stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all like to welcome everyone to tonight's select board meeting and as always this remind you if you have a cell phone if you could put it to silent or turn it off that would be much appreciated just so it doesn't disturb the meeting so we're going to go out the next thing is jenna additions in changes in greg no additions per working with the four of us tonight ok we're on to public to be heard this is a time for the public to speak to the select board on topics that are not on tonight's agenda is there anyone here wishing to spe thank you thank you for being here to you for having us you have a memo when you're in your packet from some great thank you for the opportunity to come in and introduce the captain we're excited as i think you heard very excited to have him here  particularly excited for help and ron in last three weeks has been a huge help for us ron actually started with us back in the ninety's as a patrol officer did eight years with us was in uniform then transferred and went down south down to florida we worked for the sheriff's office down there did nine years down there transferred back and we almost stuck him back about ten years ago but he ended up in st albans where he's done ten  resource for so we want to make sure the him and saw the face and see him maybe once in a while filling in for me and help and so work so i didn't have my i don't know if you have questions or run or something anything that you want to no i am here to answer any questions that you have i'm thank you very much for inviting me to come to the meeting and do this i don't think i've ever done this before in my career i think this is a fantastic thing that you guys have are interested in having me introduce myself so like i say like the chief said you know i started in with essex or at least i worked with essex from ninety three to two thousand when i went to florida to find greener pastures and bigger things to do and had the you know the grander of more call volume and that type of thing which i got my fill of quickly and then you know while i was there i worked in the traffic unit down there i became very involved with the the u i unfortunate unit and with the sheriff's office the sheriff's office there had over three hundred foresman deputies and another four hundred jail deputies so we were very it was a big department multitude of different divisions and such and then my wife and i decided move back here my wife is from essex and we decided to move back here in two thousand and eight and it was it was a good thing at the time i didn't think so because i certainly miss the weather but since i've been here it's been it's been good for us and glad to live to be back my wife was very excited to know that i had the chance to come back and work for the town of essex so being that her family still lives here so if actually her dad is in canty who lives up at the corner one twenty eight and we'd road so you're probably familiar with that with that area yes oh he's been there a long long time so so we like to say welcome back thank you thank you it's good to be back you've been been good so so is there any i'm learning from relation to citizens and that type of thing i would say the biggest thing that i learned in florida was working in a in a large organization and was able to be exposed to a lots of different types of crime major crimes on a on a monthly  basis and you know having the opportunity to work in different units got got me able to see how you know larger agencies are run also gave me an appreciation for smaller agencies too because there's a lot of advantages to working in a in an agency like ours  where everyone knows each other so that's that's one of the good things that i have that i've enjoyed coming back coming back here so i've kept and did you did your experience either when you were here or in florida did you spend any particular moment of time in domestic abuse cases or anything along that line yes i mean you know i mean over the over the years i've never been assigned directly to a domestic violence unit or anything like that but over the years i've had a lot of training in different types of approaches to domestic violence i can tell you that in saying all because my experience there that was one of the greatest crimes that we saw on a consistent basis and i think that's the case in vermont throughout vermont and throughout the nation i think so to me that that is one of the areas that we have to take the most seriously and make strides in because there's there's just too much of that that's going on fair share of it here yes chilly yes absolutely that are now you say you know the after our three hour meeting on the very first day that i was here when he ran me through everything that needed to be done i've been in the last three weeks i've been working on  updating a lot of the policies that the police department has been working on ordinances and that type of work also working with some of the officers to get some of their you know just directing them as to what you know where they want to go in their career where where the the trouble areas are learning learning that again because some of the things have changed here in the town of essex in village you know since i've been gone just learning you know the trouble spots and where those need to need to be to be taken care of so that's that's been you know learning about the department itself in the different people that are there so from the firehouse from here yeah exactly exactly it's it's been busy the last the last three weeks have been good haven't had no j c there that we have done a lot of work with the police department and walking cooperation with them so i'm very familiar with it with help restored it just as works in the various programs and