a lot of information but we wanted to get to see if we can get some more we hired jan to talk to our board started to keep it local getting the input from the local community o essex residents and we have a report and we knew that we were not have any recommendations this was merely just trying to gather the thoughts and hopes and dreams of what people had out there regarding firearms ordinance changes which we take very seriously as a lot of people should so today you're going to go over sort of a high level of what how the report there what's in the report in any other comments and then we can open it up to the board and just to let the public know once the board is done with their discussion asking gen questions and on this topic will open it up for comments from the public and depending on how  was speaking we may have to put some time limits on it just to keep things moving but look what you know you're being quoted once we get to that point but for now jen it's yours you know so my objectives today are told t officially hand over this report and to close my fees and work with this project and sure that you can easily find your way around that document because ideally this should resource your next steps to the most efficient and you know durable way possible so i'll give you a little highlight for what the process including what the report includes but really if you have questions about it that's where they spend the bulk of the time that makes sense and i'll go quickly over this because i feel like it's information you probably already aware of so the process itself has several elements there to public forums a place speak on line site that interactive maps and surveying discussion forums and for seven weeks there's three information pop up booths those are in person events in local places public places to answer questions and so after a tours and the self guided tours are really to give folks a chance to who are familiar with the land to just get a sense of place and space and distance and the you know the geography of this decision impacts so here's what was interesting is that the public comment period had two objectives to it one was to provide information because this is a pretty dense topic there are a lot of nuances to it and then the other was to get input originally around the recommendations or the options put forth by perma chief of police chief rose there was also a wish or a  ask if there are other ideas brought up could those also be collected that really spans a huge scope of information so do you have any how many people participated in each so my memory tells me that there was about seventy percent in the june fifth form the objective of that forum was to provide information and kick off a meeting so get people aware of all the different elements were you get a little bit of input from folks  at the proper booths there was about forty people or overall the farmer's market definitely had the bulk of the traffic we didn't collect input the objective there was just to be present and in particular that if someone had a question of me that they didn't feel like they wanted to bring to  public meeting or didn't feel quite comfortable putting on line they could swing by and ask play speak website so that's the on line website with the discussion forums maps in the survey so there was over twenty four hundred unique views but i could have been from anywhere in the country or even the world really two hundred thirty one connex two hundred twenty one residence so you could connect even if you were a resident of essex but you couldn't participate in most or maybe all of it engagement pro many people were going to be on line so a chance to see what was the action happening there and what were the trends and in particular i was thinking people were going to be wondering what i was going to do with this information to try to take the understanding that i was making out of the information and put it forth with the invitation to say you see yourself represented here in what's missing and the feedback i got a lot of feedback from that forum and went back to the drawing board not with the new format but with new information to populate it with does that answer your question about so you're trying to figure out if period from my review of all of your material and being on the forum that it was a very low number of participation all the way  around we're making decisions on behalf of the entire community of essex here with a very small percentage of people weighing in on this one felt the need to make that yeah so i think how you use this information is going to be really important  if you use it as a vote or a qualitative sort of the numbers as an indication of what you should or shouldn't do it's not going to work very well because it's only participants who took the time to show up for any of those engagement tools and when you think about those asking the team you know what is your level of success for a public comment period like this what are the numbers you usually get for input on any kind of policy decision that you might make or you know it's comparing apples to oranges a little bit if you go for more bigger initiatives for numbers  but these numbers aren't way out of line for the numbers of people who do show up and participate it's just a very small percentage of overall ok so that actually segues really well into how the report is then set up and the questions about process and it's pulled up right here but i mean you've got a page and a half worth of stuff to columns so there was a lot of effort to not only publicize this in turn try to get the word out about it yeah i was really impressed that the level of outr that was done would be nice just to see more participants but that's that's what we have and i think it was difficult it's difficult to participate in this discussion because it takes it there's a learning curve to it and there are there are layers of static too in just trying to figure out how for each person to identify what they feel is the right thing to do which is difficult and then how to communicate it and stand behind that which is also difficult for some it's something that we heard from the very beginning the other thing that's hard for us to track is of the two twenty four hundred independent