like welcome everyone to tonight's like board meeting and just remind everyone if you have a cell phone if you could please either turn it off or at least put it to silent we would appreciate it so it doesn't actually go off during the meeting and if you ha from fire chief charlie cole and yes it's fire department and it's memo regarding alignment progress report and that can be added to the consent agenda item six and very good and that's that's that's  agenda and what if i may be the first to actually do public to be heard i'd like to say a couple of things here first this is this is kind of a special day because it's  evan teaches first day here he's sitting over here he's the new municipal manager we're excited to have him on board this is actually it's brand new his first day as most of you know he arrived just welcome movie we're happy to be here and looking forward to working for both six junction and the town of a six i have some very big shoes to follow in footsteps to follow in say quite a lasting impact on the community one that changed it for the better and in so very many ways has a very thoughtful steady approach to solving problems big or small and proved it does take a loud voice to a and please know that i have recognized and respected the select men who have served the legal definition in many were women and i respect the fact that you come here and some of the coldest loose nights to do the people's work amid a small group of family and a lot of empty chairs but you do nonetheless and so i think you and respect you for that and i hope you continue to go down that path and i will be in a different path and i will be happy thank you so much for your service  we're going to move on to our business items and up first is an interview with liam cohn for memorial hall will invite him up here please to this one of those seats if you would and first we'd like to say thank interest in the civil war era for much of my life working out of washington d c it was kind of her new ovoid some way across a battlefield here and there so i have published a book a irishman this bird over here in burlington's of war hero working on another one of his commanding officer standard i am recently became the commander of the standard camp of the sons of union picking pat's mind brain there to see what we had about the actual construction meetings or being of a storable band i want to delve into that in more depth looped in with the s says now for i'm left and one of them is moral the only ones that were left were ones that very wisely how's the town offices so that's i think guaranteed that the last scientific sad cry for recognition and  but you where that the more whole a committee doesn't meet very often as a matter of fact i don't think they've had a meeting for a number of years that it was their version i got from some comments were made and so that either means kind of a base for the standard campus and seeing veterans we had one meeting there in november and i've gotten approval to to use it three times you hear us who have our formal meetings in conjunction with  a public program sometime but ask a lot of people who grew up around her and seems like most real don't know the background of the building haven't ever noticed the names of the thirty four guys that died over the doorway and  so i think it's worthwhile to to make make the commanding more aware of and it's served apparently a lot of different roles over the years and session later unless the board wants to do something open meeting have a discussion come out of executive session make a decision and somebody from the manager's office will give you a call or contact you tomorrow so again thank you so much for your want to step forward and you know provide your experience and services to the community yes i for one think that this would be a decision that we c five b and that's interviews for selection of a facilitator for community discussion about farms ordinance and there are think three scheduled but it's for seven twenty so we're a bit early i would propose then if we could pull forward say the town highways with that you do that so can we have a motion to amend the agenda to so each year the town is asked by the state to update its list of highways highway mileage and certification as to what the town has in terms of mileage based on class of road class one two three class for this year the town is added just over a quarter mile of class three highways there's a section of freeman woods road stone brick circle and evergreen drive they're all class three roads they've been fully yearly and so it is recommended that they select board except the miles of town roads as listed and identified under the discussion section of this memorandum signed individual certifications of completion opening of a highway for public travel and sign the twenty eight teams are typical of highway t special election where the town's school school director and you need to warn it between march first and march eleventh but since this is the last meeting between fill those dates asking that the board approve it now and sign the warning effective march first twenty eighteen it is a school action so the schools will reimburse the town for any cost is what i mean told but basically it's a school action to  it's us i guess candy had questions and i've said so each of the participating municipalities are being asked to do this morning versus the the the itself doesn't have the ability to to learn not know i did the clerk told me that they're looking at doing that differently in the coming years but it was as part of the new school district shuffling so does this mean that there will be a separate ballot or that it will be printed on the ballot with the other budgetary items enable people that i am not sure about to get back to it that you know what they this is one of those instances where the select board that usually acts on behalf of twenty one thousand people is acting on behalf of the subset population of just the town outside of which is that much or for the school district my understanding is the first time that we're experience it would have been good to have somebody from the school board kind of represent this so we can ask questions people because it's kind of an anomaly i think that we're i think we just don't really know what we're doing like role are we playing but i'm fine with moving it forward i don't want to hold it up but it was just a suggestion that it would have been advantageous to have somebody who the saying if i was a i i posed a motion passes for zero thank you all that took us perfectly two for twenty so nice that mark is not here though is ok so i'm going to invite lynn dutton and susanna schweizer up to the table here please and if mark comes in jury in the interview greg could you