thanks for coming i think we're going to have a slightly curtailed meeting we're going to probably trim of things off the agenda tom so that some people with drive great distances would not have to come there will be no executive session for example i think we can i mean i think that we it's not a problem just to put that table that entire thing until the next meeting with that be good to do it's up to your board members i can try to answer some questions and if not we c essex junction since one thousand nine hundred eighty four and where as miriam reardon has been extremely reliable flexible and professional in her responsibilities including but not limited to the board of trustees planning commission zoning board of adjustment capital program review committee and whereas miriam riordan has produced excellent clear and concise minutes at all times and whereas miriam reardon worked tirelessly including accomplished times in the wee hours and this is a good example on a on a slush from the train station it's looking like that wasn't going to quite work out so i started looking into some other possibilities and unfortunately it this one just wasn't in the cards for her reasons possible that they'll change them again so we've got a lot of the information and should this come around again some good knowledge and the chances do it again you know i would say that these you know looking at all the even charging stations at the high school all the town all of this is over here these keep coming around so maybe it is a good idea to have it or back pocket a couple places already ready to go so when an opportunity comes up we pick it up i'm gathering are very excited to be on where they are they have given the village permission to use their building to have your reply and the vermont arts council has a grant called the animating infrastructure grant which municipalities can use to fly for public letter of intent a fairly short description and we've assembled a project team they take a look at ours and everybody from all over the state they've had a handful of them to submit a full application we're not quite sure use the funding to help develop your plan to implement your budget so it's not like we have to have it ready to go and submit this this project all we need is money for it's not shovel ready right that's right and  y would you share the names of the folks who are going to be are in the to help us put this together sure we've got a lane and myself we've got christian humbucker from the hub we've got tina logan who's an art teacher the location that has been selected for this mural if it is selected for sure it will be on the law i think it's the south facing law track very soon wall the track  drive that's called the village walk which there are houses there now it was at that time that's where the houses were going to be but i think there's about thirty or forty units there now so all of the kids that are going to be walking if you look down at the very bottom of the screen which on to reuben del the quickest route for all of them to walk or drive to or to to go to a t l is to go down the road and that's why i get so much traffic ok i just want to i'm not trying to sway anyone's idea but i'm just it's it and that's all to the only other thing i will lad is he if you look at where woods yet i notice that one of the recommendations is to put a cross walk is to not plow but to have a cross walk at the intersection of who it would send in written down and the reason that i would defer to the engineers and enter rick and to the two rigs on that now that's fine but i would having gone through that intersection may be fifteen or twenty thousand times since i've lived in my home i can tell you when i come out there that the slight herb if you see a ribbon del coming up from maple street means that you can't see the cars coming until they're right there and if there's a snow bank any kind of snow bank then you have virtually no warning so it's a it's a tricky area to get out and if you put up a cross walk across there it'll be it'll be difficult for kids walking to cross because i think that have the same kind of line of sight issue that you wouldn't have if you look at some of the other major streets going off of maple street that are straight shots you can look down and you can see what's coming for a couple of hundred yards something so but we we have a a contrary argument now for not doing this and i don't i don't want to put anyone evan or rick on the spot but what are your thoughts on this about why why we would not want to do this and stick with policy any well again in my memo you see that i spoke with the superintendent and i don't think we all knew that they're considering busing yet still this year he says it's going to start in january which will address a lot of children not necessarily walking to school from past prior lane because they would be more than likely in the bus and so a crosswalk could do and if we didn't put a crosswalk there we would look at it head doing the school side of route and plow that side so that the kids would not have to cross it  year they would love to put one where they would like to put them on a lot of other places but if they were that's one of the places on the list of others they would look at it but they want to see places in the village people would like to be considered a key connector it's not well defined but we have a lot of places where people would like our clothes to go and there are a lot of places in the they do not want this ploughing your side of the street and that's why you've had this policy of getting people signatures on so they way in we don't mean to do a lot of damage the problem is the blade is what fifty one inches and the sidewalks forty eight and on a day like this morning when you're trying to find the sidewalk been doing you can tend to cut some so we don't have to set a precedent you know not through one off decision but rather through a policy statement so with that said in my opinion what it seems like is a street that would be a key connection to schools certainly one of the factors that would be a part of that is does the street actually border the main street this students would take to get to the school and if it does then that is a key connection as well as as well as is it the only story that connects children to that school  which there are not very many of them this is one of the few should reason our community that actually has a sidewalk on both sides as many of the other and as their connection to the school right many of the other stories whether it be hiawatha whether it be school street or whether it be so much to go back and say what the what we want you to find as a criteria curve on the other side so you plow on up on the