views on that website i would be curious to see how many of those folks are from essex and what are they walk away taking from just the information that was there and that's unclassifiable at least from the efforts that we we took so many other process questions for now doesn't mean you can't use them later but of course it was sort of a comment that we knew from experience that some people would probably not go to the public forums but we needed to find a way to make sure that their voices were heard and collected and that's why you did the place they speak and i remember saying is very c and there was someone from the public who said what about an online forum and i was nodding that way to all these different age tools ultimately when we were trying to figure out what to do for on line a survey or the online survey was tricky because of that concern that people had about being very candid and wanting to ensure privacy for input on the other hand if it's private without authentic ating that somebody is from essex it's not going to serve you very well so let me play speak because it was the one technology we could find that would geo verify somebody from the town of essex and protect their privacy so they could neighbors could share their their mind without feeling like they needed to share it with their name necessarily attached to it they were authentic as a resident but they don't necessarily have to broadcast publicly the same way they might in a public forum there's pros and cons to that the benefit of it is that you then get some candid insight and information that people feel very nervous of sharing because it's very difficult to keep those relations in a neighborhood not in order to get information that was nuanced but also give a sense of place because this is an ordinance that's not just i mean the ordinance the language itself will be a little dry and will be a little dense but the train we're talking about is varied and lively and people use it not to different ways that are connected to their well being and who they are and so the only real way to get at that was to provide some kind of interactivity that was also place based i want to say that you know there may have been other options out there but i was the first one that got left out interesting experiment but it was because we wanted to make sure we captured those courses of people who were comfortable go into those public for you and they did show up so if you look at the transcripts on line there's a little more diversity in the input that you got online than we did in the forms for sure so now on to how the report is organized you've made a really good point that you only have so much participation to basis on  so the way it's organized is there are you have all the transcripts if you want to go back to the original messages that post that people made and the comments and observations they are all right there and i do encourage because there's some nuance that comes through all those things in the curated list that i was pulling out what i was trying to do was create like a crowd sourcing of all the different criteria that people are paying attention to not numbered by how many are paying attention to them but what are the different ways of logic that people are approaching this problem with and then all the different alternative ideas whether that would complement an ordinance or replace an ordinance change and again not to try to quantify how many people stood behind each position but to crowdsource the creativity in the ideas and the different ways that those ideas might get you out of a bind if you were to making a decision on behalf of the town so there may be interests that you're paying attention to that your various parties aren't paying attention to and just not knowing how that was going to come out in a in a public process like this so there's a distinction between the raw data and then those curated lists and the raw data is right there just in case anybody would interpret it differently than i would i went through the surveys the discussion forums the place it maps for the public forums that we had in person also include in this guide so that there it's front loaded with those two summaries of the original transcript follows and then there are these little text boxes with clarifying questions and that is to provide an anchor for when this conversation does get complex and it will it's strategic question that you're asking in many ways what are you trying to change are you trying to effect what are the unintended impacts and how can mitigate them if they're not intended what are the intended impacts and where are the best  that i've been sitting on trying to puzzle through this one you know this decision fundamentally impacts the well being of people who are watching it play out in lots of different ways and for a number of the public my guess is that it is excruciating to watch somebody else make this decision excruciating is probably the right word so they're looking for evidence that you're making informed decisions thoughtful and openminded decisions on based on all the input that's that's come up  and awareness of what the experiences have been on the ground for various parties in this conversation not as an easy task the public will also probably need opportunities after course corrections if they think that you've missed missed something along the way but one of the things i've been trying to figure out if i could give you any guidance around is how to manage that piece because it is a very complex thing you're trying to figure out and i do encourage you to take some time to digest and deliberate before you open up that conversation for others and for that deliberation to make sure that when you make the invitation it's not a haphazard one and the reason i say that is because those  negotiations as they start to play out why it has the effect of anchoring the conversation in one place or another you know the interest that you're trying to pay attention to are very wide and i know you know that as well as just that's part of the finder and it's a difficult conversation to unfold it will be difficult to watch will be difficult to have we'll be just have to manage it carefully so to that end i would like to pass this off to you in a