ask him to  p what we have is called and we wanted to be able to just talk with you a little bit more about it there were some this is you know the background about the pharmacist charged ordinance changes that what what led up to wanted to to to make some changes or propose a look at what changes would be appropriate and it's it's an important discussion to have here and it's one that there are very passionate people on all sides of it i mean you know very very very passionate so again we thank you for coming in and what i'd like to do is i don't think we need to have give us their background right we have we have that and so on so what i'd like to do is open it up to the board for some some clarifying questions to help us make a decision between the three finalist not necessarily a specific topic but a topic of this kind of nature where there is that sensitive sensitivity and you know very divided kind of emotional feelings  so a year ago suzanne and i were hired to facilitate a conversation about act forty six with five communities and five communities had come together and worked for about a year and a half trying to figure out do we want to consolidate howard we consolidate the discussions were not facilitated by an outside group they called us in because they wanted to try you know one last time to see if they could come to some type of agreement and just make sure you understand what forty six was so i was just kind of you know i  consolidated now have to figure out what does that mean from a practical point of view and i think these small questions like the one that all of you are just sitting here trying to figure out can we can you know are we supposed to be the decision makers for this so any way back to this this work that we did we did it last winter january february march very polarized because there were small towns with no debt at the table with larcher who had a lot of debt because they've just done some big renovations and lots of concerns about it for the smaller schools are we can  close when we consolidate and the conversations were emotional they were intense susanna and i work together to try to  find places where there were agreements the committee was unable to come to agreements and we're still working on this issue they they decided they try it again on their own when we last spoke with well they ran out of time yeah they ran out of time so anyway we have experienced working with a group of people that the committee and others were allowed to come in and you know share comments at the beginning of each meeting but we had twelve members i think representing the five towns does that you've started to get down the road of the question that i want to ask and that is this this too will be an incredibly polarizing discussion strong feelings vul sides and i my guess is that this there there will be people that will try to steer this toward the gun issue in totality rather than the specific charge of what this meeting is all about and that is basically setting up zones where firearms can be used and not a decision to be made on whether there should be guns at all so i would imagine the forty six discussion was probably very polarizing this one i think is going to be the same do you do you have that same into suppression and if so have you have you had instances where it has been that strongly polarizing where you had to try and make sure that you stay on task to stay and to and to keep the audience focused our job you know being mediators and facilitators that's the essence of our job means to understand is if we know we're going to be walking into typically we don't walk into situations where things are always there is to push polarization and you're right this is really going to be i absolutely agree with you this is really at motion only charged given the events the recent events that happened you know in florida and even here you know it was a situation here in vermont so so we're prepared for that since that's our skill set and are experienced and one of the major points of our job is to keep everybody on track you know this is what this is what our goal is this is what the charter is this is what the bounds are but also to make sure that the variety of opinions are heard right and and not only by us but by everybody around the table so that they could understand this is what's important to greg this is what's important to michael let's see if we can develop an agreement that interweaves their concerns one of the things that that so we're if we were hired our job is to develop the process and to manage that process and people will come in on you know maybe extremely on two sides of the issue guns no guns and that's not what the conversation it's about it's about the ordinances and part of our job is to get people out of those positions and to get at what are their underlying interests and their values then as we're talking about interests and values we're moving them you know it sort of elevates the conversation a little bit from these two camps and you know that's our job pulling out all the tools that the two of us have to help people understand each other's point of view they don't have to agree but we want to help them understand what those are and to find those places where there is agreement so you know you could have people on two sides of the issues and they just want to be outside enjoying nature ok and how they enjoy nature it's what's in conflict so anyway that's that's an example so we're not you know we wouldn't come in with our eyes closed about what this is going to look like in fact you know we talked about this afternoon and anticipated that it would be emotionally charged you if you don't mind number four in your inner set up of how you would approach this was design a series of questions that will be answered by people that come out attend forums in person  goes for that i think that will be important i was not part of the slick board the last time this issue was visited and there was a strong feeling that people either felt that they were not heard or felt that they felt intimidated to be able to stand up and speak their mind so i think this would be a great first step survey i mean we have lots of questions for you if we were chosen we'd like to share some ideas that we have one idea was to do a survey one idea is also if you have shut ins do you want you know depending upon their interest do you want us to spend some time you know talking to them on the phone or whatever to get a variety of opinions so yeah we we could do a survey if there's any written or electronic but there will be kind of developed suggested that we hold separate forums for people who are pro expansion or pro keeping the discharger the way it is and another form for people who are more concerned about restricting it to