Good evening.

I'll bring the Bratterboro Select Board meeting of Tuesday, September 9th, 2025 to order.

This is a regular meeting.

We just concluded an executive session where no decisions were made.

And are there any adjustments to the agenda?

I'm aware of.

All right, very good.

Let's approve the minutes from August 4th and August 5th.

Do I have a motion?

Yeah.

I move that we approve the August 4th and August 5th meeting minutes.

Great.

Isaac has asked to approve the minutes from August 4th and August 5th.

Anyone, all South Board members in favor of that motion, please raise your hand and say aye.

There we go.

5-0.

Now Chair's remarks.

We've been off for a month.

And it's very exciting for all of us to see you here, and we welcome you back.

And I hope everyone made good use of their time away.

And we're eager to begin essentially the fall season and the budget season and all those good things.

So thank you for being here.

There's a listening session on the budget on Thursday.

And we've structured that so that people can speak for five whole minutes, but only once.

So come prepared.

John, do you have any comments?

Yep, I have a few tonight.

You know, had to catch up on a late start with all the budget season and then trying to keep in tandem with all the state's road projects have been pretty impressive.

I know that the short-term disruptions, waiting in traffic, the lights, the noise, that can be annoying for everyone.

But the long-term results of uh better infrastructure in our town are going to be very welcome and will benefit all of us.

On the state paving projects, crew uh our crews continue to uh work um overnight on multiple Class 1 roads and also during the days in uh working on the side uh sidewalk replacements, curbing, and water box structures that have to be coordinated with the uh state's overnight crews.

Um Canal Street, the top coat is in place now, and final pavement markings are being applied there.

Putney Road, Park Place, Linden Street, Main Street, Route 142.

The current work includes structure height adjustments and signage upgrades, and the final top coat is expected to go on those roads in the next couple of weeks.

Those will be the last areas to be completed this season.

The crews will be adjusting structures and replacing all of the crosswalk ramps to make them meet ADA standards, and the final top coat on High Street and Western AV is scheduled for mid-October.

Uh traffic signal improvements.

So uh the DPW leadership administration has been working with VTrans to incorporate into this paving project adjustments and upgrades to the traffic signal timing and equipment at all five inner intersections from Route 142 through the north end of Main Street.

These improvements, if they get approved, will address traffic flow challenges created by the new um traffic pattern from the uh Brattleboro Hinsdale Bridge and are expected to improve both safety and efficiency downtown.

Uh DPW crews have also been working away getting started on the Williams Street retaining wall project.

That is progressing on schedule with a completion anticipated before the end of the calendar year.

The westerly spur of William Street and Western Av will be closed for the duration of this project, and the easterly spur of William Street and Western Ave is now one-way outbound, so going north towards western Ave.

Uh residents accessing the westerly side of William Street must enter from Union Hill.

These traffic adjustments will remain in place during the uh duration of the retaining wall project for um safety and efficiency, and then they'll be re-evaluated.

Uh we thank residents for their continued patience and cooperation with those adjustments.

Melchin Road, there's a big project out at Melchin Road.

And this project is being funded through FEMA and following the governor's approval of a major disaster declaration for that flooding event.

Slope stabilization is being installed to restore that road to its original width and and prevent future erosion.

And then, you know, along with all this, DPW crews over the past two months have replaced over a thousand feet of sewer line on Elliott Street, Church Street, and at Mountain View.

Um DPW has also put a focus on improving the downtown district to create a more vibrant and clean space for everyone to use.

They've initiated improvements to lighting, the co-op walking path uh redo, painting, uh improvements to the transportation center and fire DPW and police department staff have incorporated two mornings per week to remove litter.

And since July 1st, crews have removed 3.57 tons of rubbish at a cost of $714 from the downtown area.

So I really want to acknowledge the DPW leadership, which is really demonstrated at all levels in that department, and I congratulate them on a great season of work, and I ask everyone to give them a wave and a thumbs up as you drive by and see them on the roads the the rest of the summer.

Finally, I want to give a shout out to a number of town employees who have reached milestones of service this calendar year for reaching five years of service.

Stephen Dotson, Taylor Struthers, Stuart Wheeldon Jr.

and Mesa Kennedy, thank you for reaching 10 years of service.

Benjamin Aether, uh, Kevin Lambert, Patricia Sheehan, and Garrett Callentropio, thank you for 15 years of service.

Really appreciate Amy Fletcher for reaching 35 years of service, Scott Blodgett and Matt Odgin really appreciate you.

And for 40 years of service this year, uh I think everyone really appreciates uh Wreck and Parks Director Carroll a lot.

So thank you all for your great work and your commitment to Brattleborough, all these staff.

It's really great.

What a great report.

Thank you, John.

Are there select board members who would care to comment or give a committee report?

Oscar.

Thank you.

I'd like to give a brief public update on the bridge project.

We're continuing to look for basically finding the right solution that addresses Hinsdale's legitimate concerns and is also fair to Brattleboro and fair to Brattleboro's taxpayers that works ongoing.

And I continue to feel good about its prospects.

Anyone who's interested in knowing more or in being involved, please feel free to contact me directly anytime.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

All right.

Oh, I have a couple of things.

Do you?

I do.

Go right ahead.

Well, good evening, everyone.

It's great to see such good turnout here in person and appreciate folks who are walk watching online.

Uh, one to appreciate the town staff and fellow select board members for the participation with the retreat the retreat that we did on August 4th.

This was an opportunity where we spent a few hours together over at the fire station.

Um and want to particularly thank our town manager for having brought this initiative of select board retreats to us, to our town, and also filling, our planning director for having facilitated.