other side and then if someone let them cross over but so the idea would be with their cross walk we would go from a bow to would send on both sides but then go only and we were thinking of it is a first face and with busing and what we would pre planned to do let's see how it plays out and if it shows that there is that much more to still have much more traffic and we discussed the connector road park we do face to anyone who is not going towards burlington towards five corners anyone who's going to montpelier or globalfoundries is taking off and left there and so again it's a big shortcut for people who don't want to go through all the traffic around by corners so it in the morning and evening it gets very traffic e and the it always struck me as weird because you're funneling the kids to the wrong side of the road and the kids have to get you have to somehow get across the track you know what i mean and it's it seems like you should we do have a policy around doing that so either we change the policy itself to list the key connections in the criteria of the key connections or we stick to the policy as it exists now he's right would have an american proposing is a reasonable solution ok resins would have to get sixty or eighty percent of the residents to sign off on one condition so making sure that our policy aligns with that with the rest of our policies that we have in the community and one of my other concerns of the policy in general and for some reason i can't find the know is  her snow on the ground but kids are not going to stick to one side of the sidewalk just because there's a cross walk further up the block so we still have the safety issue of students crossing maple street really no yet so i think the solution to this problem snowing they going to use the other side to use both these both i mean their kids and the other thing is they were this church and so there may be a time when we have five kids using that sidewalk and so i just i'm leery of changing policy to a new i need to clarify that but i'm leery of changing policy for today for the snapshot of who's in the neighborhood today that's well so what i'd like to get it to crystallize this a little bit and get what did that whatever the decisions that we can make tonight so we can we number one let me ask this one question can we i guess will we could say we have the authority to override our own policy and say we want  on both sides of sachar wrecked everyone understood everyone agree with that we can't override the sins where the policy makers we can override that and say well we want to see a plot of both sides because there's extenuating circumstances and so forth so that's one decision we make and then the other decision we theoretically could then approve changes to the policy that could then take place immediately so that's talking into the time period and or wait until after the holiday break so a worse case without any changes would take a month thinking is saying we'll we'll revisit this next week i mean at our next meeting the next we can two weeks and look at it and it can get from a policy decision in seeing if we don't want to revise the stuff they're walking on sidewalks are not part of it all and so the other thing along the boxing i can't recall the policy has changed or if it is going to change last i knew kids of a certain age were going to be require to walk regardless as long as they live in a certain dungeon rushton is still going to be the policy if you live with a certain distance you know lawyers no matter what whether the bosses are coming in january or not correct they have releas information down so that we focus staff decision and our next meeting about whether we're going to go ahead with this because they cross to our solution may be a good solution the boss solution may be a good solution but those are pending solutions those  here we're going to use the got a short term solution to be able to get some data on the filing and time and effort it takes to say we want to allow finally person time period to collect that question because someone raised the issue of well what people on the other side of urbandale don't want their street off on the other hand if we think that there is a significant safety issue i'm not sure i don't like to be dictatorial or whatever  think this is a safety issue it is a public property and if we think that it's necessary for the safety of kids walking to school that would take priority over people being concerned that their lawns wainwright dog a dog a dog which is the only reason i can think of why someone would want them blowing on their side of the sidewalk so anyone have thoughts about that or do you think we should we're if we should be concerned about trying to get permission for people i think once we start the road to getting permission from people to plow their sidewalk  that people can say we don't want you blowing up here if we say it's a safety issue why aren't you kind of so that's a lie can we but i would love to get a of like us to we're going to put this on the agenda for next next time i'd like to come on do they have a map that directs kids to walk major walking around the major work what is the radius of busing they are contemplating that's each of us steve two questions there for four weeks later today to give them time to work out any kinks of that start because we certainly have a lot of questions and concerns not only in the building to put in the town thing i mean because the policy as i think we touched upon was a money saving issue is i remember it was highly controversial that a lot of complaints and the idea that it kick it it's sacrosanct it can't be revised or you can't go in and you know we just we are looking at the legalities around loitering ordinances don't know if you heard burlington ordinances will stay and do so we're still looking at some options of what can and can't be done but recent court cases are not hirable to have stopping or moving closed let's say from nine pm until seven am it's closed there's you know if there's no public property goes through there is no activity here no reason to be there it's closed we can do things like that but in public sidewalks right away we are limited oh my that so that's something we've been working on it is budget season i've met with almost every village department right now on with their budgets we're putting that together we have busy we are currently just about to put a offer to a candidate for the assessor position on so that i'll be going out and we hope that person except randy has been with us many years and done a great job and one of the things that through our process on as a management team and  really want to focus on the people aspect of that job and the emotional aspect when people come