hopefully minimize some of a antagonism in the fear that happen the last time everyone is in a room together have you done things like that before or would you be open to doing something like it or why not it's certain yeah it's certainly an opportunity it's certainly an alternative i'm not sure that i would feel comfortable about it because the whole notion is to get people to talk to each other to say oh that's why you feel that way you know there's a great example very emotional is the abortion debates a lot of people you know that's a very each other's minds but to understand where they were coming from and what was important to them so to me by separating them we're not achieving that understanding and that's what's so important we could you possibly offer maybe a couple of sessions like that because there there are some feel very intimidated that not just that they will talk but they won't even attend we can absolutely we can talk to about that absolutely ok but i just want to be sure that what we're trying to do is to get people timed or standing each other it's not i mean the other thing is when our questions one we want to talk about consensus versus voting that we think that's very important to i was surprised that the largest component of the budget was producing the report was going to take a while to to meld all those things together and this was it could change it doesn't mean that that's the way it is going to be quite frankly i'd like to see more of the time spent talking getting people to talk to each other yeah definitely yeah definitely but we also know that the the the the report's very important but i would hope that it's more leaning the other way great question thank you i have a question about your process do you need a steering committee of sorts or how do you how do you do it  him to ask that question no i didn't think that's one of our question one of our questions is one of the things that if we may one of the things we're thoughtful about is we read the minutes and the activities of previous attempt and we're we were scratching our heads to say had to you how do you think that you can ensure we can ensure or how can it be you're sure that there's a consistent set of stakeholders that come to these meetings to discuss the issues and to represent their interests and sometimes what's done very successfully is to have an advisory committee that that are representing the people as opposed to and that those are the people that have the discussions with a lot of public input but that's one of the methods that we could attempt to do the police chief did make several recommendations for a lot of different zones i think the the thought process believe from the support is that it would be good to have a silty to work with the community for his opinions stakeholders to look and see which options make the most sense for the different jones and maybe they have a better option or want it and really have it be from the community from the stakeholders because we've sort of charged what we did charge the chief to come up with with these recommendations so that's kind of that's been done and now we want to know all of those recommendations what does the public really want to see as opposed to having you know a committee of new or you know residents or even of the select board you know do that work it's really already have the recommendations what are the people really want to see implemented in those zones and having you help facilitate that discussion so that the report comes back and said oh you know this is what works best maybe nobody's happy but everyone's equally dissatisfied that we were like you know how come yet we're hoping that people are not everybody may be a totally happy but they're better off than what they were when i started had was could other options gawk be brought forward to at that time beyond the options that were already identified i would thinks yes right right now those i don't exhaust of options those are the ones that he came up with but if in your discussions with the community say here's a better idea you have some right so that was one of the questions the other was this idea of you know identifying all the stakeholders you know so we know we we've come up with some so you know the police hunters and the target shooters residents golfers dog walker schools conservationist and entities that deliver mail or packages  but you know we would want to know anybody else out there because one of the ideas are you know that susannah already brought up is that all the stakeholders are represented at these meetings that somehow we ensure that there is consistency across the foreman for forms these open meetings that all the stakeholders are are present so you know suzanne is going to talk about this now but one of the ideas we had was maybe having  group and that doesn't mean that there's other stake the stakeholders couldn't come and listen to the conversation but that you know this sort of this committee would be doing the sort of that  work what we're concerned around is that if there was multiple forms which we which we envisioned that you know for week one a certain set of stakeholders would come let's just say representing the golfers  try to disarm that but the next week out of form there would be a different set of people from the golfing interests become so what we're trying to figure out were scratching our heads over is how do we make sure there is consistency so that we're not starting at square one you know and we're getting you know people are learning and building upon the results of each meeting so one of the ways to do that is to perform an advisory group that has representation for me to the stakeholders on so and that's something that we would talk to you about if you know if we got to work with you about how that would work so it's that's not the reason that you bring it up but the other thing that i heard in that is that potentially you may be able to kind of level the playing field in terms of the equal equal that's a beach boys straight versus you know a large very vocal group kind of overwhelming the conversation right and  of our key things is we want people to participate we want people to be heard but we also want people to be listening so consistency is and is important it's a lot more work for us to but we really believe that  would be safe to say that of those groups or people that were named to represent the stakeholders one hundred percent per one hundred percent attendance at all of the forms would be a requirement well we were thinking of two so that if somebody couldn't come they would have a backup and oh by the way we wouldn't use them you know what we would help to use them we would vet them are not that them but you know work to see who's going to didn't initially or one of