City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Thank you. do do Thank you. you Bye. music music Bye. 🎵 🎵 Thank you. Thank you.

again for something this weekend and I never leave without buying a book which I never do I'm like so cheap with books I mean I must read 200 books a year maybe not quite that many but a lot of books so I don't buy them but I told my husband it's like well get used to seeing this charge on there because I feel obligated I'm keeping this place in business if I have to do it all by myself I am I mean I buy some books there but my contribution is certainly coffee thank you

My youngest does not read books, but she really liked it when she was here.

Yeah, it's a glorious third space. Yeah. I was going to ask them, like, okay, which is better for you, a $15 kid's book for my granddaughter or, you know, four cups of coffee? Coffee. Yeah.

Coffee, for sure. Their markup, I'm sure, on the food is a lot higher than their markup on a book. I figure you're really renting a table, too.

So should we get going?

I'm ready.

So I hereby gavel us into session.

So first on the agenda is the minutes from September 1st.

Is there a motion?

Move to approve subject modification.

Is there a second? I second. Going through page one. Page two. I'm hearing no modifications all those in favor say aye motion carries next public comment this would be a time for this nobody what nobody only staff volunteer policy it's like this It's like select board meetings of yore.

Yeah, absolutely.

But anyway, so anybody online, this would be an opportunity to make a comment about anything they wish. I would ask that they keep it to three minutes or less. Eric, is there anybody online?

No one wishes to make a public comment.

Okay. So that would bring us to the next agenda item, which is the town volunteer policy.

I honestly was expecting some public comments.

Well, I'm wondering if people are going to come in at 7.05 exactly or something. These are approximate times.

I heard from a few folks that they just, for a number of reasons, could not make it tonight.

We're going to start.

All right. I'm going to just jump in. Assistant Town Manager Aaron Dickinson here to present the second read of the volunteer policy. And really, the second read was taking into consideration the feedback and direction that was provided at the last meeting, in addition to feedback that received after the meeting. And then tonight's task is really to confirm if this draft responds well to that feedback. flag anything that you want further work on and to receive your questions and directions on next steps. I also wanna note that after incorporating tonight's feedback, I would like to run the next draft through legal review. A lot of the edits have taken place since the last time and I do have a couple sections that I want them to kinda look at closely. um hoping that then staff could return with a third read hopefully final read in october which would align really nicely with some other policies that you've talked about recently that will go into effect one the enforcement policy for the conflict or excuse me code of ethics and then the repeal of our current conflict of interest policy Also want to acknowledge included with your materials as a memo from the Wilson Conservation Commission That was on the first read draft and then a memo with staffs response to the points they made They provide very helpful feedback, which was taken into consideration on the second read edits. I Um, which I'll now just go over the second read edits. So for article one, um, the purpose and guiding principles, uh, we need a small but important addition as an opening bullet that now explicitly names that the policies is to foster and grow meaningful volunteer engagement as one of the policies, primary goals. That was always the intent, but the original draft just didn't say it directly. And so the feedback rightly pointed that out and we made that change. For article two, scope, applicability, and definitions, I updated the scope to more clearly exclude external volunteer activities like those that take place at Catamount Outdoor Family Center. Those take place on town property but are independently recruited, managed, overseen, have their own insurance policy to cover it. So in reading over that scope, it wasn't really clear that that was excluded, so I tried to make that more explicit. I also flagged that section specifically for legal review. Every time I try to edit the language a little bit to make it clear of what the policy was really supposed to cover, it seemed like it may inadvertently extend to groups it wasn't meant to. part that I really want them to pay close attention to.

Should I ask my question now on that? Sure. So you call it Outdoor Family Center, but would this be Rotary, Scouts, like?

Yeah, Rotary, no, because Rotary really, well, yeah, I mean, really it is to exclude that. Sorry, I'm thinking people who use that as meeting space too, that definitely excludes it, but yeah, no, it's meant to exclude Rotary, unless Rotary is doing volunteer activities under the town's umbrella.

Well, and that's It's a big, thick document, and I even myself had to go back and forth. I'd write notes, I got a question for Erin, and then three pages later, it would answer the question. So it is a big, complicated one, so I'm sorry. But it seems to me like it's either it's an organization that has its own insurance, or it's not. And then the only thing that was kind of in between the two that I could think of is, like a contractor who's doing a rec zone program. They might have insurance, but if it's chess, their insurance may not be the same thing that the Rotary USA organization has. And that's not a volunteer activity either. Well, it could be. It could be. Okay. Yeah. But it's also under the rec department free pass umbrella, so. yeah but i was just that's where i was trying to split them up in my in my head is if they have their own insurance it's an organization and they fall under the mou rules if they don't have insurance if they are not an organization even if they say they are right and they have to follow the town rules right that's fair actually see you already saw well no but i have to tell you how i would like how i would interpret it if that doesn't fit in any where here or there's exceptions then that would be

Yeah, and I plan to, that's really helpful to hear because I'll include that as an example of really we need to make sure that the scope is clear on how to identify those situations. So yeah, it's a tricky, that in particular is a very tricky piece of it. You'll also notice in Article 2 that several definitions were updated and that's really to maintain consistency with the Article 4 and 5 restructure, which I'll talk about in just a moment. For article three, governance authority and oversight, I added the word representation to the language on recruiting for boards and commissions. I just wanted to align that more closely with strategy 1.2.2 of the town plan. Additionally, in direct response to feedback that the list of the town manager's office reads more restriction rather than support, I added a new opening bullet naming support and facilitation as a primary responsibility and a new closing bullet committing to clear communication and guidance. So that, again, feedback was really helpful to make sure that we were clearly identifying those goals. Two of the most revised sections are articles four and five. This is in response to feedback expressing concern that under the first draft, longstanding volunteer activities could be treated the same as brand new proposals and possibly create unnecessary burden and hurdles to conduct those activities. That really was never the intent, but we wanted to make sure that we made the language more, made the distinction more clear in the language we were using. So the second draft has reframed those sections. Article four is now town level activities, which is the default for any operational volunteer activity. For those, the town manager's office would be the support and review system. For Article 5, it's called now, instead of Department Managed, it's Department Level Activities, and this is the level a department can operate under once it has its own risk review process, training and supervision infrastructure, and independent record keeping. So really right now, the library and recreation and parks fall under that Article 5 as of current, how we operate currently. I do want to be clear that department level doesn't mean it's a better tier. It's just what's appropriate once the department has the appropriate capacity and staffing for it. Otherwise, it's more efficient to use town resources and have the town manager's office really fulfill that role. On conservation related volunteer activities specifically, staff looked very hard at whether those should fall under the department level or town level. Worked closely with Matt and the department head for the department those fall under. Also worked very closely with the senior conservation commissioner who's very familiar with those activities and supports them. After meeting with them several times, all agreed that it does make sense for those activities to continue under that town level supported activities. But really, most of them would fall under the approved standing program. So they are reviewed once and they keep running unless there's any really significant changes to them. And it's an efficient way to allow those activities to run with the least amount of road hurdles that they were worried would happen. For Article 7 on youth safeguarding, this section also saw a significant number of edits, and that was also in response to feedback. Before I walk through those, I do want to just revisit a few considerations that guided our thinking as we worked through that section. So first, as a municipality, the town carries a heightened duty of care, and that duty intensifies significantly when minors are involved. So when a parent or a guardian drops a child off at a town activity, responsibility for that child's safety shifts to the town for the duration. It's not for the volunteer who may be present. It's not the parent or guardian who's no longer there. The town is then responsible for that minor. So that's a real obligation, and discharging, it really takes systems. So intake, training, medical information on file, a way to respond if something goes wrong, and more. And just as an example, a minor may not know their own medical history or they might not recognize a hazard. They may not know how to advocate for themselves in an emergency. And some risks aren't obvious in the moment. So an example is they could have an allergy that nobody, none of the adult supervisors knew about or they could be exposed to wild parsnip or a bee sting. And without a parent or a guardian present or medical info on file, a clear way to report an incident or systems on how to respond, it can really prove to be a situation that we're trying to prevent. So that's also why we have other safeguards built in, such as background checks and at least one trained adult present. For unaccompanied minors, these are pretty standard best practice. A background check allows you to know