and tell you they think their taxes are too high or you have the wrong valu on and all that emotion we will we you can have somebody give you the mouth but we wanted to make sure we had a candidate that had people skills as well with that so on we are we're very high in a sense significantly politically updated again we wanted communication at the forefront they are going to have to eventually do a revaluation it's not quite they are legally here in their committee i want to just make sure that brought this out in the sense of making sure that the all around so in the minutes one of things is discussed is a desire to explore funding options outside of just  traditional of the current methods and so what i want to make sure that he get is one is a couple committees that you guys are ok with it number one and number two if you have any kind of roadblocks any kind of deal breakers if you have any questions or concerns to let me know before we do this when i was is pure fact finding information and pure fact finding research to look into how could we possibly diversify the ways in which we take funny to help pay for capital projects besides just raise taxes and or body some of the things that are in the minutes are things like attacking from a financing and local option tax which those are in there again for research purposes and don't have a problem with it i think it's i think one one the capital committee was created it was actually one of the it was it sort of a core mission and i think it's absolutely think it's right on i think you're right on doing it himself i am personally  this capital planning to lay the village does and still i'm wondering if conversations are thoughts can start now looking at how the town has capital planning because if we're looking at revenue sources it would be counterproductive to all the other we're trying to do to have the village go off on its own to do a certain kind of revenue generation when perhaps in partnership i think it's a good idea i believe that given that you get me tell me if i wrote it i think that the that the town capital is pretty much the town engineer it's contained it's entirely within his purview quite a bit for their capital on the village just not so part of the fact finding but if i did it would be to look into other communities are doing yup so inclusive of the town but with that he would staff would certainly be a resource to help them with their research and other options and i'd be happy to meet with state officials to find out more about how the state of vermont does its w call option taxing i believe there are three segments you can do and you don't have to do all of whom you can do in the segment you want to leave them that's what i want to point out you can exclude certain items within those categories too but the goal nevertheless is to find funding sources for capital and andrew in the tax pun intended your memory i believe me had a long legged million dollars of projects identified if you think in those terms in the eleven million dollars just of the projects we identified and not even including the public buildings that the fires do ship circa ninety fifty five right you know well this is the thought this is this is why when it when we had the discussion before when we look at this you see you're you're right on in the sense of saying our buildings infrastructure are in the same sense in the same vein as water lines sewer lines sidewalks bridges it's all capital and this is why when we looked at we having a space we're looking at doing a space study if the recommendation comes back and says oh you need more space you need a bigger fire station you need a bigger public works building i'm thinking well wait a second the debt yes those are capital needle we have more pressing have little needs than maybe finding more more space in the public works building or fire station i mean if we're going to if the village of essex junction is going to outweigh capital money you know go to go to the maps and find extra capital money from impact was a little leery about that this space of study because if it comes back well look at this is a high priority well i understand the funding situation through it's may not be a it may be a high priority in terms of operational space but in so i had one thing in reading in the reading file i just wanted to raise this i think it's understood but the tree committee has a long a big long narrative and a lot of information and great science all about the emerald tree bore but the end point is that they were there requesting additional money in the tree project which we may or may not get but we have to understand that's that's a separate issue for us to prove just i just want them to understand just because that's in the reading fi you saw the rating file that doesn't mean they get the extra thousand bucks i just wanted to make that clear one file we we still had some questions from them about some of the stuff in fact couple of the trees are likely to be removed  things but yes everybody would like ten five ten or fifteen thousand dollars more in this budget to everybody who ever lived and i'm beating them back as best i can but that's their cost the dept itself has a tree plan that it also would like to fund but is probably of what we can do to the ideas that i would like as we talk  sort of village in town is do we get a better bang for the buck if we do it together and you end up renting a piece of equipment you rented by the right do we get our forces together in our everything and you know what do we get done for in total one hundred twelve thousand something like that six your five have six apiece maybe that's more manageable and then see where we are and see we're the little past were trees in general where you get a disease tree right we you know if it's in the park where we come to get it we pull it out it's one tree right but it looks bad  start taking out multiple trees i think the same stream it starts looking deep forested and that's not to look at it so one of the things in these true plans is you don't go down the whole tree of one and they leave that here we are it could be helped then and we're going to get the other thing is the cost of of moving these trees once the in the insect here and or if they're infested will be two to three times this cost am the regulations of what you can do with that with a tree just curious you can put  landfills you can't do any of that the cost is extraordinary that's what we're trying to be it's heart wrenching to have to do this to a live tree  of the thirty rosebushes planted by public works a few weeks ago near the retaining wall all need ten remain he said only twenty remain he said ten ten were pulled out and twenty remain you wanted me to clarify that that few