you raised about having you know this idea that there would be one week or one group got to talk in the next week and you know what i think the goal that i see for this this discussion is to to build trust in the community and part of building the trust is getting everybody into the room and helping everybody you know here one another's trying to view again not that they have to agree but that they have some understanding about where somebody is coming back and coming from and why something is so important to them why their particular viewpoint is important so part of that you know we're seeing our role as helping build trust tactics or approaches to use to to get to that trust and feeling safe in that in that conversation one of them is that we're managing the we're managing the process and you know part of creating a safe environment are you know norms or ground rules for the group working together and you know it could be that when there's a discussion going on i'm trained in something called which sort of circles which is giving each person a chance to talk you know and it's it's happening sort of in circle form and you can pass if you don't have something to say but that each person gets to share something and there aren't any questions and there aren't any you know discussion you know they're just getting a ploy to put out a point of view and i think that is a way to help you know a tactic if you will or tool for building shared understanding forgive me so if if you have let's just pick a number let's say you have two people representing each of these stakeholder groups i thought i heard i think i heard you say lynn that they would be representing the group that they're representing the sure that that stakeholder groups interest if you will and they have a responsibility to make sure i mean everybody's welcome to talk everybody's well welcome to share but  when it comes to the agreement there's probably going to be some give and take we're really hoping that you would entertain the use of consensus versus voting so there's going to be some give and take and at that point in time when you have a given take you have to have people view a lot of very popular issues i didn't actually answer for myself is before i walk in the room i actually take a few minutes to myself and i just say ok i'm putting everything aside and i'm i'm working with this group of people and their interests and their desires need to be met it's not about me so it's a little bit of meditation and just putting it aside personal opinions into the mix and you know i think part of this is the work that we do is facilitators immediate hers you know we're coming in as you know the neutral or the the you know  the neutral and i've lived in vermont but i have had no dealings with essex and i think in vermont communities very important and so  part of the recent i'm interested in this particular project is because i think this issue is dividing your community and i know susannah feels the same way you know we're interested in helping people find common ground making a difference yet and you know what yeah it's in your heart i mean you can't i don't know i think anybody who's experiencing the united states today with all the shootings it's there but our job is to put that aside  so in order for your process to to function that you require an invite regroup to be formed we would recommend we'd like to talk to about it we're willing to do it that's what our first recommendation is but we are also flexible enough that if we if you feel that no you want to have these two arms these forms which i still want to have you know we can do it that way we're just scratching our heads about how do we craft that agreement so that there is consensus so that people have heard what other people say and are willing to budge a little bit and sometimes it's hard to budge half a  room and so we're really thoughtful about that so we're thinking well if we can have representatives be have the ability to budge it's it's an easier process and that's been shown in that that's been shown in the experience as well needs to be it wasn't you know i don't think they got as far as they thought they might and we'd like to make sure that you get from her and we got the sense from his report that there was strong representation on one side of the issue you know i think sometimes people ask why to people this is we looked at this this project this is a big project we we have similar skill sets and some different skills that we bring to the table and you know with the two of us two of us are listening hearings you know one of us can really keep track of what's going on in the room to see who we're not hearing from  you know or to be able to keep our notes especially getting you know what do we want to take out of one four and taken to the next what did we hear you know where are we hearing consensus you know where what are the issues that are and need to be teased out a little bit more and with two of us i think it's easier to keep track of everything that's going on in the room so yes the two of us will be working together and i was hoping that that was going to be the answer y what we're trying to do is collaborative collaboratively build the proposal figure out what's on heard what people have and what have what it is missed and then change it to try to you know to try to get it's like going again and again until you  talk to you about so you're just a quick background you want to give yourself just maybe a minute or less or so sure my name's mark limburg you have my proposal i am the former director of the  justice center i left that position and twenty fifteen when the justice center merged with the court diversion program we decided i was ready to move on to something different and since that time i've been doing independent consulting which has been with a number of different agencies and organizations partly with a focus on offender integration but a fair amount of conversations can you speak to what happened what you've learned from it or anything about it given that we've seen you before in action and there were some hurt feelings from some residents yes i actually think i read the notes  like board and so i understand that there was some her feelings that questions were not asked exactly as they were presented if i'm not mistaken it was that was one of the t what the general consensus about the questions was how do you create a moment for people to get information from the people who have it and then how do you create a separate moment for people to share their thoughts and perspectives and so i think the rearticulated of some of the questions was partly to take out those elements were which were about expressly about expressing opinions and creating a separate time for people to have that opportunity