i'm really supportive of it thank you there's no other in for a liquor hearing after making that decision we found out the state was holding their own liquor board hearing that it's since been held and backstage was penalized with a seven day suspension that was u or took place in the beginning of this month in august and so after speaking to the police the managers office they've had no incidents since may when this came up and both police in the manager's office are confident that the state punishment is sufficient and they don't believe they hear it is needed at this point and will certainly continue to monitor them and see if any other issues come up and the police are aware that there are other things that come to attention we can bring them back to you but this point we do not feel a  hearing is necessary but it's a i just would like to suggest that because this is a special case because of the violations that that had happened that rather than waiting to have the renewal for next year if violations do occur if we could when it's when you think it's ready we'd like to kind of know about those in advance rather than waiting to the next year just to kind of keep our thumb on things so we've changed our practice and we're running incident reports quarterly on all first class license holders ok so one of quarterly basis if we have an issue will be able to report back to obvious even dunning has recently left the essex police force and but it was after a long long time here he was initially hired as a fulltime officer in june of two thousand and nine he actually started prior to that as a civilian here in the meadow medal of valor which is the department's highest honor for risking his life to pull a citizen from a burning building to save her life and he has served six and they had an entire mom on foresman community well over his his tenure here in essex so the if they wanted to be read for the record or we just sort of had a synopsis and the gist of it ok all right then what's the board's pleasure on recognising this stephen dunning for this resolution in appreciation fabulous and the instructors don't have it easy very physically demanding i would say as a participant of the instructor so congratulations to him for doing that among many other things for us  tonight is is just for me to kind of go over a little bit about our program find enterprise fund it's called a couple different things wherever you go this started about eight or nine years ago  where that was taken out of the operating budget and it's a revolving fund for us to use throughout the years and build up so that we can do bigger and better things for revenue grows so in general you know we through this program we employ approximately forty individuals within our general summer camp and extended school program fall soccer programs throughout the year our overall number of seasonal employees is much larger than that but that's just within programs and then we have approximately one hundred fifty unsung heroes they're our volunteers who we couldn't do the programs we do without them we have around one hundred soccer coaches about twenty chaperones for the bolton afterschool program twenty coaches for the lacrosse program and all of that and all of them range in price and we've battled over the years of how do we do more than just say thank you and recognize each and every one of them and some of them are doing all of those roles i just mentioned and some are doing one throughout the year which is a large commitment of time and energy so what we did is april was actually i think it's volunteer month volunteer appreciation month and it's hard to say a percentage or dollar amount off of a registration process could cost a hundred and twenty dollars and soccer costs fifty and you can get ten bucks off and it doesn't really say thank you the  sam has been one of our coaches and so and has volunteered her other time with us that way so we did this we've put together a little swag bag of charger because we don't always have the greatest reception and everyone's phones and when they're helping us out at the tree farm or we want to make sure that their phone can stay charged and then we got them some sunglasses that are pretty neat and we ended up getting a line green color for all of our staff so that no matter what division you were and all of the staff got some sunglasses as well so that was our thank you gift with a really fun little thank you personalized card for them  fun and it was just nice to have everybody come in out of the normal season of them helping and you know trying to you know coax them into a coaching again or whatever it may be  but just having a good face to face thank you and handshake with everybody and just being able to see them when it wasn't the first thing on their mind or maybe dreaded signing up to help so those are unsung heroes  we do a ton with them and they do a ton for us so it's truly appreciated but overall the program fund has provided us you know the last couple years to enhance program equipment and uniforms and things like that outside of the fiscal year boundaries that we sometimes have so this is a little funky because we're already into fiscal ninety but in fiscal eighteen you know we did there's a whole bunch on the memo that we did have we did expand some program offerings up at sunset studio which is the fitness space that we rent and it's that and we'll get to that to a little bit later but you know we received a donation for the scholarship assistance fund that was and a large amount which is nice and our requests for assistance continued to grow and grow we were able to provide some additional training opportunities first seasonal staff we have a new assistant program for nader and that was really important for her to to get to know the staff differently and