better know who's stepping in in a position of trust with a minor and requiring two adults as a basic well-established safeguard practice for unaccompanied minors this is the place where i did get kind of wrapped around the axle i could just see if my understanding works so we've now separated the 17 and 18 year olds right so 16 17 18. yeah 16 or not so that and i totally 100% with you that they need to have medical information and signed waivers, all that kind of stuff. So if you're doing a program that has 15 to 18 year olds, or 14 to 18 year olds appropriate, I was pretty sure it said that a staff member had to be supervising all the time, but then I got into some exclusion thing. So what's the requirement for youth participation?

staff members one staff member and another adult you know i left it for the staff presence i didn't build in a mandatory two-person um situation so i actually do want to call that to your attention it's really for if there's a qualified background check trained staff on site i didn't necessarily want to build in having a second um present for certain activities, but again, these all have to be reviewed too, so it really depends. I think about that, because I think it's kind of the best practice to always have two people.

Yeah, I think I agree. Regardless of whether or not it's volunteers when you're working with children, two adults should be present.

Perfect. I will build that in very clearly for the next round.

But not two staff members. It would be really nice if it could be a staff member and another. Yeah, it doesn't have to be two staff members, but two adults.

Right, but two adults.

Nope, that's fair.

particularly yeah let's just go with that okay um paperwork adult supervision and then but there always has to be there's no exclusion for staff having a staff member have to be there so no there was a rec department and then you can have without a staff member

Yeah, so for 16 and older unaccompanied minors, I did make a pathway where a staff member doesn't have to, or a parent doesn't have to be present. It could be a volunteer marriage activity, but that volunteer would have to be trained and vetted with at least one adult present.

This might be a really good flow chart. Yeah. Or something, right? Yeah. That might just, because it seemed like there were times when it could, I got confused, so, and I was reading it pretty carefully. Okay.

But 12 and older needs a staff member?

And a parent. Yeah.

And a parent of every kid?

Up to 16.

For excluded out of recreation. So it's a little bit different because their activities a lot of times take place in public areas. Parents can stay and it could be a practice or what have you. With these type of activities, a lot of times they're out in the forest or they're in an isolated area. So it just was... easier to kind of at least for the time being as we really try to make sure we have the systems built in place to support these activities, to start with the 16 plus. So the 12 and older volunteers, because I was trying to respond to, can they go water trees? You know, if there's an activity where, okay, adopt a tree or something of that nature, 12 and over can participate as long as their parents give them approval. We have Appropriate documentation, but those would be independent activities. They wouldn't be in a group because once you start introducing adults and The group setting and it kind of goes back to that 16 and older so it would be like an adopted a tree or trail monitoring if they you know a family adopted a trailer what have you and they wanted to go out and take notes for that day then they could do that and try to make as much flexibility but it's hard because it is very confusing yeah yeah uh so i will know so the adopted trail thing would be a you sign up once at the beginning of the year and you have all the waivers for me and my husband and the two kids and the grandchild and we have them all there and then we're good to go for the year i mean i haven't really looked into what that program would look like but that does sound like it would be something along the lines Why I'm kind of hesitating a little bit is that I saw, for example, Essex has an adopt-a-trail program, and in that one they require you to be background checked. So I'm not exactly sure why, but then that would be a little bit challenging, right, to do when you have minors involved. So I would just have to look at what... The third, so we did actually, we talked about the 16 and over and then we talked about the 12 and older for certain solo tasks. And then the third relates to outside organizations that are operating under an MOU. So this really would be kind of your scouting type organizations with their own recognized youth protection standards. They would be able to supervise youth without a parent or town staff present. That was intended in the first draft. I just, as I was reading it for the second, or preparing for the second read, I just realized that was a gap. So I want to make sure that's explicit. Because those programs really have been built around being able to support those activities. This draft also strengthened two baseline requirements that apply everywhere. So we talked about background checks. That would be for any staff regularly in contact with minors and then having that medical emergency info on file whenever a parent isn't present. For Article 9, tools, equipment, and prohibited activities, again, this was another area that was in direct response to feedback that was provided. We really, the tool approval process was written heavier than it needed to be and we wanted to list some standard hand tools that wouldn't need any type of advance approval. There was also clarity added for clothing PPE and that staff or an activity leader can flag unsafe attire in the moment. And there's a small but meaningful fix where the list of reasons for restricting tools now leads with safety and legal compliance, not insurance. because that's actually the priority order. It unintentionally implied that it was insurance related. For Article 12, Volunteer Service Attendance and Accountability, a new provision was added for operational volunteers that clarifies if the town manager or designee suspends or ends someone's participation that the volunteer will be given the general reason for that decision where practical. I do want to acknowledge the length of the policy. I realize it's quite lengthy. However, it covers a lot and it's really aimed at adding clarity so that there's more efficiency in providing support for volunteer activities. With that said, we can work on ways to identify cleanly what sections apply to any given volunteer, look for ways to pull a chart and make sure that's more clear and user-friendly. so that people don't have to scan 30 pages to find what they're looking for. And I also really want to emphasize that this policy was developed intentionally to reflect what we can responsibly support today. At the same time, it also allows room for that support to grow and is explicit in what would be needed to do it. So with that said, looking for slight word feedback and direction. I was hoping also for some comment. And happy to turn it over to you and answer any of your questions.

I did get a text from Chapin.

Okay.

Kainer said, I'll read it into the record. Hi, Ted. I tried to join the meeting for the volunteer policy, but I get an error, error 1142, saying I can't join from France, where I am. I was going to join solely to answer questions on my email. If there are any, please let folks know. have to do any follow-up later except you can text me so i said i would i would uh let people know that so uh anyway um okay but then uh questions or comments from the board just reading my

Text over from Reed. He rants too?

He is not. He isn't. One of the things, though, that I have heard from a few people is, have we looked at other towns? It sounds like certainly you've looked at what Essex is doing for their trail program. But have we looked at other towns and their policies and how restrictive or not restrictive they are? you know, randomly happened to see on social media, like Burlington was doing trail maintenance and they were begging for people to come with their shovels and, you know, and nothing required, you know, things like that. And so clearly a much more lax approach than maybe we have right now. And so just wanted to know if we've looked at that. That would be, I guess, I'll address that first.