formal circle process is a much more involved project and it was meant as essentially a way for us to create some structure that all folks could buy into and abide by for this process if we  were if i was to integrate some circle process into it i would come prepared with a specific talking piece and lay out some guidelines around that as well some of the more more the formalities but thank you for asking the question yeah so this is a very emotionally charged something right and we've been down this path before and it didn't lead to any kind of action  so in the previous attempt there was a number of people that did feel intimidated and felt that their voice wasn't being heard or could be heard to the point of people not continue to participate how do you reach everyone or all the necessary stakeholders ensure that everyone's voice is heard yeah  so i also read it's not about that i understood there was some sense of intimidation at least there was some reported intimidation to do two things first there is in the proposal submitted an online survey which i think its primary purpose is to generate information or data that can be aggregated in such a way as to take up polls at least of those people who participate in the online survey and then as far as the and i also feel like those surveys will tee up three to four forums that i would organize  and as far as creating a climate of safety that really is my responsibility and part of that responsibility is to from the outset establish some guidelines for conversation as much as possible assist folks in moving from a place of taking positions to a place of sharing perspectives so that folks can have the opportunity to listen to each other even if they don't agree  i also would hope to use some exercises that get people up and moving a bit because i think movement has a way of breaking down some of the barriers that people naturally acclimate to you know they come into a room they're going to gravitate to the people who they feel most comfortable with which often are the people who share the same perspective as they do so trying to create he's so yeah so also i would look for opportunities or are activities that encourage one to one conversations so creating some moments for that as well some of it might be also seeing if people can articulate the the perspective of people who may not agree with them so asking people to see if they can share what they're hearing from a perspective that isn't necessarily one that they share know generate some of that i don't feel like you can have a productive and informative community or station if people don't state feel safe so that clearly is  the foundation for everything else that falls there i think will be an attempt by people within the audience to try and steer this toward the bigger question of  guns in general as opposed to the ordinance that we're trying to get rid of it and i just wondered how and what tools you have in your box to try and steer that back because especially in lieu of current events it's i can't imagine that it's not going to try and come up and i just i'd be interested to know how how you do fuse that base but still keeping people with the the ability to want to continue to participate it certainly is a charge moment it's always been a charge moment in some ways but again it's charged and i think part of it is focused questions part of it is initially establishing i believe strongly in establishing common ground at the outset spending time to to identify those things where everyone in the room can agree and that may not have to do with the gun ordinance it just have some questions that explore people's broader connection to essex and to each other as a way to facilitate conversations that lead into that more difficult topics  i feel like if if if the conversation is steering away from the question that's before us it's my job to bring it back and remind folks that what we are we are talking about and  i am i grew up with a lot of friends who were hunting season was a special time of year we have a fairly large tract of property in waterbury center that i cone with my six siblings and we don't post it in part because we feel like hunting is is a part of the tradition of that land you talk about the advisory or the advisory group that you think needs to be part of this and like yeah first it gets back at that issue that i'm i am not an expert in i'm not an expert in ordinances and my job is is to create a neutral ground for people to have substantive conversations i'm also not a resident of essex and so i feel like it's important to have a stakeholder group a vested stakeholder group who can take the information that's generated first of all to help me design the process and then secondly  help me to process the process itself as we move forward so we can make changes as necessary and then thirdly to take the information that we generate both through the online survey and through the forums and make some final formal recommendations to to you all a select board members and so i feel like they essentially will be my partner so this process in addition to the systems who i will have for the for the forums it would be members of that i would want select but representation i would want police representation and then i would look to who are some of the leaders of the folks who are organizing around this conversation  from the from the different perspectives to ensure that those perspectives are represented on the advisory group i'm not entirely sure yet but i have given thought also as part of the as we move forward with the forums to see if there are specific individuals who come to the forums and participate who may want to who we may invite forward to join that group for the final decision making  as opposed to saying that we the police chief had made a recommendation for the difference those succors reviewed those ago yeah those seem reasonable but we don't know which ones to select for these different zones the great to hear from the stakeholders out there it doesn't sound like a committee would necessarily be needed but i'm not the professional to facilitator but it doesn't seem like that would be required for my view in having a group a touchstone group that i can work with as i develop this process that may exceed the availability of the full select board and may include some of the key perspectives that may not be fully represented on the select board but again i'm flexible and if if you all felt like that was untenable then i would work with you on that i'm not saying that's how we feel but i just  i respect that but they're also highly engaged and i'm wondering how do you keep your personal opinions out of your work yeah i feel like when i'm facilitating a process that's where my engagement is my engagement is to keep keep track