it's enhanced their their skills with the kids as well and it's and it's a whole program overall we increased our seasonal offerings by nineteen programs over the fiscal year we did our thank you gifts we had a recreation and software upgrade including a new splash page when you go in for online registration looks much more user friendly  easier to guide customers through that aspect big thing that couple big things are really looking to do in this new fiscal years kind of assess our program output we've gotten to the point where we have a lot of quantity and we're trying to provide this thing quality to that level of programs and so we're really looking to still explore new opportunities and new offerings for people but really make sure that it's what the community desires and with the staff that i have making sure that their capacities are that they're there and that they can really give all to the programs that we're offering so that it's not just something listed in the book to make it look like we have more and that people actually want to do it and they bring in money and people are happy and there's large room and things like that  we also have to really examine the rental space at sunset studio or leases coming up that was the extended two years from the original and that's the big decline in our in our overall program budget when we first went into this endeavor it was highly recommended from management's perspective just because we have a new space to offer in aren't relying on the free school space let's not increase program prices rent costs rent and utilities costs almost twenty thousand dollars and without really at this is what happens so we're using the revenue that we've grown over the years but we're not the studios not paying for itself at all and that's that's really tricky and so with a lot of other alignment conversations happening we really need to reassess how we program and how we price and how we utilize the space and i know that maybe dennis is coming on a little bit now you're talking about the facility space assessment present you're welcome so instead of me be paying into a rental space that isn't actually the town's it would be nice to get to that point where we have our own facilities space that  doesn't that isn't paying someone else necessarily that we can sustain on our own would be really nice so we need to do a lot with that you know we still have we still started the new fiscal year with over seventy two thousand dollars  our program fund but that would only last us a couple more years if we continue to stay where we are and how we're doing  so i do know in my in my budget pages i do have a comment from last year under travel so i will get that fixed as they decrease travel a little bit but i forgot to change my now i'll go first i guess the extended school program it's down significantly it's down fourteen point six percent from a forty two thousand eight could you just say with the significant changes are i read what you had wasn't clear to me anyway as to what's going on there yes that's kind of wrapped into one at the are you on the budget just on line nineteen in the budget detail yet so what's really funky and how this program budget has often been presented is it's kind of flo out there to either been presented to you all in february right after the regular operating stuff last year it was presented in early may and so those are still estimated numbers are really at this point in the game i'm going off of actual numbers pretty close on audited but pretty close and so i think we are just one one thing is staffing we hired a new person with a higher skill set and we have certain staff and our increase in staff new staff is really just a turnover we had a lot of people graduate who won't be available so we're figuring out how are e s p will work this year with the emotional discussion of transportation and getting staff to the schools to help us out that will be tricky  know she's gaining new staff but it's not really an increase in the number of staff it's just the turnover and that's a big significant change because she has good experience after last year but she's going to come to be starting from scratch again in a different way  but it's just the realistic aspect of we may not be able to provide things on the tuesdays with the school changes and you know we we offer i think yes p is really unique that it offers something different than what parents working parents or any any parents or guardians that need care for their children but it's not licensed childcare and it's not three to six or whatever it may be so it's really based on what we offer and when those are all available and for a while we've been doing the same thing over the last year and a half or so we've seen our own moment down so we're really having to provide pizza and fun and a movie and you know that parents drop off and then they come pick up right at the best time of night and have fun putting them to bed after of looking for financial assistance and we also don't just send a check to those who are in the budget so sometimes those organizations haven't billed us and we can sometimes give them a little reminder if they want the money they can send us  on to our next item of business which is by ied this illusion of a business liaison group and so because of the possibility that discussion about the town's relationship with my employer may come up during this opportunities for business start ups growth and improvement and provide a personal face on behalf of the essex community members will meet with unified manager from time to time and supplement the ongoing efforts of the economic development commission after they for d the group met three times as far as i could tell they haven't met since the fall of two thousand and fifteen so just doing some housekeeping