Yeah, so to be very transparent, this policy's been in the works for a couple years now. So at the beginning, I did look for a lot of comparative policies and then very transparently did not find any as comprehensive as the one that we're working on right now. Yes, I did look at other policies. In terms of best practice, it wasn't always really in the forefront in terms of how people or how other municipalities manage their volunteer activities. I did look at a lot of available literature. I went to UVM, for example, having worked there for 14 years and knowing that they have a team of legal people who draft policies for them. I was like, why do we reinvent the wheel? Let's see kind of how they've worked and managed those type of activities. Went to Boy Scouts of America, looked at a lot of their literature and spent, a lot of time looking at policies that were available. And a lot of also what you see in ours is in direct response to things that we've actually had to respond to and manage in Williston. So looking at best practice, looking at other policies, but also incorporating what staff have been responsible for trying to support or figure out or communicate. And so that's where we're at now.

You utilized our BLCD passive contacts too.

Yes, I worked closely with passive. In terms of best practice of engaging with youth volunteers, they helped significantly with the development of the waiver. The first draft was looked at by a council, and they provided really good feedback as well. I didn't do a direct direct, but I spent a lot of time making sure we were looking at best practices.

So my other question is, so Article 4E is just your emergency volunteer activation. So it's not so much specific to that, but Um, with a lot of the conservation activities need is emergent, um, and time sensitive. And so, um, I was wondering if we could kind of use some of this capacity to. determine volunteer need or volunteer activation for emergent or time-sensitive needs, and for there to be an avenue when things arise that need to be taken care of quickly that are not emergencies, and have some language in there that I think that that might go a long way to kind of Hopefully allay some concerns of folks because there are things that just arise and need to be dealt with quickly In the world of conservation and in the world of you know ecology and so would like to see that added So that there was again that pathway for them to get work done quicker yeah, I think I understand and I'm hearing that I think it would be challenging to incorporate it with that what the emergent It doesn't have to be in that section, but as the framework, there's the capacity to have exceptions and to move quickly on things when needed. I mean, obviously, a true emergency would be a whole different thing. But again, if we can do that, to be more responsive when there are things that...

that need to be done quickly yeah uh so even within that first section town level activities so there's a you know how to propose activities if you want something considered section but there's also i mean staff can work with the town manager's office on responding very quickly and for conservation related activities in general like we've done so much review on much of what what is what type of activities they do, that even this season, for example, when David was really trying to prepare for this season's conservation activities, he sent me the waiver, like, does this look good? We need maybe one or two quick edits, and it was done. So if there are new activities that we haven't really looked at before, I think we could probably respond very quickly. We've got a lot of the homework done right now. unless it was a female-level type of emergency, which would fall under the other one.

I think it would be... Could we be more explicit about the fact that we can make... Outline it in here that there... that staff will be responding in a timely manner. Obviously, I know you all always do your best at that. But again, that we can handle emergent opportunities. And it might not just be conservation. I mean, I can't imagine what it might be in a different department, but there could be something that came up. you know, something floods or needs support or volunteers or whatever it may be. And maybe put in some expected timelines for things so that folks, you know, be kind of clear about what that is. I don't know if that's possible. I don't want to overburden our staff with work, but I do think that folks would benefit from knowing that once they propose something, here's the timeline that they could reasonably expect.

Yeah. Maybe some general language, like the town will try to review this as quickly as possible. Really, it's hard to put a timeline. I did think can we put a timeline and what a review would look like? And I kept starting to be like, okay, it'll be reviewed and approved within three weeks. But every time I did that, I'm like, well, what if we get something we've actually never encountered and we need to check with the state because it may entail a permit at that level. We are then dependent on what their review process looks like. So I didn't want to... to put those kind of timelines in there. So you'll see, I forget what the exact language was, but it was like for activities that have taken place, it's really a quicker review process. And if it's something new, then it could take longer. That was really where my mindset was coming from, which was trying to provide that timing. to try to alleviate that, but then as you start building in timeframes, you are setting yourself up for unexpected disappointment and things that you can't follow through on, so.

I do, I would, I still maintain I would like to see some language in there about a more expeditious process for emergent and time-sensitive needs, but.

Couldn't the language include like, you know, Assuming state level input isn't needed, then within this time frame. But putting a caveat to it, saying as long as we're the only ones who have to look at it, you can expect an answer.

Yeah, I mean, then you get into, well, are there other entities that we would need to check in with? Or are there resources that it would be dependent on that we know there would be some type of limitation or delay? I think it would be a little bit challenging.

I mean, the other thing that would actually help you if you had something in there that was a, you should expect a three-week turnaround, at a minimum. Because I think people are saying, oh, I want to take my neighbor's kids, and we're going to go pull buckthorn babies. And that's super easy to do. But I want to play by the rules, so I'll turn this in. but I'm expecting it in two weeks and it's gonna be four. So it would be to have at least have some indication in there and then just say more complicated things will take longer.

And it could be something, too, where there's an expectation of, you know, there'll be an initial communication about, hey, we got your request, and then as we take a look at it, you know, you could, based on what it is, we could define a timeline at that point. So it's not kind of a sort of blanket going in, but saying, hey, we'll let you know, and then we'll get back to you within a period of time, let you know how long it's going to take to review this.

That... would possibly balance all the unanticipated situations that we find ourselves in. Like, we will do our best to give you a time frame. With all of these, our goal is to expedite them as quickly as possible.

We're not here to try to... And I totally, yeah, I mean, certainly, I just, you know, there are, again, there are situations that arise which are outside of, you know, like, in a month I want to go do this project. Well... Next week there is this thing that has to be done next week because the bats aren't flying or whatever. No, but that's a good example.

And that's also an example of other entities. That's when you mentioned bats. I grew up in a house with wooden shingles and we wanted to put vinyl siding on our house. And when we went to get the permit from the town, they ended up telling us, well, you have to check with these authorities. And it turned out they were an endangered species. So we had to wait another eight months or something like that. So anyhow, you just don't know what you're going back into.

Think about some timing. At least give somebody an expectation and the fact that In emergent situations, this could be expedited. And with complicating situations, this could be longer. So please reach out if you have a question or something. I'm going to start with sort of my big issue. And then I have some of those little things just to see if you've thought about them or make sure I check my own understanding. I am very uncomfortable that the Conservation Commission still has concerns. would very much hope that before this comes to us for approval that's ironed out and it could be i mean it could very well be i guess my problem is like reading the memos and there was a lot of i didn't get a chance to look at this and you didn't talk to other volunteers and yes we did but a lot of that stuff could be worked out i'm happy to maybe a couple of us could even participate if you wanted to have a meeting with them to see but i i would like if it's going to come and we're not in 100 agreement them to be pretty concrete like we conservation commission think we should use power tools and town does not that's something that that i could say you know i i understand but no power tools you know i could i could kind of make a decision on that i can't make a decision on sort of angst versus we're not changing so i hope that we can get closer to If they're going to come and complain, they should have very specific things. And even the concern from the memo that was like, why don't we get treated like the library and the rec center? Like, well, they have a bit more staff. The rec department has two people. How can they possibly have more staff? So what's their real concern? Is their real concern the fact that it's going to take three extra days because Eric has to approve it? Or is their real concern that it's never going to get approved? What is it? So that's the kind of conversation I think has to happen. So they get really specific about what they don't like so that we can make really concrete decisions about, I hear you, but no. Or I hear you, but yes, let's try another draft so we can incorporate that. Like I said, happy to, a couple of us want to volunteer to sit with you and them or whatever if that's necessary. But if it's not necessary, it's going to be really hard for me to approve it if they're still superimposed.

Because that is the... Yeah, I was hoping they'd be here tonight. Yeah, but I really don't want...