way that gives you the most durable next steps possible so how can i be of service and unpacking or understanding this piece here with with the raw material there too as well for us to look at for the nuanced pieces and the questions for bridges at this point this yeah i don't i don't have a question but i do want to thank you for the research you did in coming up with please speak because there is a me as you alluded to and as mike summarized the there are opinions in there from all three hundred sixty points of the compass you know some and all of them pretty strong i think that's a tool just  myself that's a tool that i will use a lot of and will probably weigh more heavily than anything else but it will have an impact on  way that i'm going to approach this and how we approach this discussion on the twentieth but i thank you for doing that because it is there's a wealth of information and there has been all the credit to that discovery goes to their he said what about play speak so that's where it came from my hope is that it does provide you with a bit of a pilot experience that in case it's useful again in the future i think this is a tough topic for a play speak to take on  it does have the benefit of helping this be as transparent as possible and also maybe getting some of you know the kind of relying on and information only otherwise get anecdotally and that's tricky to people giving information all kinds of different ways i recognize that and it is hard because you need things to be as transparent as possible in order to show demonstrate here's the rationale for why or the logical way other questions it's ok if you take a minute to sit down except you know it's a lot to digest you money we've all read through it that it's going to take a couple readings through i think two to really be prepared for it but i mean i've read it i understand what's in there i don't think i've really had a chance to fully process it yet but we will do that so yeah john for you you and the staff team did a lot of work on this and a lot of nights of the people that did come and who did post do you feel that their message has been heard and presented i mean it is a small percentage but then again town meeting is a small they showed up and so i recognize that as a i just have a lot of gratitude actually for each person who participated in this process and i say that wholeheartedly and in terms of what i actually w ended up collecting my hope is that it crowd sourced some real perspective and wisdom so you on that notice board have resources that people posted and the discussion forums you've got stories about what it felt like to actually be in a certain place or not certain times and you have in the place of maps real wisdom about well this land i don't see that where it could be used for this that or the other thing so here's the law to logic tells me so those that input comes from all these different corners i don't know if there's other employee out there that's as of yet said i also imagine that there's input out there that as of yet not discovered because that's what happens in the nature of these conversations as they unfold it changes over time that's one of the reasons why this public discussion couldn't be a mediation because a key continues to change and you people continue to come to it and that's exactly what should happen so in this next step you know as you you've tried getting recommendations you try to task force approach and now you have a different kind of approach which is here's the public common input and here's a decision making filtering body and then you have standard procedure that follows that and so that's when the town says ok i see myself there if i've done my job well people will see themselves in this report and there may still be things missing or things that they would add now seen in print and that's ok because that will then resource the next rendition of this and then you'll speak about you know what the standard procedure is as you try to figure this out what the reco as people try to see if they see themselves represented there so i couldn't have that answer but think that yeah yeah i know you and the team put a lot of work into it and you see and hear things through your lines so i just wanted to make sure you felt like it was open and you were getting what you thought you would expect from that did play speak to the way populated with a whole bunch of different people i thought that would really feel happy so to see two hundred twenty one connects that was surprising to me i thought i would have more connects than that so my wondering is always about what is the difference between connecting and not connecting and is there wisdom there that didn't get articulated or  people see it showing up and therefore i didn't connect i don't know speculate at this point i'll continue to but yes like if you're thinking jennifer for doing play speak and having her defer that so well or just deflect that so well i want to thank staff because the people that made of the committee that worked with jennifer made all kinds of sense and then all of a sudden i'm reading ellie vials name and i never would have thought of that in a million years and to have her be a part of that community as the director of parks and rec just was a stroke of genius in my work and in my opinion and i just think whoever came up with that idea just take a bow because having her there to be a part of that i think was a smart thing to do but there's the potential impacts and parks i think her voice at that table can make a difference she can bring insights there that some of us probably would not get anyone anything else for jen before we set her free elaine and just a compliment to hell comprehensive report is how thoroughly you gauge the public health fairly entrance parent leave in place of the public i would be shocked if someone came forward and said i didn't know i didn't have a chance i didn't get all the information i am extremely impressed with how you present d everything to the to the public and addressed that learning curve and it and this isn't that means a lot and there is a pretty incredible town committee that helps to create best and do want to say thank you i also want to make sure that you spend some time figuring out who you