of where we are in the conversation watch for red flags address red flags so that's where my my attention is fully there how information will be used you know what is what is the flexibility for you all and what you know are you open to different options what kind of what kind of recommendations are you looking for people i want to create a process that allows folks both to share their perspectives and have their perspectives and to be heard as well and to listen so that really is where my focus is and i you mentioned having assistance you know to help you how many given to say you have a sense of how many people in addition to yourself would be helping with this process yes so since this is people very passionate on all sides of this thing and as as you read in that other report and as you've heard some people don't feel comfortable as being together  hunters or non hunters or something like that so that they can be free to not feel intimidated and and be able to share more openly their thoughts or do you think it's vital that all camps come together at the same time to have to find common ground as far as the forums go i feel it's vital for people to come together and share perspectives again it is it is my responsibility to create a safe space for that conversation i do feel like the online survey will also be a generator of a lot of really important for information and i would want to use it wisely since this was done before and there's now this feeling that people don't feel safe or feel overpowered by one side or the other how would you look to overcome that initially to get them to come back process there's the announcement of the process and there's a facilitation of the process i feel like it would be incumbent upon me in the in the prep of the process to do a fair amount of community local community outreach talk about what i see the community forums looking like making myself available and handing out my phone number i want to listen to what people safety concerns were so i can understand how those might the us market any other questions that you'd like to to ask us while you're here is there any sense of how many people would it would be standing room only crowd here so one particular group and that's yeah there'd be a lot of people but it might not be over it wouldn't likely be a wide representation you'd really have to draw certain groups out that are stakeholders in order to get them to share their thoughts but it's a you know i don't give them a lot of people there but trying to get the right mix will be the challenge so knowing this what what is your hope for the community for process the end result of what for the report for us well it's seems clear that you're have a general sense that you you want to create opportunities for  voices to be heard and you also seem pretty clear that there that the majority the people who will show up are from a perspective of just from experience that that's often how it turned out the way it would necessarily be but in the case many times and if so i was part of my proposal was you know three to four forums with the hope that  ones for people to come out but i mean there's pros and cons to that right so you do want to find consensus and or at least common ground and if they're separate it's pretty hard to do but to get everybody's you know voices heard as best you can would be the goal so that when they go through those options for the different jones they can say in your report what the consensus is  or whatever you think is the right way to go for each of those and maybe they come up with a different recommendation for that particular zone that wasn't included in the options you know that that would be fine too but it would be nice to be able to have a really concrete set of what the community as a whole could support maybe start you know great support but everybody says it's not isn't it so yeah it's ok and then we could perhaps implement something that in my view that would be ideal we'd like to be able to have it if we're going to make if the recommendations come back and say yes changes are recommended in these different sounds i think we can say we'd like it to be in time to make an impact in an ordinance change for the next hunting season i think right now be the ideal scenario so and since local government was are slow it would probably be pretty soon i think the other factor would be the persian leading up to hunting season for sending rifles and that type of thing usually begins relatively earl in and talking with us so the process will be we're going to at the end of our business section we're going to go into executive session and have a discussion will come out of executive session to make a  take a break or you want to try to pull something else and think we can pull in the fire department salary yeah sure is ok did you did you want to start setting up a skype or anything or like i can through the budget process we discussed whether or not to be useful to seventy thousand dollars from the fire department budget pushing the alignment work that was going to cause an increase in the salaries up until mean january i was asked would that have any impact i said no i was wrong i had started talking with the fire chiefs about aligning various aspects of the partment and the single most important one was the salary was the starting salary difference between the time in the village there was whether or not you paid for training and a few other things all of which was translated into money in the pockets of the people who are paid on call firefighters designate thirteen thousand three hundred thirty two dollars balance that's been a topic of some discussion of late the board has allocated or assigned for balance for specific purposes in the past and that's or paid on call firefighters and that was essentially what a six month period would look like all the else being equal that's the best guess we can come up with this point the department i thought that the perm is going to finish strong this year looks like they're going to limp across the the wind so using any funds from this year's budget is out of the question and so again going forward with the idea that we would be a town meeting be taken from the fifteen percent unassigned that is correct and assigning it now for thirteen thirty two that is correct part partly sorry ok so last me i was trying to follow the bouncing ball  the inner in the narrative that we've got with the budget it talks about aligning the salaries beginning in twenty one thousand yes and we originally were on board with that and then the talks about january twenty nine expected to go from ten fifteen hour to twelve fifteen an hour and chill why having to wait six months there was the miss i guess miscommunication because nothing in that anything we reviewed