I mean, like, it's even hard at open meeting to be, like, having them come up and sit at the table and, like, have, you know, show me what page and... Yeah. It's more like a working group kind of thing, so... That was my big picture. Then I just have a couple things, and I'm watching the clock, too. I know how much time we have.

Can I just really quickly, though? I do want to just... For recreation and library... Library has very different volunteer activities, and they all happen really usually within the library. And there's never a volunteer that's with the youth alone or that's very much different than the type of activities that we're talking about, operational activities or conservation activities. For the recreation department, similar. I mean, anybody that is, or any minor or any participant for a recreation, activity has to complete an intake form. So you sign your kids up for something and you're filling out like eight pages. What are their dietary restrictions? Do they have any behavioral restrictions? All of those things. They do background checks on everybody. They go to trainings regularly on how to manage these kind of volunteer activities. They've got protocols. They've got orientation booklets. They've got handbooks that they give to volunteers. They actually, the volunteers for those programs have to apply to participate. So we're talking about very different structure and management of how those activities take place, not just that there's the staffing difference as well. So I did want to just add a little bit more in terms of what those activities look like. Sorry.

Well, that was actually one of my questions, which I'll slip over to, which is I think it's the kind of get that for the programs that those departments are already running. Yeah, but this is a blanket approval for anything. So I was just a little uncomfortable with the blanket. Like, you know, the library trustees decide that they want to build planters, you know, and they're going to be using hammers and saws and doing that in the lawn. And, you know, but their blanket approval is good.

So, well, then... The library activities really fall within the activities that take place under that department head. So if there were activities- Yeah, we could see that, though.

We've got this beautification of the library, right? We're going to plant some trees and build some planters. It's just a, we're assuming that they're never going to do anything different than they're doing today, which I just think might- warrant a comment somewhere.

If those activities started taking place, I think we'd probably come back to you with some maybe proposed edits on how this is structured. And I do want to say that as well. I mean, this policy is where we're at, but it can be edited at any time or improved.

Yeah, but I was in four years here. I've heard that before. We've never had time to circle back on these because it's usually good enough, so I totally get it. Gotcha. the let's see um these are just story for you to think about does the school need to submit a proposal to a volunteer project on its own property um also it's almost like revenge renting the pavilion or renting the fields where does that put them all this because they're doing a event an event on our property and they may or may not have their own insurance if i rent renting to do volunteer activities i have volunteers at my my event you know um yeah uh there wouldn't be town volunteers if they're on our property is all it says it's on our property but it's volunteer activities this isn't for it what section are you referring to um we submit a proposal well so let's see it said somewhere on our property town managed town owned property that was the scope what what this was on so if i had if i decided i'm gonna get some bunch of people together and um make goodie bags for halloween um and i'm gonna rent the pavilion and i have everybody show up to help the kids make their about you know is that what i'm renting something it should not we do not want it to entail that so that's a really good example to make sure that this definition does not inadvertently require that but it's kind of tricky because if it's on our property but it does but if you're renting our property then it doesn't so um there's just a couple things like uh Um, they, you know, I was just trying to think of different things like the old brick church, they have tours which are staffed by volunteers. So that might be like they would have to get a year round waiver or something for their volunteers I think.

Yeah. And you'll notice this section in here too where the town manager's office can waive the requirement for waivers to make sure that we're being flexible for those kinds of activities. I mean if it's a really low risk activity like that. Technically, those type of tours don't fall under the Old Bridge Church charge, so they're not covered as trustees because these are activities that don't fall within their scope of their charge. Right, yeah. But if they're just giving tours and it's a really low-risk type of activity, we could certainly say that really doesn't require them to do that. Right. On the other hand, they're likely to be alone with somebody forever.

I asked about the rec zone that everybody's covered there. The fire department pancake breakfast. Good luck getting those people to sign waivers.

That would be one that wouldn't make sense to have a waiver.

getting sort of confused on what you could do with minors. Those were the specific ones that I kind of bumped on. Yeah, I mean, in general, my take is I kind of am sitting with Someone said, it's like a guy who won't take his car out of the garage because he's afraid if he drives it, his insurance will go up. Insurance is there to handle your risk. And so it's a, yes, you talked about talking to lawyers and insurance people, that's what I heard. So this is a very conservative document, which I do think will reduce volunteering in town, which makes me sad. I'd be interested in hearing from people who are directly affected if this is going to be like, no, I'm sorry. I can go volunteer somewhere else. It's a lot easier. So I hope it's not that. I hope it can make it a little more accessible to people so it doesn't keep them from doing things.

Yeah, I share that. I mean, certainly don't want to deter volunteerism or really it was coming out of place of how to support it and how do we organize ourselves in a way to do that and what do staff need to do to properly give that support. And we've just really tried to come from a place where there was very little infrastructure or staff involvement in a lot of the activities were taking place and we tried to one bite at a time get that really under staff to be able to be involved because ultimately that's it falls under our obligation to make sure that these are taking place and every little bite that we did was met with a lot of questions like, what would this mean? What would that mean? How would this be handled? And it just grew and grew and grew to try to outline how we would support those activities. So I even mentioned this to Ted the other day. was just a new person arrived, you know, yesterday and here dropped a volunteer policy. It probably would have been about five pages maximum, right? But this came from a place of staff are spending a lot of time just trying to explain how we need to better support these activities and what the town's obligations are and wanted to get a place where it was clear for everybody. And it's not It certainly, I would hope it wouldn't deter volunteer.

But you're going to hand them a 32-page document.

Yeah.

That's going to deter people.

Yeah.

Can I ask, are you planning on handing this to everybody who volunteers? Oh, you're 17? Here.

Yeah, no, I mean, really what I would see is when volunteers sign up, say, hey, we have this volunteer policy, you want to check out article, what have you, like if they were signing up for an activity. A lot of it, there's a lot of large sections that are really, for instance, governance volunteers. What's appropriate to them? Okay, articles, this, this, and this. For operational, it's article this. You're doing an activity with tools. Maybe you should read article 12, or I'm not sure exactly what that is.

But you would hand it to anybody who's bringing forward a proposal.

Yeah, for a proposal, you know, if you'd like to submit a proposal, here's Article 4. This is in, you know, the three paragraphs that are relevant to just what is the activity that you're hoping to do. Does it include minors? Will there be tools involved?

So I have a question. How many proposals do we get annually? Do you have like an estimate?

To be honest, we get... Most of the requests that we have are ongoing activities that have been happening. So, for example, the duck box monitoring.

Right, I remember that.

Which, by the way, we had so many volunteers offer that we couldn't accept all of them. I do just want to, I mean, like.

So that was on Catamount property, though, right?

Yes, that was on Catamount. But that was a town, that is a town. Activity? Activity, yeah. Okay. Same with, like, invasive species management. Right. Some activities that are happening, parsnip removal, those type of things, those fall under the town umbrella. Right. um and then catamount they have um advertised some like trail maintenance um so not many new proposals for no uh no a lot of them are really they are things that happened in the past i think i acknowledged in my memo i don't remember if it was in response to the conservation commission or this one in general but i do want to be very transparent and frank that there was a period of time in the recent history um where things did get delayed and you know kind of log jammed or how you would like to describe it as we were evaluating those activities to see okay what should we be seeing in this waiver what are the safety guidelines that we should give um so we haven't this year uh i can't think of any new activities that were proposed and the ongoing activities it was really what did we do for the waiver last year okay boom here

Yeah, it was pretty straightforward.