need to have resource in you on august twentieth and that that question is somewhere in your mix so you can continue to draw on that same insight that i was able to draw from is well we really appreciate me to stay here or joined well you're welcome to to stay here while we're continuing the discussion but i want to let you know that you're able to leave if you like ok so the next step we do before we open it up is to first of all see it august twentieth is going to work for our discussion that's that's all or are planned less timeline but to connect my wife i and landline but it's if he about the quality of the connection i feel the subject matter requires that i be present i don't want to disrespect the subject matter by not being president so i would request and the staff if we could please consider moving the subject from august twentieth to september tenth and to be honest i would appreciate that additional window to continue reading materials and re familiarize myself with some stuff that i read earlier and just help give me a little extra time to come to the conclusions that i'm working so s mall monkeywrench do we expect to really get through this entire topic in one meeting yes well it depends on the board's pleasure if if if you don't say no changes say a possible outcome then that could probably happen on that day if there are changes that we think need to be done but i bet it's pretty iffy to get it done in one in one meeting but out in front what do you  and so on i'm concerned about you know we talked about trying to get this done before current year's deer season starts and my little worried about waiting if there's a possibility that it's going to take multiple meetings to get through all of this question as we could certainly come get to a point where we have an impasse and we have a question that we need answered that we need legal help with that not going to be in the immediate answer if you know any how things go and i'm sorry elaine have you know those that can make it catch up i guess we have it versus a topic like this it would be nice i think it would be nice not required  to have all five members present there is an option if we wanted to add something on like the twenty seventh which is a week after the twentieth we'll have our twentieth meeting as planned without but delay this topic until the twenty seventh and i don't know if there's other business that would need to be done there or we could just have it be that one topic as a possible mike i prefer that scenario  i think you know the fact that you can connect at in some way i think is helpful but i think for this topic i think all five of us should be in the same room i also agree that a separate meeting with just this on the agenda if i were a betting man which i'm not but if i were i would say that i don't think we're going to get this done in one meeting i i think there are too many nuances that we have to consider before we can come to that decision so you're saying twenty one meeting in september if i'm not mistaken so i think on the tenth we have our build our our regular town business have our regular meeting and then right after that have a second one just dedicated to this and if if needed yes i should say yes i would propose the thirteenth instead because i'll be away twenty  is that enough time elaine you were talking about appreciate an extra week where we actually cutting it but it's my fault that we're having this conversation so i'm i'm free on the thirteenth and i'd be willing to do that i prefer the twenty seventh they give us the the time the extra time rachel but we can talk about both i don't know what the step with there's any concerns with thirty eight or t as is or is there any magic to whether it's the twenty eighth is or any other meeting i mean just to get the time trying to balance the bill or i can meet later in september you know that works to if we only have one meeting in september we could also do one fourth of september yeah i mean the thirteenth is fine with me if it's ok with the rest of the board got out of town on the twenty fourth but i'm not germane to the process as much as the discussion of the ordinance and which are dealing with but i've also got his we're at a conference  few more people than we have today ok yes i knew i was doing something we come tonight will give us enough time to get it out so that people know about it  we will but i don't think we're that night doing what i think of the at any anything that we come up with it's going to have to get vetted by them later i need to put them on the spot without give it time to think about ok and then any any questions that or things that you want to have there for us on the thirteenth we should be sending how we going to do that if we don't have them tonight we don't have a lot of runway to get you to get us the information we need that's wouldn't make the thirteenth very very difficult yes i mean so here's a question to the slick board members julie you have your questions or as many as you have that you can get to us in twenty four forty in forty eight hours we can struggle to put them together and compile and do the best we can  i knew i shouldn't let us go on vacation just kept by a little time could how flexible or even in the week of the thirteen to move it to thursday say that at least buys a few days cent on holidays before yeah you can do it i'm just saying my stuff already has players some of those people ever not be available for sale but they may or may not be available on the thirteenth either all right so it is the thirteenth that's that's target that thursday then the sixteenth ok so what about questions when do you need to have them by if we don't have them to you like before you know like an eight o'clock or something if you're going to do it that evening range should we include that discussion or defer it to because it's it's really not relevant to the shooting ordinance but it is relevant to the people that have commented on it and that's a lot of comments right right right and that's why it might but i'm but i'm i'm you know as a put me in the there it's you could look at it as not being germane to the ordinance because we're talking public shooting range or do we want to have that be a separate discussion again because it's it