ever talked about was i was asked whether or not it would have any impact and i said no would not i thought we could start in july by january very easily and i was i called the meetings of the fire chiefs to find out what the big issues were and the big issue was to make the adjustments starting next fiscal year in the beginning of the year there and i knew that and i forgot it at the time of the budget meetings understood but that wasn't part of the dialogue and the discussion we had during the communicate very well and i still didn't realize until very recently just i mean like sorry chief was here and we just because it feels like there was multiple opportunities to correct it if it was somehow not right we reserve the recognize that there was a mistake in the beginning that recognition didn't say there was a very recently and that was just perpetuated through the discussions th cover either contingency the matter what happened or for a chief did not so this is to allow both departments to start january first by this fall we started well that's why i asked the question i did the beginning it's not about reassigning already assigned fund balance it would be taking unassigned from the fifteen percent and assigning that to this purpose not if we take care of it with fund balance tonight then no you don't have to do and i mean we we this wouldn't be a precedent setting that you do this you don't there's a number of so we could fix it tonight or you could you could you could try to get the you know do a town meeting but this is this is how it's often remedied when a mistake like that and other questions comments sites i think i think it's important important that we do this now and that we fix the inequity given given the work we've done and the consolidation gains that we've made i just i think you know you can say i was going superstition then for questions you'd like that to go first this time restart question from a resident was are you a gun owner or a member of the n r a and so my question is how is it going to be helpful to know the answer to that question right answer that you may not be the resident asking so i think one thing that will be helpful is where we were there somebody where someone's personal stances and so yes so i mean i read through there are a few very i was actually very impressed there were some very excellent perceptions that you made and here the challenge i think is that you didn't identify and approach and i think you know it's hard for us to really get a feel for what you're going to do i think we get a feel for how you're going to do it but past some groups didn't feel comfortable participated because they felt they felt intimidated when they were not they felt intimidated that was their reality so they didn't they stop participating and you know we would want this process to include all those voices and stakeholders and we have these recommendations of what could be done in these different zones in town that was provided by the police chief and it will be wonderful for the community to be able to look at those and say which ones makes sense for those differences owns or perhaps even something that wasn't recommended that might even be better and to be able to have you facilitate that those discussions so that a recommendation could be made back to the select board to say this is what the consensus or vote or what however you determine the majority  to recommence for these different zones and then we could look at it and decide if you know if we would want to go forward and implement that or not but again to try to get all those voices in there when people you know in the past  conversation is actually about is what the job is public process in terms of our meeting isn't always feasible for everybody either so i see that you have a lot of different you have a desire to have a couple of different ways of getting information again your clarity around whether you're getting input will change multimedia they're going to be messages that go out and forms frequently asked questions kinds of sites that are interactive if you're looking for is a collaboration for example this is more of a negotiation and you're looking for people to come up with any great information ask questions deflections and then really come out of solution of it bring to the sec or that is a different kind of process because you're looking for people to be able to talk exchange ideas track issues in a public process like this there's a lot of people so you're probably looking at a house  just another club is that virtual meetings can mean something like this which is very interactive where you have screen sharing and different a give and take but it can also be short little three to five minute given stations that are recorded and scripted so you're giving question for you when you talk about whether you as a slick whether you're looking for the recommendation if you're looking for a single facilitator to provide that recommendation and probably not a gal and that's because it's really very difficult meaning manage those process a couple of times what you're probably looking for is one entity to make that recommendation and stews of the self into that and to make the content recognition could be an office that already in essex it could be the police chief it could for example  intimidated have a place to be able to pick dissipate because they may not want to participate in one that has you know everybody you think that's a reasonable approach or would you think decision of course it makes sense that lots of different opportunities for people to shop where it's intuitive to them where it makes sense where they can do their best work and it might even make sense to do outreach that could happen at certain different meetings that doesn't have to happen but in terms of integrating  respect for people who try to put things together and we've been pulled apart as a society in many many ways and as a gauge person i'm sure you have lots of opinions but you keep your personal opinions out of the work  decision that's the real question about why or not i am not the kind of person who wants to put myself into a content contributing position especially not this one not being a resident at six and not being an expert on firearms that's not my role m during the course of this crisis you might favor one side more than the other how do you control yourself doing this actually sometimes there with a differen eight any conversation there are some ideas that seem like they have where others that the logic isn't as intrinsic to me so what are the mediators tools for working with that one is to make sure that we're always framing and trying to figure out what the or this is just a hugely charged subject and i can't help but think that there are going to be some within