It was pretty straightforward.

Well, I want to thank you. It's a lot of work, Erin, for sure. And to be as flexible as you have been with this second draft. And hopefully we do get some feedback from people in the community. And I hope they feel a part of that process as well. I'm just doing the math. It's like 1 o'clock in the morning in France right now. So I'm sure Chapin will be listening to this recorded. And I mean, Chapin's just such an important part of our community. And how he sees invasive species, it's like a crisis in slow motion. And so for someone like Chapin, I mean, you really have to act on it immediately. So I can understand where he's coming from, for sure. But so that's the one question I had was how many, and then our capacity. How do you feel is our capacity right now? Are we handling the amount of work right now? And what do we have room for in the future? Yeah.

For the activities I'm aware of that were brought forward, we supported those this year. There was in the email, I think it was either today has been a really long day. I'm forgetting if it was this morning or yesterday. The chief and chair wrote some feedback and mentioned a specific license that maybe the conservation planner was gonna get, I checked in, that just had been a kind of passing maybe in the future that would be something that they would pursue. The herbicide thing? Yeah. But was not a commitment or anything that was really in the forecast for this year. So those would be conversations, I think, too, for Matt and David to have. What do they have the capacity to manage and the resources, and what do they need? Right. But in terms of supporting review or how to look at those activities and give them feedback on the review process, we have not, to my knowledge this year, not been able to do that and do it quickly.

Yeah, I was just looking at my notes from May 5th, and, you know, the one thing that stood out to me was their kind of feedback was that first draft depicted the volunteer as a problem, right?

Yeah.

And I think you've really kind of addressed that with all the changes that you made to the second draft.

I'm glad to hear that.

Yeah, yeah.

one other piece with the framework component too is we we've wanted to have set up so at the staff level we can you know be proactive in offering the activities to volunteers we do that to some extent today but you know we've talked a lot about it internally where it's great to have community generated ideas and projects but we can be the lead on these two and design it within our town framework and capacity as well something we'd hope to be able to increase that frequency

I'll keep my comments brief. I think we all want the same thing. We want it to be as easy as possible to volunteer and for the town to be able to support that and encourage that and mitigate risk to a reasonable level. For that, I feel like I would echo Gene in wanting more of a focus group or more collaboration with the Conservation Commission before the final draft. It sounds like they maybe felt a bit shut out in the process between drafts one and two and would love to see more alignment kind of, or at least understanding of what the issues are by the next one. And then the other thing I've heard is that, I mean I do really like the article four, like town level, like having the programmatic approval for a season or extended period. But it sounds like there was a pilot program for that over the summer that still experienced some hiccups and a few challenges in trying to get that going. And I mean, if it was a pilot, then it's first time trying it. Maybe that's just the nature of trying to start a new system. But just making sure the expectations are really clear so that for those who are trying to wrangle volunteers and put together It's a very difficult thing to do. So as long as we can make sure the expectations are so clear to those trying to wrangle volunteers so that they know when they have to submit whatever for approval and along the timeline. I just want it to be as easy as possible for everyone. whomever to gather a group and know what they need to submit when and when they can expect approval. And maybe that is captured here, but it just sounds like it was maybe a little rough this summer.

Yeah, I'm actually not familiar with which program you're referring to, because the ones that reached the manager's office for review were... to my knowledge, turned around within 24, 48 hours. So I'm not sure if that's a program that maybe didn't make it out of the department level. Parsnip?

It sounded like there was still some just like, it wasn't clear that they had submitted dates. but those dates weren't clear, and then they had to kind of go back, and then they were scrambling to, because they didn't think, they thought they had approval, but didn't have approval. I don't know. I'll check in with David on that. I mean, to be, like, I'm obviously not super clear on all the details, but it sounds like it could have been unclear expectations. It sounds like it could have just been the start of a pilot program where everyone's figuring it out, but yeah, I feel like for that, programmatic piece to be successful as long as the expectations are clear. Great. Thank you.

And thank you for giving the clean document along with the red line. I know. I hate reading red line documents.

And with the four and five with some of the adjustments and then part of five started to go in the middle and then after it was too late and I'm like, how do I fix that? Are you deleting this or is it moving? Yeah.

That was great. Thank you.

I did want to point out that it actually does say on page two, this policy does not apply to volunteers recruited, managed, and supervised by an independent third party operating under a separate license or lease with the town. Even when the town's activities, even when that party's activities occur on town-owned or town-managed property. So I think that kind of dovetails with liability law. I mean, you don't... I had a friend that I... found annoying um uh that would come over and say oh i slipped on your porch i'm gonna lawsuit like yeah that's funny because i'm a lawyer i get it um but uh it was it wasn't right anyway just because you fall on somebody else's property doesn't make it their legal responsibility if somebody does something on your property and they you know they commit negligence by not supervising the volunteers appropriately. It doesn't mean it's the town's responsibility just because it was on our property.

But see, that's, I'm sorry, you're done. I was just going to, because that's kind of where I started the whole thing. It's like, is that anybody? Can I just decide? Well, I'm an organization, so I don't have to abide by your rules, right? Or is it?

Well, no. I mean, if it's an organization that's trespassing, that'd be a completely separate.

No, no, no. But what if it's an organization, can it be Jeans Neighbors? And now all the rules don't apply because even though I'm doing it on town property? But that's fine if it is.

Are you doing a town activity?

See, that's the thing. See, that's where I just got stuck. This policy applies to volunteer activities that occur on town-owned or town-managed property.

Well, I think if, I don't know.

It just needs to be clear.

I think it's, you know, there's always going to be stuff like that that's not going to be clear in any policy.

Well, that's super important, though. Who is this?

I'm going to respectfully disagree, I think. Okay. Cover.

I'm not an attorney, so that's why I was like, I have tried to wordsmith this so many times to accomplish and make sure of it, and I was like, no.

But just to be clear, Chapin could bring a bunch of people and have a project like his, the one that kind of, he was doing a little course on, but it was on town property. He wasn't doing it on behalf of the town. He was doing it on behalf of himself, but it was on town property, and it got shut down.

Well, that was demonstrating, from my recollection, physically doing things to property that's town managed. So that would then fall under our scope in making sure that that's done safely. You can't just go and do anything you want on the school property or town property.

Chapin himself described it as an act of civil disobedience.

Yeah, to be fair. Well, okay, I'm just going to leave it with Ted's clear. I'm totally confused as to what the scope of this is now, so we'll have to revisit that one. That's fair.

We probably should move on. Okay. Are you clear on what steps to take?

Meet with The Conservation Commission with a select board member. If you think it would help. And then obviously there are some sections to try to find some clearer language and timelines and such. With the Conservation Commission, happy to meet again, happy to have a select board member. I think we were trying to alleviate any of the concerns they had because really a lot of it was about over- too much bureaucracy and limiting, causing complications and such, and really we tried to alleviate those concerns and they still existed.

Yeah, I thought it was, it should have alleviated a lot of their concerns. You really addressed a lot of them, but they're still angry, let's just squash the last ones so we don't have to do it in front of

right so if there are any additional it may be helpful to have a separate member problem yes it sounds like if there's some you know elements that the commission wants that you know further discussion on is what staff can deliver to the board is you know something that's very clear of okay where we agree where we may not agree in what our different positions are. So to your point, you have explicit just, OK, here's the issue. Here's their position. Here's the staff position. It's like working to make a final decision.

That would be super helpful. So I think pretty much capture everything.