and clean up and see if they were still necessary i reached out to the members of the group i heard back from three of them ire being one of those members their responses are included in your packet but it kind of ranged from there's no need to i would need to be convinced that there is a need so based on that doesn't seem like there's too much of a need  and i recommendation is that you dissolve the business liaison group i think the idea was a good one to start but you know you think about it when if a company needs a rapid response team a lot of times they want to keep whatever it is pretty like i see no reason to continue it especially if the members feel as strongly as they do about the fact that it just really hasn't fulfilled its promise working with public works the fire department the public works part and at this point probably looking with the village i would apartment as well to get it sense of space needs this is part of the capital budget that was approved for this year last fiscal year for this fiscal year because forty thousand dollars in the capital budget and the idea this point is to take those four departments recreation down fire in town village highway public works absolutely do a study to figure out exactly what are the needs for those departments in the now in going forward not looking at a space or where to put it or how to build it just what are the needs how much space is needed dennis is drafted up to a r f p to go  of the p a dentist put together he is asking for an addendum to the r f p which would also wrap in village fire in village parks recreation to us it makes sense to to do it all once rather than doing part of it now and having to add two later so the preference would be to to get some responses that can study all six of those departments at one time the issue is just trying to make sure this gets out the capital budget is supposed to forty thousand dollars for the four so not quite sure what the people come back with those other two departments might really require us to come revisit the this look board and also the trustee and see the georges here tonight potentially ask for some additional money whether that's from fund balance or capital to some of the village departments so that is all to be determined but primarily in the interest of moving this forward i wanted to bring it here attention tonight get some comments on it so we can the building needs it's not a you know come back recommendation this is when you really need to do that it tells you what the needs are and offer options or look at needs and how much space so it's you know we have enough vehicles right now that we can put everything into one highway garage or the other but it's it you need it now i swear footage and then we'll go from there yeah you know if you if you took a look at our current fire stations you have x amount of trucks you have x amount of bays and you have x amount of quitman and what you but then you asked the chief wow you know what do you look out in the next twenty or thirty years what what do you need to operate that fire department  the next twenty or thirty years how big of a training room do you need do you need a kitchen do you need a you know what types of spaces do you need in the fire station of the next twenty years with the rules and regulations parking for those firefighters are you going to want sleeping rooms and if you do how many spaces would you need would they be individual rooms or do you do all of bunk room type of thing just for all those things and so it take that and say ok you've got a couple pumpers couple trucks couple this you need this many base near a need a building of this size with this many parking spaces and then you take it and look at the village is it similar is it different and then if you combined what would you need that's the kind of analysis and maybe a rough drawing not anything that you could build on but a rough drawing of how much land that there were two things that i really liked about this amongst all of them that denis writes because he just he puts great people great he puts great men most together there are two things number one he was specific enough in leading enough to talk about the possibility of a two story i think he referred to a two story building for the for the fire department  and the other piece that i you know in other words he's kind of steering them i think the more detail you can given an irish p the better your the better information you're going to get back so to have him kind of steer the conversation i think was was a really good move and then including the other departments has an addendum i think was just do it now just like you alluded to earlier do it all now  and then the third thing was he made a reference to the fact of having whoever wins the air of p come back with a recommendation on whether existing buildings can be added  onto another words are they structurally sound enough to be able to do an addition on rather than a whole new building so i'm i'm all in favor of letting staff put a b i would stress that you probably want to besides department heads in those buildings you want to just come and talk to the trustees not because we have some big insight about buildings but we might be able to give a little bit background about where we see where we see the department going that might be some disparity there between where the department head sees the building going and we might want to have that come out in the report and be dealt with in the report rather than have a report that the trustees can go wait a second that doesn't jibe with the thing that we had planned or what you were telling us earlier so i would only stressed out the other thing if you're going to do the village fire department in and just one other thing as we mentioned not only does the rec