Out of that, we developed five draft priorities, which are in our consent agenda, I believe, for this evening.

Yes.

Um, we'll be going over those at this this evening or naming that what those are.

I I will summarize them, yeah.

Great.

Um so just really appreciate that opportunity.

Um I wanted to also just say that one of the things that came out at that meeting was an idea to have the uh well, discussion of a request from the town finance committee to come before the select board and have a conversation with us about uh several questions that they have about town finances, and I understand that they've been invited to come to our next meeting.

Is that is that correct?

Or they've been invited to come to your meeting on the 24th.

Excellent.

So we'll have a chance to to have that discussion would encourage folks to to tune in.

24th of October.

So this this month, I don't know, at our sounds like our next meeting.

Well, we have the meeting on the 11th to the listening session.

Um I also want to just to note that I've been asked to speak to the issue of the removal of encampments from the um from the the woods in town um that was reported on in the commons.

And you know, this is a a sensitive topic.

Um I want to thank the work of our first responders and our Department of Public Work staff for supporting the the health and safety of our town.

Um our responses should prioritize the safety of all of our residents and minimize any harm that's done.

It can be the encampments can be a public health risk, but there also is a response to a situation that our town didn't create of homelessness, but as a result of state and federal policy, we have um we are experiencing.

And I I, you know, I want to just highlight that at our retreat we talked about creation of more housing, expansion of shelter capacity for people who are currently living outdoors, and there's also discussion about places for people to camp.

Like how can we uh make sure that people do have a place to stay if it's not a roof over their head, you know, what are people to do?

Um and some of the requests that I've received from members of the public, which are not something that I can um grant and that we're it's not on the agenda for tonight, but I just want to um to share them since multiple people did bring these to me.

One is a request for bathroom facilities for support with sanitation at um campsites in the cases of um removal focusing on individuals who are causing harm rather than an entire encampment.

Transparency around how encampments are targeted for clearing, who decides the timeline for removal and the process for appealing that decision, care for people's belongings, including tents, and communication with community leaders who work with unhoused individuals about planned removals with specific information about plans for those removals, including dates of intended actions.

Um I've discussed this with the town manager and um you know looking forward to learning more about the process.

Um I would encourage us to to as much as possible that when we read an article with some concerning headline and some concerning quotes inside that you know we take I know this issue can be polarizing and just would urge us to take the time to really to talk one another to learn more and I'm confident that with more discussion we can come up with solutions to minimize harm for people who are unhoused and for people who are also neighbors of encampments and our first responders.

Um but I do think that more discussion with our community be important before more removals of people from the wooded areas in our town.

Thank you.

Okay, Isaac, thank you.

Uh is there anyone else who would like to comment on the select board?

I'll I'll give a brief shout out, actually.

Um on September 20th, there's going to be a fundraiser for the Brattleboro School Endowment.

And if you haven't heard of it, it's an organization that was formed to fund winter sports opportunities for children.

Um skiing, bowling, skating, and um it's a mum sale that happens to be happening at our farm, but all the proceeds are going to so Lilac Ridge Farm September 20th, Bratabro School Endowment Fundraiser by a mom.

You can pre-order um look out for the postings that you might see.

So let's support the youth in our community.

Thank you, Amanda.

Peter?

Yeah.

So uh in the in the theme of of plugging things, we have a uh fundraiser going on tomorrow for Black Mountain Assisted Family Living, which is an organization organization that I am involved in.

We're doing a barbecue dinner at the Royal Diner starting at five.

And uh I will be I'll be one of your cooks.

I don't know if that sells it or kills it for everybody.

Uh but um myself and Chad Farnham will be out there cooking ribs, full pork, and serving up uh some some dinner out on the deck.

So we would hope that you come by.

I know that there's a couple of things going on, but we plan this so you could grab dinner and then go see the show downtown.

Thank you.

All right.

Um this is the public next is the public participation.

So anyone who would like to speak on an item that is not on tonight's agenda.

I see Millicent's hand sprung right up.

So Millison.

Thank you.

Um I like to come up to the mic.

Oh, sorry, pardon me.

Come up to the mic.

Uh yeah, come to the microphone and please state your name.

Yeah, Millicent Cooley.

Um, I'd like to make an announcement.

Um the petition to place open town meeting as an option on the ballot so that voters could vote for or against OTM in the event that voters decide to end RTM has been certified with 473 signatures.

Um we decided to stop calling in the remaining.

Um the work to this uh to collect these started two weeks ago on August 25th, and it proceeded quickly.

Um the goal is appeal to a broad range of people.

Um the vast majority we talked to were appreciative, and very few were opposed.

Thank you to everyone who helped.

Thank you, Milson.

Uh Dick.

I want to thank you.

All if you had a nice vacation.

Thank you for the postcards.

They were really colorful and thoughtful.

Um thank you, Madam Chairwoman and Amanda for showing up for the bridge showing.

Uh poor showing, and I thought, for the town for such an iconic bridge.

But uh, you people showed up, and I appreciated that.

I asked you to put on uh either next week's uh uh the next meeting's agenda or the meeting after an update on the Bratt team and what it is, how it is going downtown.

And I see the uh uh DBA representative here, and maybe we can get businesses and people that are downtown to come to that meeting and talk about the pluses and if there are any minuses about it.

Uh John touched upon this, but uh I'd also like included in that is uh the time, the amount of money, and how many people it is taking to keep the downtown area clean of trash and needles that we are picking up on a weekly basis that is certainly having an impact on our tax basis.

And I also like to know how many OD deaths we've had this year, not from the beginning of the of the new co uh new physical year, but the whole year uh Narcan use, how many how much money we have spent on Narcan, how many times we've used it this year, and uh EMS, how much time is being spent on uh Narcan use, drug use, and whatever else issues cover that area.