I want to reiterate what Miki said. This represents, we all know, an immense amount of work on your part and on behalf of the town. And so very grateful. And you've done a really nice job listening to everybody and taking that in and making changes. And it shows. Great. Ditto.

Okay, so we should move on to the next item, which is the capital budget structure and strategy report. Eric.

Very official. Let me just pull up, I made some, tried to make some slides because I think that's more interesting, maybe more interesting than listen to me just talk here.

Slides always make things better. Did you use AF?

Actually, I tried for the first time today. Oh, no. I am not an AI fan, especially. So what I did was I was like, okay, I'm just going to see what it comes out with. So I put the memo into the... I won't say which one, but what I got I did not like, so I deleted it. That was my experience this afternoon. I didn't put any pretty pictures. So I provided the board a memo. This is part of your work plan this year, kind of pre-budget activities, overviews, kind of just especially from a cue to your first budget process, so kind of produce some of those elements for you. It's really helpful. Oh, thank you. Some elements for the board that were just elements that you talked about last in the budget process and FY27. So this was one of them. I'm going to try to get this scheduled the next couple of months for you. What I did here is just kind of go down look at the structure of our capital budget, and then just tease out some elements for further discussion that have come up in the past and for the future. So these slides will walk through the memo. So just overall, just why we have a capital plan and budget, it's a part of Title 24 in Vermont statute. It talks about what a capital project is. It's a capital physical betterment or improvement. including furnishings, machinery, apparatus, or equipment for physical betterment or improvement when first constructed or acquired. Also includes studies or surveys related to that physical betterment or improvement. Think library scoping study, things of that nature. Land or rights in land, real property. Then a combination of those ones I just listed. So the statute also requires your budget and program has to include and indicate in order of priority of each capital project and to state for each project all the following. What it is, the description, an estimated total cost, how you're proposing to fund that project or a combination of funds, an estimate of the effect, if any, upon operating costs in the town, So when you receive your capital workbook, our capital sheets include these elements, and that ties back to statutes. And that's what we have to do. So that's where that lives if you're interested. And then we capitalize our assets. If it's a physical asset or a group of physical assets, it's at least $10,000. We use some federal standards for that per our auditor. so our capital budget is divided into a number of sections currently and i'll kind of show this kind of how our budget is set up i think it's been set up this way for several years certainly predates my working for the town but a philosophy there's always opportunities to improve these processes and more of the presentation side of it as well so some of this as we think in the future what's a good good layout of this But our budget itself, we cover these assets of buildings, our parks, community, and conservation areas. Transportation, that includes roads, bridges, sidewalks, paths. Our equipment, primarily heavy equipment. I think dump trucks, public safety equipment is the next one, police and fire, and kind of other. I might get a better name for that, but that's really, at this point, the bookmobile of servers that we need to replace at times. i'll kind of walk through each of these right now and of note this is all related to the general fund our enterprise funds of water sewer storm water they all have a capital budget as well those are reviews look at those operating budgets in the spring at the same time so our buildings these are project-based replacements or improvements to existing buildings or new municipal structures that would be proposed we've got several buildings in town they range in Origination date from the 1860s, like the building we're sitting in now originally, or our public works facility, which I think was wrapped up around 2014, 2015. Number of smaller outbuildings around town as well. Some historic buildings like the old church, the old schoolhouse. All things that we have to have in our capital program, be thinking about what comes with maintaining those buildings for ongoing maintenance. Roof replacements, HVAC, siding gutters, all that fun stuff. Think about what physical plan with your buildings. so currently i'm more on the operating side but it's three for the board we have a decentralized system of our building management it's falling to the department head in each building so you're responsible for that building it's worked fine today but i think as the town as we continue to grow the organization looking to have some centralization of that function with probably building supervisory position that would really manage the maintenance for all those buildings, manage all the capital planning for those buildings. We focused a couple of years ago to increase our buildings and grounds division. It's something I've been thinking about moving forward. It's probably not in the next budget or next two budgets, but something to be aware of. As you have department heads whose primary role is delivering services that aren't necessarily monitoring the building it's it's something and we have some um advantage i think with trying to centralize that with one contract and schedules but we make it work we'll continue to make it work but it's just something else the town continues to grow to be aware of there so our parks in town they fall in the two main buckets our community parks village rossignol um those types of community parks, and also our country parks. Those are managed by a conservation planner, like Five Tree Hill, and then Mud Pond, and then Catamount Community Forest. We kind of made it its own thing, because it's called a super-sized country park. We have our own management there, our own capital sheet there. You'll see those are these capital sheets. One is covering the country parks, one specifically for Catamount. And a few years back, we did a scoping analysis of our country parks, of what we need for capital assets and improvements there, boardwalks, bridges, trail upgrades. We've put money into that capital fund a little bit each year, and some ARPA money was put into that fund as well. One thing I'm curious about, if we think about a recreation impact-themed board, thinking about the needs for those country parks in addition to our community parks, if there's a nexus there, eventually, because one thing we look at every year is we have a lot of these needs in the country parks. But trying to make sure we have a sustained amount of funding and, you know, the $5,000 at a time is not going to replace the Yalimar Bridge that we were. So be more aware of that and thoughtful of that as well. There's a lot of assets out there in these country parks. And then these three major categories in our community parks. I'm familiar with this lately. It came up with that amendment to the capital plan with the Roosevelt baseball field. But we have these categories of parks improvements, parks replacements, and then it's kind of third overall category. I'm calling parks expansion a new parkland facility. We've talked about Allenbrook Park in recent years. Should have some updates on that, thinking about the wetlands there and the potential alternatives in that part of town. Then the Glazer parcel where that piece of land was the town acquired as part of that permit. Thinking about building that park land out in the coming years, especially as that housing development takes shape. They will likely recommend that during the capital plan is think about doing that on the shorter term as opposed to after that development is fully flushed out. It's a nice amenity. It's something the town may be able to move on in the shorter term. Think about starting to build that park out. Transportation, roads, bridges, sidewalks, and paths. Larger one was the Muddy Book culvert, which was that crossing in the South Burlington. We bond and shared it with South Burlington. We had a temporary bridge after the Halloween storm of 2018, I want to say. Then the temporary bridge got damaged, so we had a temporary bridge to replace the temporary bridge. Big culvert project that wrapped up a few years ago. So that was a big capital piece. We have debt on that. Trader Lane or Grid Street and the Growth Center. We've talked about that quite a bit as a capital sheet there. We added a page a couple years ago. A lot of funding for sidewalks and paths has been secured with state grants. So those weren't necessarily showing up in the capital budget before, and we felt like it was a good way to communicate that to the community to show what was being worked on as part of this document. So that was added a couple of years ago. We've also included some of these CERC alternative projects. One was widening Mountain View Road, the path from Taft Park to the village. These are projects that don't have full funding attached to them. So thinking about timeline, spent a little scoping work done on the village to Taft Corner's path recently. A lot of things in this capital plan, it's a six year window. That's where it kind of gets a policy decision. You have some things where, hey, it's a project you want to do. You don't really have a timeline attached to it yet. Maybe you want to do some scoping within the six years, but construction could be quite a ways off as well. But you may want to have it in your plan still as you're working towards it. You're going to do some scoping work, but you're not really planning to put shovels on the ground. Makes sense. Then we have a sheet on minor transportation improvements using impact fees. We've used these for things like the rapid flashing beacons on sidewalks across town, crosswalks rather, around town. That's been something that's been used as we have increased traffic in town, especially in safety improvements. So the big one is the equipment replacement. So this uses the sinking funds.