department rent space but the police department rent space through a restart of justice as well so some of the things we want to look at is maybe we want to look at a facility that you know can reduce what we're paying somebody else and and use that same money to pay ourselves for the space that they're using and maybe even get better space that it has more functionality to it for what we do do you have an estimate of what it might cost to include these other two village apartment we we do not and that's why the r of p is is put out the way it is that we're looking for that price and we have a budget but we don't know yet because we have forty k in the capital budget specifically for this so we'd have to find whatever additional funds from sperm some are there but it seems like to be a complete package it would make sense to include that so and then seeing how it structured you would have some choices to either do it all do some of it do it in phases ok so will you come back then once you know what the final number is or probably not i mean i suppose it's going to be well beyond that forty thousand that we budgeted and we had to go to come to the psych ward to request additional money from from an allocated money in the capital fund or for looking for fund balance transfer then yes if it's than that forty we had this as a line item in our budget this year there yeah i mean i'm just i'm getting pretty into the conversation you're having right now because i thought the village had put some money away religion put in ten thousand dollars for the  this year it's going to be on october third in south burlington and there's a lot of information about the meeting itself into the annual meeting there's also some other events conferences workshops that take putting it out just to mention yeah i think they want to read the whole policy not just the changes and that's why they say they don't send out the drug chain but they did say that they would provide it if requested well i think there we might need to have an alternate so you know i'm like i have a concern because at this point i'm scheduled to be out of town that day and business travel frequently changes so it may it may move so i'm i'm i would be happy to do it if i'm available that day but as max i think was going toward we were we had some discussion before the meeting whether jordan if i can find out what day of the week and so it's a wednesday it is a wednesday to get out starts at twelve thirty in the afternoon on wednesday the third i'd be willing to be the alternate thank you all were laid out to the refile already any questions or comments about what we have in our reading file again this is why i stuff it's not to the actions taken tonight but any question letter to support the university of vermont and that that was an er nurse and i am here to ask for her to consider a resolution supporting a fair resolution to the ongoing negotiations the nurses have a lot of nurses in our community and they're important members of our community that's for healing and providing support to all of us and i know as a member of this community i want to know that i have safe care that's being provided by people who are fairly compensated and that she was actually here to also support me on but she had to go unfortunately before we got to that i think both in her role as represent me and i've been there as a former nurse and i'm also happy to gather more information that would be useful i think i sent an article burlington has board and the town was having an issue with their union and management i would not be too thrilled if some outside party came and tried to get the middle of it so i'm putting myself in that same position here and saying that's really what i don't see it is also he's on board i don't see it as this life force but doesn't mean you couldn't do it individually but i don't particularly see it's our fight that's my i have to agree with that i really think that the select board interjecting themselves into labor negotiations is totally  inappropriate even if it's just a resolution i just don't feel that that would be appropriate at all so i guess whatever i should be doing it is for do we want to put this on a future agenda i i think any resident of the town can ask us to put it on and in the future agenda i don't think it's appropriate for us to say no it can't be on the agenda  globe but we're making a decision assume assuming that that's that that that they will write you or i'm not comfortable saying you know this this this was brought to our attention and i don't i don't agree that that we should today say no we don't want to talk about this i think like again you know i would i would like to allow an opportunity for those who brought the issue forward to request that it be put on a future  i guess we can put it on the agenda and let people talk to it if we want to be fair and open rather than just saying no at this point  story i just spent more time crying in the summer than i have in the previous thirteen years and by two the sadness it's clear that there's a divide going on and a lack of trust on my community tell me that i am the enemy of the nurses and i don't support nurses by passing this resolution there's nothing but even that divine further and while i appreciate the thought it is literally my full time job to support nurses and doctors and pressure and this is not the support and i believe our our policy that the select board has approved and signed allows a provision for anyone to ask i may be wrong but i swear i am the way i am remembering it and i it's a different time frame where i believe it specifically said stated in our policy that anyone can ask i'm not saying either way you know for her against the resolution i'm just trying to be fair with regard to how we establish our partner and genders