I think it's important to give the town a report on what's going on in the community.

I don't believe that uh people are truly aware.

Isaac talked about uh a little bit of that uh in what you uh talked about at your retreat.

I'm also gonna ask under consent agenda that you pull that uh select board priorities off.

I think it's important for the town to hear what your priorities are and not hide it in consent agenda.

I've never been a fan of consent agenda.

You have 12 items on here this evening.

Uh and I know you have protocol to pull things off, but I don't think consent agenda is uh a good way to do business.

Uh to me, it's not overly transparent.

Uh, not enough people are aware of how it works and its function.

But I ask you to do that because I truly believe that uh the town, especially going into the budget cycle, how important it is for the town to really know what's going on with everything that's happening uh considering the homeless and the drug problems that we're having.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dick.

Anyone else?

Kate.

Hello, um Kate Traskis, representing downtown Brattleboro Alliance.

Um I just want to say a big thank you again to our public work staff and um particularly Peter Lynch for leadership with the Lunch in Lot program we did during August down in the Preston lot on Flat Street, um, as well as Aaron Skaggs from the DBA.

Um it was just a really fun way to take a look at a space and reimagine it and think about what's possible.

And so thank you to all of you that came out for lunch.

Um it was a lot of fun, and we'll see what the future brings.

Thanks.

Thank you, Kate.

That was fun.

Ivan.

Ivan Hennessy.

Um see out and about, uh, you know, at the at the library on the bulletin board there, um and on various um town websites.

Um requests that people participate in various committees.

And I think that the town could do a lot to funnel people into those committees.

And also do a lot to make the downtown itself more attractive.

Um by taking advantage of a lot of civic goodwill and energy with a lower um barrier to entry.

I have participated in a whole bunch of elections run by our fantastic town clerk and seeing how people can come together and be organized and especially how willing people are to act if they don't have to take on the executive part of that, if they don't have to make the decisions about when things happen, how things happen.

People have a lot of stuff going on in their lives.

They want to help, but if there's someone providing that structure for them, it's easier to get people to help.

I think that the town should have a full-time paid position that would organize and coordinate just the general public to do all sorts of stuff that would improve the town and would also make people realize how easy it is to participate in town government in small ways that make it easier for them to step up and participate in more intense ways.

I do have reservations about suggesting that we produce some sort of volunteer workforce.

I think that people generally should be paid for work, but I also know that the town is looking for every possible way to cut the budgets of everything except for the police department.

So I think maybe you could we could leverage one paid position to get uh an immense amount of labor out of it.

Thank you.

Uh Randy Randy Bodget District 7.

Just curious if there's any update on solid waste.

Uh John, you want to answer?

Um, so uh we are still negotiating uh with uh one uh one contractor that put in a proposal for solid waste services in town, and we hope to find some additional savings before we uh finalize a contract there.

Okay.

Uh yes.

Uh Ken Faye, District 8.

I just wanted to uh say that on the uh recommendation, I guess that's called for from Robert Osher.

I stopped by uh 69A on Elliott Street and to see what they were doing, and uh uh it was a great experience.

I enjoyed it.

Uh I saw the the help that they're doing.

I have uh been there a couple times.

I've also uh donated things to there, and that way uh I've actually seen my donations uh put to good use, bypassing the what apparently a lot of the people in town think is the uh human service industrial uh complex.

Um so I just wanted to uh thank 69A for what they're doing.

Thank you.

Is there anyone else with a comment that is not on tonight's agenda?

Anyone on the screen?

Right, very good.

Uh the consent agenda.

Uh does anyone want to uh uh pull an item from Do you want to hear a summary first?

What a good idea.

Okay.

Um there are 12 items on the consent agenda tonight, and as always we strive to make them the non-controversial things.

So uh if you approve this agenda, you'll be approving two entertainment licenses, one for Halo Hollow at 75 Elliott Street, which is a boba tea house with Light Asian Fair that plans to have live music and karaoke.

One also for Tavernier Chocolates at 28 Main Street, who uh plans to have live small live ensembles and DJs for tasting events.

You'll be receiving the downtown improvement district vote results for continuation of that program.

You'll be accepting and appropriating $50,000 in grant funding from the 2025 municipal roads grant and aid program.

You'll be ratifying a $21,000 lease with the Brattleboro Co-op for 3,000 square feet of storage at the Transportation Center.

You'll be adopting the 2025 to 2027 select board priorities that you landed on at your August 4th retreat, which was an open public meeting and is also recorded and online.

And those priorities were increased revenues, advocate for state revenue sharing, work towards child safety zones, expand housing stock, and maintain financial responsibility and health.

You'll be authorizing application for a community development block grant for 1.8 million dollars to replace the town-owned Detman Drive Bridge with an increased span to convey a 100-year flood.

You'll be supporting the downtown Brattleboro Alliance's bid for a downtown downtown vibrancy fund award of $25,000 for marketing, graphic design, and increased staff capacity.

You'll be authorizing the purchase of a 2025 Chevrolet Chevrolet Tahoe for $55,987 as approved in the FY25 Capital Plan.

You'll be adopting municipal policies necessary for receiving Vermont Community Development Program block grant funding.

You'll be authorizing the town's participation in the new national opioid settlement with Purdue.

And you'll be authorizing the library to enter into a five-year lease of a color printer for staff use at an annual fee of $1,246.

Great.

Now I'll ask is there a select board member who would like to pull an item from the consent agenda.

Yes.

I would like to pull the priorities discussion.

All right.

So we'll we'll move that to the end of the evening item.