Let's see here.

So this sinking fund, it takes the useful life of the asset and tries to predict a trade value and what the time period would be to replace that. The terms of target replacement date, the way these sheets and funds are set up, takes that estimate at net replacement cost after any potential trade-in. That's divided among the years leading up to that replacement, saying, OK, if we're going to replace this in 10 years, it's going to cost $100,000. We should put $100,000 away each year. And we need to revisit that and account for inflation things as we go. It's not going to cost the same in 10 years as we start that process. Our funds that stay with that equipment, they're designated to replace. We run into circumstances where, hey, it's time to replace X piece of equipment. This fund is running a little short. That's where I've suggested using an assigned fund balance to fill that gap, like the server, for example. Yeah, as I mentioned, you want to have an annual check-in to kind of figure, is that first year replacement cost projection with the current pricing and inflation, is that the right number? That's part of our capital budget building process work that we ask the department has to take the lead on, and Shirley and I work with them on that. Like I said, you could do this equalized year to year, or you could look at it graduated and defer some higher funding More expensive projects that have much longer placement dates on the horizon, you may say, well, we don't want to fund that equally year to year. Maybe we can graduate and fund it more as we get closer to replacement. The board's had that discussion the last couple of years as we've looked to potentially trim a little bit in capital and look to defer some of that, then just keeping in mind that we have to keep revisiting this year to year and making what approach the town board wants to take with that. But as a baseline, we can understand our equipment inventory, what's needed to replace it at a high level. As we see service needs increase in town, there's also the quantity of equipment needed to provide those services. It's been several years, but one example is we added a seven-tandem dump truck a number of years ago, and we know an eighth truck. So we've been on like a one-truck-a-year replacement, and we typically do them every seven years for the trucks, so then you run into that one year where you have two trucks to replace. At some point, it's all based on need and equipment need, but as the town grows, we eventually need more equipment, so we'll be thinking about that a few years ahead of time, I believe. And then, you know, similar to like building maintenance, as you have aging equipment, you can have added repair costs to the operating budget. Sometimes it might make sense to move something up for a replacement date. If you find like, hey, we're putting a lot of money into repairing this piece of equipment here, we may want to replace that sooner because we're just putting good money towards this year. So when we get into the funding structure for our capital projects, uses our general fund, some unassigned fund balance, which I'll back up, the general fund, that's kind of our baseline. If you think of pooled funds in the general fund from property taxes, local option tax, receipts, and fees, one thing I've thought about too, because it's all pooled, you could think about it with a lot of the local option taxes covering that, if you wanted to think about it that way. But it's all coming from the general fund and how we put funds in there. Unassigned fund balance. We're looking to build this more for one-time project needs. Like in the current budget, we need to do some gutter and siding work on the fire station. That has unassigned fund balance for that project. And also to close those gaps that, if they exist, when it's time to replace a piece of equipment that fiscal year. Hey, we're short to replace this. Let's utilize some fund balance as a way to keep that on schedules, discussions, and decisions for you to make. Impact fees as well. Like the minor transportation improvements, larger things like Trader Lane, those are all part of it. Debt service, bonds for especially major buildings, larger pieces of equipment like fire trucks. And then... The board utilized ARPA funds that we put into a community projects fund, and that became another funding source and tried to focus that use more on the one-time expenses to not have an ongoing need to feed the capital budget from that fund because it was fine and it was going to run out of time. and i think it should there is money remaining there that the board had designated towards the village green components of the library that scope has changed now so there is some community project funds money that exists out there still just just to fly so this is just from the current fy 27 capital projects um this gives an this table's in the budget as well it just just reiterates it In these categories, I just outlined what's the budget total for that, then how that came from those major funding sources, general fund, the fund balance, the impact fees. $600,000 from the general fund, $184,000 from the fund balance, and the impact fees, the $25,000. that's just a listing of how the town utilized unassigned fund balance um that fire station project and then the rest about 75 000 was split amongst these equipment replacements and strategically have tried to keep these try to eliminate this use here it's something trying to draw down for several years to have it just as that plug for trap our minimums we felt like there but Police Cruisers has been one where there was a big variance. It still had a larger number in FY27. I'm going to work with the new chief and get his take on where that capital count is, the replacement schedules as we work on their budget. But overall, that's gone down a lot from where it used to be. Yeah, that breakdown is over 600,000. Equipment replacement, about 75% from the unassigned fund balance towards those equipment replacements. Share that objective. Yeah, and I say this earlier, just some thought about how you want to fund those sinking funds year to year. If you want to defer it, just have to circle back and revisit it. That's why we want to update this year to year. So that $600,000 from the general fund is about 3.5% of the overall general fund. And our local option tax is about $4.3 million annually. I think I mentioned this maybe a meeting or two ago, but as you think about local option tax revenue, and especially if it's over-projected, you could assign it to capital projects or essentially seeding these larger projects, like the library, communications tower, projects that are going to take a capital stack to pull off and you're going to have to borrow money for it, but you could at least seed it with some money. Your approach with looking at that library project with the Village Green component of it utilizing a different bucket of community projects on the same thought, you could start putting some larger money away for that. And also waiting to see where our fund balance falls after Shirley's team looks at it after year end to see where that ratio lands. Because you could have more money in from the local option tax revenue, but your overall fund balance, depending on how the year went, that could have gone up, could have gone down. We would target a window for the board's policy of fund balance to operating budget and see, well, hey, we're in a position where, as a select board, we could assign that fund balance that grew because of the local option tax, for example. Let's assign it towards this future capital project and make that decision.

Or the housing committee.

Yeah. Things where you have these reserves and designated funds that gives you, as a select board, the ability to make those decisions. so i just closed out the memo these were a list of some areas you could be thinking about that equipment replacement cost estimates and timeline for replacement date if there's any kind of further policy around that or if it's kind of a year-to-year look you know guidance to help staff and how we structure the budget it will come up as part of your budget review that funding strategy for larger capital projects i just mentioned thoughtful planning for sustained building maintenance and upkeep. I want to be thoughtful about these replacement schedules for buildings. You don't want to defer things because the cost and scope could expand. So just being thoughtful about that as we build these capital budgets. Continue thinking about our budget presentation and public transparency. always how to get people engaged and how to interact with these documents, and they're not always the most intuitive. So I think government can always try to find ways to do better in getting that message and education to the public. There's more online tools out there. There's other examples, but sometimes there's some more investment in that besides just the Excel spreadsheets.

like that.

We're not at a place there today, but it's always something I try to keep an eye on and learn how other towns are doing it. Most do it like we do around the state. I think mine is maybe Burlington. Local option tax revenue, and then you can look at the England's revenue component as well. And I didn't put in the slides, but I kind of did an anatomy of a capital sheet as an appendix to this memo, just walking through where these elements are in the sheet, kind of how it's laid out, just as an overview there. So that's my main report. And if there's any areas for discussion or you'd like further information from staff leading into the budget, just let me know. We can get that together.

questions and comments.

Well, I just want to thank you, Eric. Definitely really helpful for me going into my first budget. So, yeah, appreciate it.