the participating group that may try to steer this toward the more broader question about firearms in general as opposed to our work to try and craft a safe a safe ordinance so i'd be interested in your in your tools the tools he would use to try and steer that back it's a great great question  generally but it definitely is in this particular area it sounded like there was good traction with them breaking down by geography to get very specific about those areas are my hunches because people feel differently depending on where they live in those this ordinance what kind of intelligence is in it that this ordinance we're going to take into account what sorts of what isn't going to get solved in this discussion but might need to go elsewhere i would expect that this kind of session will be particularly charged right now because there's a lot of fear in motion around how around and the shooter situations which is a completely different situation than accidental injury but it still is all part of this their discussion about firearms and how communities greet them and try to handle firearms as a community and so to a certain extent i'm not sure that any tourist going to prevent that from coming to the conversation i think it's trying to figure out how to work with anyway this truly compassionate and  and what kinds of language or what sort of protections are one intended consequence of that are they worried about that such an ordinance night might suggest and that's one way to work at work with real honoring that what is what isn't there that's taking time out this evening to talk with us really appreciate you just your questions and the process will be that after we're done with our business section of our meeting tonight i will go into executive session to have a discussion  only twenty to read is that a possible way is staff suggestions and then we can take off the from staff at the end i think it's just cleaner and easier to read it with the rest of the board and what i wanted to do was actually strike the rest of the board and in its place but miss cook recommended a compromise in the one hundred fifty k to two hundred k range the board   yeah for which page page for sure that's your client's one seventy three one seventy four he stated that the i think education tax increase from the state of vermont striking out the next few words and replacing it will be on the order of eight cents and changes in the federal tax code and some language will make property tax increases more expensive for many i'd like a new paragraph please under agenda additions and changes so be starting somewhere after line twenty secs and you progress states mr owner asked whether she should speak to the website she created to provide info to voters about the wrec sorry about the regional dispatch issue during public to be heard or later in the meeting the chair advised her to wait until the consent agenda which is what we did you and i do recall  es to and three every month on line one twenty five i just like to insert the word town before the word taxes so it's is by increasing taxes since that's the definition we're familiar with wit long one seventy one please come in the middle of the line where there's a period i'd like to insert this sentence she offered puerto rico as a second example i'm ok make them march on under the initial paragraph here a book for pat i'd like to just add a few words in honor of his upcoming retirement comma and then it proceeds until that  i believe we clarified under see the resolution of appreciation that it will be read by the clerk at the essex humming so i want to just add that in there so i know i'm a broken record on this but i saw that the we did get copy of the material that shared on sexual harassment training and i still don't understand why  that was mandatory for all employees anybody who did not attend will have to take the seat to thing that's in your package to follow up on that all employees went to the training two weeks ago was mandatory if anybody could not go they'll have to go to live to take the online course and you just saw these are some sort of training for all employees the military knew that you just held cover and she updates of material updating various cases that go on so that even if we use the same person who is in a five star person she updates the material so it's always it's always only appropriate given the press let's been very recent in the headlines that the select board take time to re examine the process of educating and determining whether a complaint is valid or not i've asked for that in executive session and that's been denied and i think it's really important that we give confidence to anyone that puts in a sexual harassment complaint related to any one main street that they understand that the process is going to be fairly and unbiased in its resolution radar so parking lot of the world and where we've made progress and where we need to make progress it's from from my point of view issues that are still not not finished and other work sessions but it's been clear very very clear that it is a work that will be done if and only if there is time to do it so it isn't absolutely have to be done unless the board itself says this has to be done and don't do anything else which has never been so we've always had a list of objectives and goals and status reports and how we have reported out whether or not something  percent done thirty five percent as really been more the question that is to the staff so i can you say something is twenty five percent done by what right by right measurement this is been something that we have always had as an organization is that you will have as an organization and when you have just so few people to do all the routine work and all the extra work that comes up that gets worn porton because of its  urgency there is there's an effort has been made to sort of keep the board apprised of where we are with those is because we haven't done anything as a bit we did forget them we just don't have time to do them but the board needs to excellent example is the firearm discharge conversation that needs to happen and it was actually right when i joined the board two years ago when there was another fortunately not no one was injured by a stray bullet and you know reared its head again and then we knew we knew that there needs to be some sort of public engagement on this but it hasn't you know got there but but but we need to at least have that on the list somewhere so we know we need to follow through on that yet it's a still to do list yes  think it's nice to know that because there's all kinds of opinions out there as to how beneficial or not beneficial or how much tax fairness there is or isn't after all the changes we've done all the money that's been shifted around so