may people that that want to establish a shooting range in the future that may be prevented from that if we change the ordinance may have made in may and you know they maybe have an interest in getting a public range so that they know they're not going to lose that ability but i'm i'm thinking that if we if we want to close the  speak for november that we should limit it potentially limit it to the topic of the ordinance and have the shooting range discussion part of a recreation needs assessment or something like   if there's a way to limit the conversation to change the ordinance i i hear you saying but i don't know that we want to eliminate that topic because so many people brought it up and it may impact our conversation i don't think we can write it off or eliminate it from this conversation and i'm i'm i don't know i'm going some i'm looking at as a potentially i'm not saying it has to be i'm just saying potentially different discussion although it's very very related but clarify i wouldn't i wouldn't expect our conversation about the firearms discharge to also include a decision let's open a public far shooting range but a we would consider all the options around shooting ranges as part of our discussion and perhaps defer to a later date actually talking about way of taking the time to have that discussion now limits our ability to resolve the ordinance question in time for that in this on a schedule that we want that's what i'm that's what i'm trying to get at is do we want to intentionally say yes we recognize that's an important factor in this whole thing we will take it up another day in you know i know there's risk in saying that will do something whether we actually do it but i'd i'm i'm concerned that we're going to get we're going to get tighter because there's all kinds of this just discussion that could happen where you could put it you know how far down the discussion about a shooting range you want to get in parallel with trying to it and then mike might my only concern with that would be if a potential shooting range was included in the mix it might change board members decisions around the firearms discharge ordinance in the area surrounding a potential shooting range and i don't think we can separate them mike i agree if if you look back at if you look back at the topics that people have come to us with surrounding shooting it  about hunting it's been about target shooting i don't see how you can separate those two things i respect him and his opinion i i think i think there's a lot to be said for that but i don't see how we can have the discussion about the ordinance without including the possibility of ranges i don't know if you if you look back of happened have come from target shooting they have not come from hunting and i think again i don't see how you can separate those two one man's opinion that needs to be part of the discussion as well and if it takes time it takes time is the time we need to put into it it may be that we don't make it in time for the november hunting season we we need to take the time we need to take to do it right do it right and we could we should you know look at the two thousand and nine report as well or some education pieces in there for example that that we want to lose keep so got a lot of reed to do between now and then  before we make a motion is there a video k if we open it up to the public to get their comments on the report ok what imma do is have a show of hands so i know how many people would like to speak tonight ok so risen up so one two three four five ok wonderful i'm going to ask you if you can just be very very brief since there's five if we could do three minutes apiece  and it has to be germane to the report ok that's what's that's what's warned it's about the report and the process you know that was used to generate the  report i no that everyone's been very civil and i prefer that and i expect that to continue forward when one person speaking i don't want anyone else to speak want to respect whoever it is who's talking so even if you disagree with nothing under their breath kind of things let's respect everybody let's respect their time we want to hear from you but we do want to keep it to the three minutes we're going to have  agree with you and you can identify the topic but again i really do want to make sure they were speaking has has the respect of everybody to say what they need to us and this is not a negotiation but we want to we want to hear from you and will listen we may not agree at the end with what you say or apply what you say but please don't mistake that for for not being heard ok so again this is not a negotiation what we want to do is be able to hear from you and we're not going to have you know a dialogue here it's we want to hear from you so i don't know whose hand went up first i would like this to go first ok if you nine eleven marion ave firms fur me all along the central thing has been the process how is the problem you like i that's what i've been focused on versus the issue of you know where things should be changed or not changed for me it's been about the process and i did attend both public forums and i also participated on place  firstly i just want to emphasize what your observations are it in that i think that jen did an amazing job i really felt as though she handled people who got up with a lot of energy and a lot of challenge and just diffused it right the way and really got to the heart of what the issue was for about without any kind of fireworks or angry comments it was really really done very very and respectfully so i just as an outside person going to all of the forms want to just reflect that back to you i do think that the place speak while i understand that we're really limited in terms of software platforms that will allow people to remain anonymous comment i do think that that system was really clunky for a lot of people i talked to numerous people who knew and you could see it on different  facebook forms essex v t and other places that people kind of gave up and didn't you know post their comments because it was hard to figure out for a lot of people they wanted to post anonymously because they were afraid of being targeted and they couldn't figure out how to do that there was a way to reach generally