It would be now item F.

And then let's all select board members in would someone like to make a motion actually about the consent agenda.

Sure.

Go ahead.

I move we accept the consent agenda as presented.

Actually, you want to with the exception.

As amended.

As amended.

Very good.

All uh select board members who would like to accept the consent agenda as amended by Oscar.

Please raise your hand and say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Very good.

That's 5-0.

And now here we are with regular business.

So we have a announcement of committee vacancies.

Presentation by town staff.

Is that you?

Oh, I can do that.

Okay.

So there's no real motion required for this, but uh as was mentioned in public participation, there's a number of committee vacancies that have become open, and also we understand a bunch of people who are interested in joining those efforts.

So we've had a few applications.

So the board isn't is asked to announce these vacate vacancies at your meeting tonight, and they are for the ADA advisory committee.

There are two vacancies.

For the arts committee, there is one vacancy on the arts committee.

There are two vacancies on the Conservation Commission, one vacancy of a design review committee alternate, and two vacancies of development review board alternates.

There is one vacancy on the Energy Committee, two vacancies of fence viewers, and one vacancy as on the Nelson E.

Withington Fund Advisory Committee.

So if anyone has any interest in any of those opportunities of serving the town, please contact the town manager's office, look for information on the website, get in an application and let the board appoint you to one of those positions.

Thank you, John.

All right.

Let me welcome the groundwork staff and board representatives.

I believe we have Libby Bennett and Peter Elwell.

Welcome.

Okay, so this is uh information and a discussion.

There's no motion required.

But let me again welcome you too.

And I understand you have a presentation and we'd love to see it.

Wonderful.

I think Seth has our slides.

Thank you, Seth.

Seth and I agreed that I will give them a flag when it's time to change the slide.

So good evening, and thank you for having me.

I'm Libby Bennett.

I'm the executive director at Groundworks Collaborative, and I'm joined by Peter Elwell, who's the chair of our Groundworks Board of Directors.

And I'm happy to have you change the slide.

Thank you.

I want to start by thanking the town of Brattleboro for all of the investments that have been made over the last year or more.

There are so many things that we're doing right in this community that really differentiate Brattleboro from so many municipalities all over the country that are really making challenging situations far worse.

Instead, Brattleboro is prioritizing collaboration.

At Groundworks, we're so appreciative of our strong relationships with Brattleboro Police, FIRE, and EMS.

We're grateful for the town's investment in the Bratt unit and Justin Johnston's work alongside the wonderful team of HCRS police social work liaisons.

The situation table has been tremendously helpful in reaching across the broad sectors of human services to help solve tipping point issues for members of our community in the most vulnerable and high risk situations.

Several groundworks staff have participated in the situation table, and I understand it's helped over 40 people in Brattleboro since its inception.

Our work with one Brattleboro is really gelling into a bright model for collective impact in the state.

The community homelessness strategy team has put two years of cross-sectoral under work into understanding the needs around unsheltered homelessness in this community and is supporting an effort that we hope will provide an extreme cold weather shelter this winter.

Project CARE keeps us informed about harmful substances coming into the community and really helps to keep people safe.

The staff at Brooks Memorial Library is doing amazing work every day to help as a resource for any number of our neighbors housed and unhoused.

We're putting the town's investments in human services funding into impactful use in our drop-in center, case management work, and at food works.

We're providing truly truly life-saving.

Really truly life-saving services to members of our community, so many of whom lack the resources to compete for housing in this tight rental market.

Here in Brattleboro, we face, oh, I'm sorry, Seth.

That would be a new slide.

Here in Brattleboro, we face the same systemic challenges that communities all over this country are facing.

In Vermont, we are short at least 1,400 units of housing to meet the demand.

This is an incredible place, and people of all social strata want to call Vermont home.

Our housing market remains gridlocked with extremely low vacancy rates.

As a result, we also have an affordability crisis, whereby a person making Vermont's minimum wage would need to work for 67 hours a week to afford a modest one-bedroom apartment at fair market rent.

For a modest two-bedroom unit to be affordable at full-time work, the renter would need to be making nearly $30 an hour.

Anywhere in this country, this combination of an affordability gap and scarcity of housing results in a homelessness crisis.

National research shows that this formula is responsible for our high rates of homelessness regard regardless of high versus low poverty rates.

Peter and I were in Randolph today at the Housing and Homelessness Advocates of Vermont annual meeting, and it was striking to hear the same points made by both our Democratic State Treasurer and the Republican administration saying the same thing.

Brattleboro's coordinated entry data shows the human impact of these challenges.

Coordinated entry is the nationwide system of counting, tracking, and prioritizing people for housing opportunities according to the household's acuity of complex service needs.

In Brattleboro, that master list is kept by groundworks with a network of assessment and referral partners sharing information as they enroll people experiencing homelessness.

In the Brattleboro AHS district, that's the southern part of Wyndham County.

323 households are currently experiencing homelessness as of September 1st.

This represents only the people who have completed a coordinated entry assessment with a service provider in this district and remain actively enrolled in services.

I want to underscore this is not just a groundworks problem, this is not just a town of Brattleboro problem.

It's a housing supply problem that's affecting every community in America.

Seth, I'll take a new slide, thanks.

At Groundworks, we're in the midst of a strategic planning process with a three-year vision that very closely mirrors the mission the vision of one Brattleboro.

Together we're working toward a healthy, safe, and resilient community where everyone has their basic needs met.

At Groundworks, we envision a re-energized Brattleboro region where there's less human suffering, more social connection, and greater community collaboration across diverse perspectives.

Our team is really taking seriously our part in this vision.