I should do that, too, because I always jump right into my questions, and then at the end, everybody else gets to say thank you. It was like, I just asked him 14 questions. They all hate me. That's not true. I pulled up just something. I... I pulled up something I tried to do to wrap my head around all these sheets last year, and I got off on a different tangent with the capital budget last year. Honestly, I've even pulled it up. I spent a couple of hours and I only got through the building section, right? Because it's complicated to, there's always like sort of one offs. And then in the building one, it's like, well, is this for cameras for five years or buildings for 20 years? So pulling it all apart. But what I was thinking, and I was kind of thinking through, I think when Greta brought this up, it was kind of like, we may need to defer some things this year because we're not going to be able to afford everything. And what I was thinking would be, Helpful and I probably should do more Describe it is going to be impossible for anybody to understand but just a list and it's like okay. Well, here's Here's the description roof on the fire station This is it's going to cost $100,000 and we need it. Well, it's a 10-year roof, but it's already been three years We need the seven years. This is how much we've saved and this is how much is to go and for 20 and for FY 28 The math would say I need to save $10,000. But the town managers is we should bump that up to 20 because things are looking bad or we're going to skip it this year. And so I think that would be really crisp for me to be able to say this is what was last year, this is what's next year. And then it would also let us and the community or anybody else know, here's a project. We're not funding it, right? Because there's quite a few, especially in that building list, where we're going to have to wait for a bond. So there's nothing in the budget for this project. And there won't be until there's a bond. And that's where it gets tricky, is the different sources of funds for that stuff. Because when we're in the midst of budget, what we're really interested in is what's in the general fund, or the fund balance, right? And if it's coming out of some other pocket, it's less urgent in the moment. I don't know, that would really help me to say, like, okay, mathematically, if I need to replace the roof in seven years, I should be saving $10,000, but maybe we could just make it, you know, five this year or something like that. Or, Eric, why are you doing that? This seems like you're being too conservative. This could be a problem. We've heard from departments this is a problem. Could you reconsider? But that would give me the year-to-year and sort of the need versus town manager's judgment.

So I know, especially with the buildings, we've taken the building historically and kind of put everything together. And so it might just be pulling just these major building projects out more. There'll be more sheets. But I think from your feedback, it just would be easier to follow as opposed to lump it all into one building sheet.

Yeah. And then some of those things, they were cameras or radios or something were all in there. And it's like, let's put them under equipment. Um, it would at least clean that little piece of it up. And that's generally the, it's kind of the big ticket items that people are most interested in. It would be great at some point if you looked at all of the equipment stuff and there's a whole bunch of small equipment and when you add them all up, it's 20,000 a year every year. It's just this year it's belief of next year it's fire. So do we really have to do this sinking fund for that stuff or should we just, you know, have a plan, but that would, you have to kind of lay it all out to do that.

The equipment is one of the things that I was envisioning. I know that during formulating the budgets, each department head is looking at their equipment and calculating these things. But when was the last time that we really did this in-depth analysis and looked at the latest technology and really determined we've been going off of these vehicles need replacement every six years. Do they really? Do they really? Can we get acres out of it? We have eight dump trucks. Can we replace one a year rather than that one? Is there ways in which we can stretch that farther? And obviously, that's the analysis of how much is it costing us to repair it once it hits that eight year. I know all these things. But I think now is the time where we really need to do that hard look at can we stretch that dollar a little bit farther? Can we stretch that piece of equipment a little bit longer? As the plan going forward, not just we can't put money towards it this year. We need to look at the bigger picture and extending the life of what we already have.

And I just really get some on-the-ground feedback with that. Like for Public Works, for example, we've ordered our trucks the last couple of years, and we're still waiting on some.

Yeah, and I know that with the fire trucks and the AMMs. I mean, all of these things, I understand that there's these long lag times and things like that.

But that's given us an insight to, OK, we had to keep a truck longer. Right. We have data now.

And did it work? Or was there so many repairs that that was a dump that we wouldn't have chosen to do? Unintended consequences. What, silver linings or something?

This isn't specifically capital related, but obviously our budgets town wide are going to be significantly impacted by the fuel crisis right now. And so something to also think about going into the budget season. As department heads are planning the budget, it will affect our ability to potentially put towards capital items as well.

Yep. And asphalt prices.

Mm-hmm.

Any other questions, comments, observations? Okay.

Thank you. Thank you. That's helpful. Yeah, we'll get that ready to deliver to you. Capital is a major core of the budget, but at the board's point last year, it's not always something that gets as much time and attention as we'd like it to in that process.

Well, because I just remember sitting here on the Saturday and they'd be like, well, we need a police cruiser. And you can start talking about it. It's like, hey, I know you need a police cruiser. You don't have to describe the police cruiser we're talking about. So yeah, it tended to be like at the end of the presentation, it's like, yeah, none of this stuff is frivolous. That's not the question we need to answer. The question is, is this the right amount of money that we're saving this year?

Yeah.

So. Managers report.

Postcards are going to be coming out this week for information about the library bond vote. Some extras, too, we'll have around, but they should be mailed out this week, so people will start getting those in their mailboxes. And there's tape in information. I think it's probably live informational show with our director on October 1st with Town Meeting TV leading up for that. Ballots are coming in and will be sent out by the state by the end of the month. So people can start voting for our bond vote and justices of the peace among other statewide .

The bridge project at Allenbrook is underway.

I walked over today and saw the equipment, and it's happening down there. So far, so good, I hope, still, from what I saw online. I met with the Railroad Safety Citizens Committee on the 8th, previewed the presentation discussion topic for October 6th. review and a signage audit of Oak Hill Road. He was very receptive and excited for the update and looks forward to having that implementation. I let him know I'd preview it like I do when the materials go out so they can review it. Stormwater project is wrapped up on the Lyons property, our property out back here. I'm gonna take a closer look at it this week, hopefully with our stormwater coordinator, but the write-up and the manager's report Lisa prepared that I put in there. It's a pretty significant project, really good work towards our stormwater, our goals for flow restoration. So that was a big accomplishment this summer. That's all I have for manager's report.

Okay.

That would bring us down to business. we have a clue in your packet liquor license removal and the stewart's one is a sarah reminded me it's a tobacco as well second class tobacco and tobacco substitute home two suites of first class and spaghetti restaurant of first class these are just where they're up for renewal on the calendar we have no concerns or any violations communicated to us in the last year is there So you just need a motion to approve those.

Is there a motion to approve?

Move to approve.

Is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. There are no nays. It is approved.

have a special events permit for Aisham Fall Fest at the Aisham Family Barn on Sunday, September, or October 4th. This is a vendor for a distillery. It looks like they're gonna have some spirits available as part of that. Farmer's market style vendor arrangement. No concerns from staff.

I move to approve.

Is there a second? I second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. There are no nays. it is approved okay then that would bring us to final thoughts on agenda items from this meeting are there any hearing none that would bring us to the anticipated executive session

I move to find that premature public knowledge regarding multiple contracts, the town is a party to, and litigation in which the town is a party to, would clearly place the town at a substantial disadvantage. And further move that we enter executive session to discuss multiple contracts, the town is a party to, and litigation in which the town is a party to, under Title I, Sections 313A, 1A, and E, and invite Conservation Planner David Moroney, Assistant Town Manager, Karen Dickinson and Planning Director Matt Berlinger to join the discussion topics at different times and Town Manager Eric Wells to join all discussions.

Is there a second? Any discussion on the motion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. There are no nays. So we are going to go into executive session and we will not be reconvening. No substantive decisions will be made in executive session. With that, we are in executive session.

Thank you.