communicated in put out there but for some people who aren't surtax savvy it was pretty challenging to figure out so i think that's important to recognize i do think at the first meeting that i went to where eric reference to the high number of people voting for no change i noticed at that meeting that you know that was kind of the first initial kickoff of what happened and so there there was on lot of people of one particular viewpoint in that meeting so i don't feel like that's a totally accurate representation of  like voting or where people stood at that meeting the other thing that i have served in some of the break outs i was in one breakout where when people stood up and commented with a different viewpoint there was a lot of going at that person so it's very hard for your comment to stand on its own i'm in the breakout that i was in ok sorry so i at any rate i just feel like it's very important it's very important that the process you know i see at any rate ok the last thing i want to say is get real quick here be on the three minutes yeah ok it that is that there are so many issues there are so many layered issues to this and i think it's going to be super i think it was hard for people to kind of weigh in on all of the levels of the issues i think if these issues had been shut down kind of one by one people would have been at that form were passionate about the issue they cared because it effected down and they voted overwhelmingly for no change to the firearms ordinance now i understand that was and you're still except you can't actually you can't it's just a paper where the people that don't show up you can't dissipate how they would vote and the people are not concerned enough or passion about this issue and don't show up either on do that in very short period time and i have no doubt in my mind that if we did get up over a thousand signatures we could do that yeah but i caught up with the select board to roll up their sleeves and gave her so matter experts our house on a hillside servo on the fellowship of the real the president of the focus of the home in this area is researching and keeping track of what you guys decide because we have many many killing has made it two hundred to two thousand and fifteen and their reasoning has nothing to do with hunting has to do with recreational shooting to me i know nothing about that i don't know what that means  guys do not rush this procedure long you know we all know it's been going on for ten years now trying to get this process rolling we understand that the part that you initially put on this was to try to maybe meet the end of this year it's not a matter for me a list of questions getting them out and then all the sudden you know i need lots of people myself included need to be able to reply or question something maybe you guys bring up session where the taxes that end you want to have removed only been in place for a good sixty years no need to rush no need to rush on this this game was been in effect for longer than that no take it to him so that was five thank you all and if you get it it's wonderful community that people can with such passion respect each other like this and and we appreciate that tremendously thank you ok i'm going to bring it back to the board we had a discussion now we have the report and we really should be accepting the reports of wave of emotion sixteenth twenty scene of whether to pursue changes to the town of essex firearms ordinance nominate a local leader community leader to attend the conference for free conference attendance is fifty dollars for anybody in addition to us to go so there's always a possibility we could send more than one person but wanted to bring it up to the select board to see if  had anybody in mind as a community leader to get to go if you're going to open up to solicit enough occasions whether that's from staff whether it's from your volunteer boards just to see who you might be an appropriate person to kind of put up  the b c or d invited us to send someone for free i would like to request and make a suggestion that in addition to the one free person that the town pay for four additional people for a total of five people for two hundred dollars this is an outstanding opportunity to support and provide professional development for some of our volunteers and we don't get to do that very often and i had understood from your memo that you were going to do an application process so i don't have any names to suggest in public right now but and we could suggest some folks or open it up to staff and committee members you know of our planning commissions of our zoning boards of our all the different groups that we  have i think this would be a very generous gesture and we have this like board to say volunteers you matter to us staff you matter to us we want you to do this because we want you to become good leaders are you taking the first step to actually take a step to be a part of the board or committee or whatever this is be a great way to support them to step up even more or think about that so instead of one free so get the one for it but initial for at fifty bucks apiece that's two hundred bucks plus gas maybe to be twice that one hundred we can probably find that and then i think that's a really neat idea to say our committees because they've stepped forward and maybe there's some in there that we want for the hotel the hotel here in the in our committees our future leadership so yeah and as well i would think right of a buy on the board i would love to go but i could be out of town i highly recommend that other board members go as well absolutely it's the same week is town fair which is the third and fourth of that week just for awareness that there's other other things going that week so if years ago that i usually go to that and will likely volunteer to go to again this year if  is the leadership summit i would recommend for new or committee members or just committee members in general who are not in leadership roles or committee chairs and this is designed for people to word education around being a community leader so i think everyone on this board is highly trained in that at the moment but not not limiting people from going but just saying that the l c t has a slightly more municipal governance kind of a