We're waking up every morning to do our part toward this healthier community, and we know we'll achieve this vision together in a tight network of partners and collaborations.

We see the strength and momentum and collective impact happening in Brattleboro right now, and we know that we can make visible progress together, meeting people's basic needs with dignity.

Groundworkers are a determined, resourceful, and tenacious team with a deep understanding of the complexities of this work.

Our perseverance begins with dignity for the people we serve and moves the dial incrementally each day toward long-term social change.

We hold a firm commitment to increasing safety and reducing risk.

Over the last few years, Groundworks has made a renewed commitment to clear and definitive policies and procedures, expanded training, and robust communication practices, all of which represent a through line to reducing risk and increasing safety.

We uphold boundaries out of respect for each other, and to promote a safe and healthy environment for program staff and participants.

We set solid expectations for safe behavior and hold firm boundaries that do not allow for the use of substances on our properties.

We believe in restorative practice, and our discharge policies include a duration of time that a client would need to stay away before coming in for a conversation to make commitments about how to maintain expectations for use of the space in the future.

The challenges and adversity that we face in this work make meeting our mission more difficult with each passing week.

We're working with micro solutions to help solve big systemic problems that are worsening here in Brattleboro, throughout the state, and throughout this country.

The inflow into homelessness far outpaces the number of people we can house in this market.

So our approach is to work with a continuum of services that include immediate crisis response.

We're currently sheltering 34 people each night on South Main Street with a consistent waiting list that ranges from anywhere from two to a recent high water mark of 17 people on a night in August.

On our daytime, our daytime services are utilized by as many as 100 people a day, and we're regularly feeding 70 or more people with our daily meal at the drop-in center.

Our outreach team is providing support to anywhere from 50 to 70 unsheltered individuals in our community each week.

Last week we began the construction phase on a new 40-bed shelter on Royal Road.

The new shelter is scheduled to open at this time next year.

We'll talk a little bit more about that.

We offer stabilization and support.

Our food works program served over 4,700 of our neighbors last year, over a thousand children, with anywhere from 60 to 110 new households shopping for the first time each month.

Our case management teams are helping people gather documents and apply for housing opportunities.

And our HealthWorks Act and other partnerships are helping people to access mental, physical, and behavioral health care, managing medications, providing mobile care that keeps people out of the emergency department, and helping people to access substance use treatment.

And on the long-term path to permanence, we offer permanent supportive housing partnerships with the Windham and Windsor Housing Trust, Brattleboro Housing Partnerships, and private landlords throughout the community, providing housing retention services that prevent people from sliding back into homelessness.

Altogether, our program served over 5,500 of our neighbors last year.

Our community collaborations are what makes so many successes possible when we're dealing with big structural and systemic issues.

From my vantage point, I see that we're on the right track in three key areas for achieving success.

First, our continued partnerships.

Our investments in town services, working together with multi-sectoral community service providers, including Groundworks, are creating a comprehensive community support system that is working.

Second, and while we may not be able to move quickly, we are making progress on systems level solutions.

We need more housing units, not just more services.

I sit on the Southeastern Vermont Community Housing Coalition and hear regularly about new housing in development.

Supporting these housing developments is critical.

I see it's a priority of the select board from your retreat.

Thank you.

And third, we have a healthy and resilient community in our sites, and we're making progress.

Removing from polarized debate to collective impact.

We're beginning to all row in the same direction, and it shows.

That shelter will open at this time next year, more than doubling Groundworks shelter bed capacity, taking us from 34 to 74 beds.

We're working to purchase 141 Canal Street, the property that has been home to the Food Works program since 2019.

In order to continue to provide these services at this location, which we've determined is the right location for the program, and we need to, and to finally address the maintenance needs there.

We've entered into a purchase and sale agreement with the owner.

Environmental challenges discovered in the standard review process have delayed the sale, but we remain committed to that location for its fit and for the accessibility that it affords our shoppers.

We expect to wrap up the environmental mitigation work and close on that property in January with renovations to follow.

We're really proud to be part of this community's solution and want to thank you for this time this evening.

Thank you very much, Libby.

Peter, is there anything you'd like to say at this time?

Happy to participate in the discussion that's going to happen next.

Thank you.

Great.

Great.

All right.

Um I um I just I want to say that you know I'm a long-term supporter and and um fundraiser actually for Groundworks for many years.

Um I I want to um, and I understand that you have a uh Becky Best is in a new position.

And I understand she's doing a great job.

Yes, thank you for asking.

Uh Becky Best is the new director of shelters at Groundworks and is responsible for the drop-in center coordinated entry, the outreach team, um, and will be overseeing a full a whole new staff in the new shelter a year from now.

Great.

And I just I want to take a minute to um honor um the life and death of Leah Rosen Pritchard and hope that you can respond to my questions about making sure that the staff and the clients at your facilities are safe with the safety plan.

And I understand that um Vermont OSHA made some recommendations, and I want to make sure that they've been completed.

So let me just rattle them off for you.

Um do you have a lockable or keyless door system to the employee uh office area?

Yes.

Great.

Um secure bathrooms for employees?

Yes, we do.

Uh institute a weapon screening process?

Yes.

Establish designated areas for de-escalation of clients?

Yes, I would say we have that, yes.

Yeah, okay.

Um security present during working hours.

Our staff are trained and so we don't have an outside security firm, but our staff have robust training in maintaining a calm and de-escalated environment.

Right, and that's that's an addition that's identified here as a de-escalation training.

And um, do you also establish among the staff uh training for minimum self-defense and training for escape?

Training for escape.

Escape.

Yes.

We use um CPI training, the crisis prevention institute.

Great.

And I'm really glad to hear all that.