flavor this one has been designed to build leadership so is there a limit on the must be limited number of people each place can send you know we should i don't know that there's a cap it all  either event is i mean i hate to say no to i mean no no absolutely but maybe they should have six that we can because i think everything that i personally like the idea of cultivating you know to five or six i think i could have the authority to add fifty or a hundred dollars to the mix if that's ok with you guys but i get four or five but if we get like two more that really want to go away from the plan commission or anybody else then i don't think on the stop them for fifty dollars is there any reason for it to have to come back to us or can we just  really any further discussion on authorizing the manager do that and do we think we need to give them a limit or do we you know say five to seven hundred or something like that or only fifty times spreadsheet familiarity she talked about her the business that she works for your spreadsheets but when i pressed her she gave a kind of a no yes no answer so i'd really like to make the same mis run or suggested familiarity with using spreadsheets maybe useful skill and leave it at that since i also did suggest i recall the her being asked by irene if she knows how to use spreadsheets and that's i think this can just like we got four people saying as is so we're going to keep one the same for line forty whatever six ok page two andy line fifty says mr was syria doing the town plan it should say reviewing the town charter to page three like getting details in to the minutes as opposed to getting them into the report just feel the need to know that now i'm it's not terrible ok comma and i would add once a variety of stakeholders that agree on what happened rather than have it be an open wound and again i am labrat at length on this i named a number of people in the audience i thought it would be cool to have in the room because we all had perspectives during that time period and i thought that for the sake of lessons learned and so that we didn't repeat history and learn from it it might be nice to actually define historic happenings and i referenced evan stakeholders agree on what happens next necessary i think this is clear already it's important one hundred thirty eight to include the word domestic violence because that's the name of this nonprofit motion to approve the consent agenda so moved like i second i really took it so we have the check or it's mostly in there any questions on the check words i knew there was a whole bunch of th a member of the board of the united way contacted me and clarified that steps to end domestic violence got funding from a different from a different path from the united way so instead of the hundred twenty thousand dollars that they had applied for for that one program a different program a strategic program to give them fifty thousand dollars for the over over two years sort of sort of hundred twenty over three they got fifty thousand over two years with the intent to help them understand how to leverage state funds to to to maintain the same services in their their shelter and so they're there for kept fairly whole by that and they're there and he wanted to clarify to me that that there was a different think a funded through a different different amount of money through a different path with the purpose of helping them to be in a better position in the future the other thing is  decided the funding for f y e eighteen the memo that came with it said that we we might be looking at the process that we used to determine where funding goes in and i'm he offered to  either come personally or have some member a member of the united way board come to the to this board or if we decide to have a committee to work on that process to help at least understand how they did their duty assessment and what their you know is not to dictate what the so we are going to look to put something together our law what united way did to try to think about targeting what we're trying to achieve one of these i could tell you is our pull police department contract with the howard center for people with mental illness and other things that has freed up officer time and stress both at the police department and our libraries and other facilities so things like that that are are also helping us in our mission we'd like to look out and have a process including financials i would hate for us to give limited funds the someone who either found funding somewhere else or heaven forbid won't be there after too long so to be able to use those funds for the proper use conversation with steps to give them additional yes yes it was it was it was is washington ok and then was that was there fifty thousand dollars grant to them also after the happened before you know it happened it was just so the public knows that we've been doing a little research and i'd sure look into the league of cities and towns and the secretary of state's office to determine what kind of assistance we could obtain in our conversations in our decision making and basically not on there's a little bit of assistance they can give us and terms of helping us understand statute but it's pretty evident that our so committee is going to have to discuss the possibility of hiring an attorney sooner rather than later to guide us through the process of determining what might be the best governance scenario for the two boards so that's just an update so it was not a surprise to certain people that we wouldn't get a lot of support i mean they're short staffed i guess or it was not it wasn't so much the capacity it was more the limitations of their capabilities in terms of representing certain governance models to communities it wasn't that they couldn't help us because they didn't have the time it was more  it if we can come to them with specific questions about specific statutes they could help us but if we're looking to get legal guidance in general about pursuing various paths they can't do that so  your seat persevere right i read just back on the nonprofits for a moment anyone seen seven days this summer they've done a fabulous yeah that's where money comes from a lot of it from the state and so forth like just just yeah the so called