And I want to make sure that um, you know, I know that we work together in one Brattleborough.

I want to make sure that first responders are called when needed.

Um because there have been someone has come to our meeting to report an episode where there was a uh person who tried to hang themselves and was not immediately first response was not immediately called.

Would you like to discuss that?

I sure I can answer that question.

Um our staff, this is a situation that happened earlier this year.

Our staff made a direct call to the uh HCRS police social work liaison.

We did not call 911.

Uh we have debriefed that incident fully with town uh let's say police, fire and EMS, and we have retrained our staff to say every time, although we really hope that would never happen again, um, that we would call 911 directly instead of going directly to the police social work liaison to uh help in that situation.

Great, that's really good to hear.

Thank you.

Um else.

Amanda, I mean go ahead.

Yeah, I have a question.

Hi, thank you for coming.

Thank you.

It's really nice of you to take the time.

So is it your mission to be a low barrier shelter?

And if so, could you articulate the definition of low barrier?

Because I've heard that thrown out.

Yeah.

Um it's not our mission to specifically be a low barrier shelter.

We have uh, you know, a year from now we will have multiple shelters of which a low barrier shelter will be one option.

Um the the new shelter that we're building will be a much higher threshold for to receive services there.

Um but we do operate a low barrier shelter on South Main Street, and what we mean by that is that we uh do not allow the use of substances on site.

That's a uh an offense that can get you discharged from programming.

Um but people who have used can come in to receive services if they are uh not disruptive to others.

If they're ambulatory, they can walk around on their own, they can take care of themselves.

Um and if they do not cause disturbance to other people using the shelter.

Um so for the new shelter, the the rules you're talking about that are not going to look below barrier, what does that mean exactly?

Um in this setting, we would uh again have a re a very firm policy about not using substances on site.

Uh we would expect people not to be using substances while they're staying there in that shelter.

Uh we do we would work with someone if it was an an instance of a for instance a relapse or or someone um uh you know we understand that relapse is part of people's recovery, that an abstinence-based program that would get you um immediately kicked out would not be the exact right tool to help people in that journey.

But we do have, again, as I was saying, a continuum of shelter at that point where if someone was having trouble with substance use, we could say, you know what, this doesn't feel like it's the right fit for you.

Let's um let's see if we can get you a bed at the low barrier shelter and still have a continuum of services that um fits the needs of the people who are living experiencing homelessness in the community.

Do you think it's essential to have a low barrier shelter rather than having higher accountability level for people to enter and cohabitate with others?

I think there's a life-saving element of offering low barrier shelter that um, you know, I think we understand that abstinence-based recovery uh has not worked for very many people, and that um understanding that we want to support people in their journey on recovery to recovery, but that it need not be a requirement for receiving services.

We have a mission to help get people housed, and if we decided to not provide services to people who were using substances, then there would be very few options for people to move through that uh housing search and retention programming that we offer.

And one more question.

Question about the So there's no use in the building.

What is the perimeter?

That no substance use is also how many feet, yards, miles from the shelter, the parking lot, what are your rules there?

Um we think about our property boundary as the proper there when we say we don't allow the gas of substances on our property.

Um that would be the perimeter.

Okay.

So parking lot, sidewalk.

Um the sidewalk doesn't belong to us.

It belongs to the town.

Um, but the parking lot is ours.

Peter, did you want to?

Yeah, I wanted to add um two things.

Thank you.

Um about the differentiation between um the shelter as it is being operated at 54 South Main Street and um the one that we've just begun uh construction on that um will be operated differently at 81 Royal Road.

Um in the design of the new shelter, um, it was um some of the factors that have already been discussed this evening were taken into account.

And so um a couple of things I think are worth mentioning there are the openness of that shelter.

The entire first floor is going to be um visible to the staff so that there the walls on the first floor are gonna be made of glass so that there is in terms of addressing the reducing of risk and the increasing of safety um an opportunity to make sure that as programming occurs and as meals are prepared and eaten and so on, all the activity that'll go on in the communal space that staff is able to see everything at all times.

Um in addition to that in the access into the building, um there will actually be an airlock, so you'll be able to come into the vestibule from the outside, but before coming into the shelter proper, um you have to interact with a staff member and be buzzed in to that space.

So a level of control that doesn't exist over at 54 South Main Street, but we think um is important in um incorporating it to the excuse me, incorporating into the design uh at 81 Royal Road.

Um and then the um bedroom spaces and bathroom spaces will be up on the second floor.

Um, also in an open corridor area.

So obviously the each of the spaces for bedrooms and bathrooms is private, but um there'll be an a corridor with cameras so that there's also an opportunity for staff to keep an eye on the shared space on the second floor at all times.

Um these are things that are where they were impossible despite the fact that there were cameras in place at 81 Royal Road in the farmhouse, um, it was impossible to have this level of openness and security in the space, um, but we're able to achieve that by building new on the site.

And then on the question of the differentiation between the programming, um we've made a commitment um in part because we think it's the right thing to do in terms of groundworks overall operations and the continuum between homelessness and housing, um and in part out of communications with the neighborhood at uh Morningside Commons around um our plans and some of the concerns that some neighbors had raised, um that uh we will um bring into the program at 81 Royal Road people with whom we've already been working.

So that could be somebody who's been sleeping at 54 South Main Street.

There could be case management services they might be receiving, they might be have a relationship with Groundworks outreach team.

But unlike, and we think it is important that there be both of these available in the community, unlike the low barrier shelter that's already been discussed, and the fact that anyone who is able to, you know, come in and um care for themselves and uh not create um disruption or threat of harm to anybody else in the space, um, unlike that space where just walking in the door is your entry into the potential of having services, certainly the day services that happens every day, um, and you know, getting in the process for access to a bed.