subcommittee minutes from july twelfth twenty eighteen i would argue that those are truly select words minutes because the meeting was born is a select board meeting because  those minutes need to be approved by the select board i'm worried and my reasoning is that we could we could come up with any topic that we want to have a subcommittee of the select were to talk about have a meeting discuss town business have a forum there and then publish minutes in the reading fine without reviewing them as part of our agenda and i'm concerned that this establishes a bad precedence for open meetings we spend money on your question with the with the attorney because you think it is good but when you ask questions like that it's going to spend money to get that answer from the attorney and greg you want to comment on that yeah the attorney basically said that  there's he said the public body in this instance is the select board of trustees subcommittee on governance the minutes of the meeting of this public body must be taken by the clerk or secretary of the public body there's nothing statute that says the minutes must be approved they typically are reviewed and approved by the public body in this case i would say the attorney would say that the minute should be approved only by the members of the subcommittee as the two members of the select board that are not part of the subcommittee and i are not members of that public body but it was more does disagree i think that i'm worried that you know i in maybe you will never happen but if we if we have this insane similar situation where we have three select board members in  needing or one of them happens to be representing from another municipality any topic could be discussed any meat can meeting could be scheduled at any time that others of us aren't able to attend and i'm i'm i'm very unhappy with the fact that we have a quorum of the select board participating in this subcommittee so called subcommittee and discussing town business with a quorum present and not announcing it not warning it as a select board meeting and treating the minutes in the same way that we treat all other select board meeting minutes it's the advice of the tourney and i'm not comfortable doing that i don't know if anybody else has well so then why then why do we ever approve any minutes one of the things that we've been talking about recently is reducing meeting time and we've been commenting about reducing our minutes the scope of the content the length of our minutest in order to reduce meeting time so then if if there's no requirement that we that we approve meeting minutes why do we ever approve meeting minutes for subcommittee meetings this is you know for me to prove my understand that you don't actually members then we have an unusual situation where we have one member who's working on both boards in this capacity she was appointed by the village trustees by the select board so that in this instance the subcommittee is not a quorum of the select board because she's acting in the capacity of the trustee we've talked to the we can spend more money asking bill the same question again the same answer and but considering that when we point appointed our representatives we had to take into consideration where our representatives lived it seems to me that the trustees should have considered the fact that putting a select board a third select board would i would think that in order to to be more transparent in comply more fully with open meeting law that we should treat those meetings as select board meetings and follow through as we do for regular celebrity i'm wondering why this wasn't brought up under addition some changes to this agenda because i gladly would have had this conversation had you brought this forward that because it wasn't it because the my understanding is my understanding  that you can only bring things up from the consent agenda because if it's in the reading file now you know it no no actually i didn't know so in order to bring it up into the agenda it would need to be warned in the future done and if so in a future that's why i waited until this point to bring it up that was my my my reasoning i thought about that question a lot why do i bring it up during intersession changes from that occurred that that was the reason i didn't was because it was part of the reading file not the consent agenda it had been in the consent to see any need to change anyone else rather thank you any but you know when you do ask questions we're going to send him to the tourney thank you thank you for doing that was referenced earlier by i think brad n and he's still here if you have any questions about that annuity you commented that there are a lot of signatures on there that were from outside of essex i noticed that so we have it we read it we understand it and thank you for putting it in there is there something that just well i don't want this to be a big dissertation either before you before you continue the brother i know i just asked you just said you're fine with it but would it be ok if they if we gave them a few minutes ok great over the years since i've been on the psych ward for what seems like forever now people have come to me complaining about new ways not feeling safe in all aspects as they walk their dog or whatever because they just heard shooting police yet this is their narrative unfortunately i think people arose and others in the community are unnecessarily alarming the community that there bullet coming from jericho the police have also said as part of this latest round that they don't know where the bullet came from i don't know what i don't i don't mean to contradict report but they've also said as part of this that it's basically impossible to tell where the book came from quote from the start of the summer so you know if you think it is this in that we wanted to have you talk about your petition specifically we don't want to be lectured about this other stuff i know that this is not in my ok ok you but i have that list and basically i think i heard it will be heard or read it as they would i spoke to share and none of the roads are in our jurors just aren't or they're not our jurisdiction to change they may done thank you all for that still lots of work to be done between now the sixteen