Um, unlike that, the 40 beds at 81 Royal Road will be allocated specifically to people that we know and have been working with and have a level of confidence that are ready for the the um higher expectations in the programming that we're gonna offer at that site.

That's interesting, thank you.

Um, but it's it's no longer going to be a family shelter.

Is that it hasn't been a family shelter for years.

Libby can probably speak to that in more detail than I'm able to, but um I know for as long as I've been involved with groundworks, it's been um primarily and at times exclusively a shelter for adults.

It was primarily and at times exclusively a shelter for adults at 81 Royal Road.

Okay.

And Amanda spoke about um drug use and low barrier and so forth.

But I was wondering because um there I I know you work close with HCRS.

Does HRS screen your applicants for mental health?

Or your clients?

No, but our staff make referrals to HCRS regularly.

If there's a concern around a client's mental health, we have a quick and easy referral system to get people referrals for uh mental health, for substance use treatment, for um any outreach services for any number of services that we are able to tap into.

And what about criminal records?

Do you review people's criminal records?

Uh we're currently working on a broad uh what we're calling a continuum of care release of information that includes police, uh, fire, the hospital.

There's a long list, I wish I had it in front of me, um, of uh partnering service agencies in the community.

Um and we are steps away from implementing that uh as a part of our uh our intake process.

So before you can get a bed in the shelter, um we ask you to sign this release of information that allows us to talk to any number of folks uh in the community.

I'd like to learn more about that.

I'll I'd like to follow up on that with you.

Anyone else?

Isaac.

Just want to appreciate you for your deep commitment to our community.

Um, dare I say lifelong commitment to the two of you, and uh appreciate your leadership through some really difficult times over the last couple of years.

I I really can't um underestimate that and can't thank you enough for what you and your organization are doing.

Um, and also appreciate the other folks at this table who have contributed in this room and on the screen who have contributed enormous amounts to this organization and to your vision of care with dignity and your partnership.

Um that's a word that I heard that you said it in multiple ways that you know you understand that you don't hold all the solutions, and just like the select board is not going to solve homelessness, you are not reporting to solve homelessness either, but you understand the power of working together with our municipal government, with our the municipal workers, as well as other organizations.

So thank you so much for that partnership, and thank you for um what you've shared about your taking the concerns about safety um very seriously, and I will say that myself I feel safer in this community because of the work that you do because you have a relationships and relationships are key to community and to our safety.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you both for coming.

I also I mean it's it's a sad reality, probably that operating a shelter is not the most glamorous work in the world, and you're probably never gonna be the most popular organization in your community.

So I want to say that I am also really grateful that Groundworks exists and that you're doing what you do, and that it's as robust and thoughtful and strategic an organization as it is.

Um you're doing something that is absolutely necessary, and Brattleboro would be far worse off if Groundworks didn't exist.

And so I just wanted to thank you.

Thank you.

And then we have Speeder.

Do you have any comments?

Yeah, no, I thank you as always for all the work you guys do.

You know, I'm spending my time sort of defending some of our social service agencies to people who don't seem to understand the impact that you have on the community and how much worse off we would be without organizations like you, HCRS, Sevco, Windham Windsor Housing.

Um, you know, these are a lot of organizations that spend a lot of time catching a lot of lightning without people having a full breadth of of what you do and how you do it and why you do it.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

All right, so let's have uh comments from the public.

I see uh Dick's hand shot right up, so then we'll have Jim.

And then Steven.

Thank you.

Uh first and foremost, I am a resident down at Morningside.

I am on the board of directors there.

Uh we have had many conversations with Libby and Peter.

Uh, and there's a lot of issues that haven't been discussed here, issues that impacted my neighborhood greatly.

And I haven't heard anybody talk about the residents and what happened there and how it impacted them.

And with the shelter coming back, it has created a lot of consternation about their safety and also the safety of the staff.

Uh, and that should be talked about.

Uh we have talked to them about things that we hope would be implemented.

Uh we asked for, but were not uh was not this request was not granted.

We wanted a metal detector uh as part of the entry into the shelter.

Uh Peter talked about an airlock.

An airlock does nothing when somebody has a duffel bag, and our neighbors are concerned.

All the issues that were happening at Morningside went away after the untimely death of their staff person, which was drug use, noise, uh, theft from vehicles.

Uh I don't know if there was any break-ins, I don't believe, but certainly throughout uh theft from vehicles, and all of that stopped.

And so when the shelter came back, and and this is all things that Libby and Peter have heard, uh there's great unrest.

Our neighborhood, uh, our residency is there's 166 units, and our we have an elderly population.

Uh I would guess the median age would be somewhere over 60.

Uh, and they have concerns.

And I will say that uh Groundworks has done a lot to alleviate those concerns.

There were issues there before the incident that they have addressed to us.

They said uh that these issues are not gonna happen again.

But what if they do?

The only issue that the only thing that I can do is come here in the court of public opinion and say, we've talked to them, they're not addressing our concerns.

Where do I go?

The residents of that of my neighborhood need the support of the select board, and it's great to have a shelter.

It's not that I'm opposed for it.

I'm actually right in the middle of the road, given what happened before and what was promised now.

And I think that the board and the administration needs to be cognizant of that, that there's two sides to this wheel.

Before we all go and wave the pom poms, there's residents that that are down there that were deeply affected by what happened.

And we hope and we pray that nothing like that ever happens again.

And so I would hope that some most of the things that we've asked for have been granted, but the few things that we have asked for or not granted, I think are still pertinent to the safety of not only the residents uh at the shelter, the staff at the shelter, but the morningside uh residents also.

Thank you, Dick.

Uh let me just ask to follow up.

Uh one of the things that I rattled off was a weapon screening process.

Um, and so that does not include a metal detector.

What what is your process?

Uh we have uh had multiple conversations with Brattleboro police about uh some best practices around making sure that we're our signage is posted that weapons are not allowed on the property.

Uh we have spent some time uh looking at the idea of metal detection and trying to figure out how to get that funded, and we will continue to look at that issue.

Um we are thinking quite carefully about whether training our staff is the appropriate uh way to uh screen for weapons versus hiring an outside um uh contractor to do that work.

Uh we went to our lead our largest funder and asked about uh funding that work to the tune of about a hundred thousand dollars to cover the um the cost of open hours uh times when the stores are open, and that request was not granted.

And so we are continuing to um to try to figure out how to do that.

And and you're working with our police department.

Uh we've had conversations uh with the police department about um about how to approach those situations.

Uh we have really strong communication to say we're worried about this person perhaps uh perhaps having a weapon and being able to talk with the the police about um you know, would would you send a brat team unit uh to come and be present while we have this conversation or so those are the sorts of um uh interventions that we're making now?

Great.

Um it's it seems to me that um we need you need to respond to to Duke's questions about the fact that you're you are working with the neighbors and and for example this question about about weapons and your search for um funding for a metal detector.

I mean that's something that um is that part of the funding for the new shelter?

Do you want to answer that on track?

Yeah.

Um I'm addressing that because um on behalf of Groundworks I'm overseeing the shelter project and am in regular communication um regular being like at least weekly, and it's um in the last several weeks been more frequent than that with the chair of the board um at Morningside with the understanding that what I'm sharing with him, he's sharing with the whole community.

Um and that I want to make clear is not something we feel like we're um anybody needs to applaud.

We feel like that's an obligation that we have to um conduct a project like this.

Um the disruption that we're gonna cause during the period of construction is real, and we know that while um some of the residents in the community have spoken up for um our proposed shelter and um been more welcoming, there certainly are other neighbors in the community that are extremely concerned, and certainly if they had had a vote would have voted no uh in terms of us um uh continuing to operate a program at this site.

So um so with all of that as context, we have um made a firm commitment to stay in good clear communication.

Um I appreciate that Dick named that um we've had extensive communication and there have been quite a few asks, and we've granted almost all of them.

Um we've tried to be very um flexible about when we're beginning to you know like approach either the physical structure, which is now pretty well defined, um, or the programming, which is as yet um very uh minimally defined.

We have the the concept and the commitment to do the higher barrier operation, but uh as we've said to the neighbors, there are you know a lot of details yet to work out around how we'll actually conduct that program and we look forward to staying in communication with the neighborhood around those details as we start to put them together.

It'll be a year before people are sleeping uh at this location, so there's time uh on the programming piece.

But the um on the there will be times, there will likely be um occasions, as there have been a few already when um upon real dialogue, you know, the the end of real dialogue and real thoughtful consideration, we land in a place that's different.

Um we haven't said no, as Libby's pointed out, we haven't said no to metal detection or a person, a security person, um, but um it is something that is outside the scope of what is generally funded by the state for the provision of services, and so um as she indicated, you know, we've we've looked at whether that's an avenue for that funding, and it isn't.

And so we're continuing to give consideration to like how does that fit into the work that we do and the uh work we will do at this site, and is there a um a funder who is interested in providing that?

It just seems to me that it is part of one of the OSHA items and so.

So I'm glad you raised that.

Uh may I, or did you have more?

Please go ahead.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um over the last few years I've had the opportunity to serve groundworks in a few different capacities.

Um at the time of the VOSHA review and findings, um, I was actually a member of staff and have gone back onto the board since then.

Um and I was the staff person who actually was the primary contact with VOSHA throughout their process.

And um I want to stress and feel free, you you or we could um contact the folks up at VoSHA and have a conversation and make sure so you're satisfied that they would represent this the same way as I am.

They were really clear with us that there are initial findings that they make, um, particularly in a situation like this, which is an unusual workplace incident for them.

Um, uh, not something they had dealt with.

Thank goodness.

Yeah.

And so um so they were really clear when they made their initial findings that they wanted to have an interactive process with us.

They didn't want to just lay a list on us and say, go do these things.

And over the space of six to eight weeks, we had a extended interactive process, um, landed in a place where the expectation for addressing the different topics that you have named was clear and um documented, and where it was understood that there was additional work we needed to do around those things and very specifically around the question of placing a security guard at the door, um, that we weren't able to make a commitment to that.

We were doing what we thought was good and important um follow-up on that through the additional policies that we put in place and through the additional training that we provided to our staff, but we couldn't make a commitment to actually paying for a security person at the door without having the funding to pay a security person at the door.

And VOSHA was completely understanding of that and satisfied with the way we had um addressed the intent of their finding.

And which leads me to think that uh uh as fundraising, and you raise funds all the time, that that those two items, those two safety and security items would be a priority for your fundraising, especially in light of um, you know, outfitting the new shelter.

And I wondered, is it a priority for your funding for the new shelter?

Are you raising money specifically for this purpose to ensure the safety of your staff, the clients, and the neighbors?

So the science is actually mixed on this, and I'm not well enough versed in that science to speak as an expert on it.

I would just note that we shouldn't assume that a metal detector or a uniform security person at the door necessarily makes people on the premises or near the premises safer.

And that's something that, again, as part of the full mix of considering these things.

There's a funding issue and there's a implementation issue, like what would it be that we would implement if there was funding available?

And those things are not fixed.

They're um in the mix of consideration.

As I said, in the communication with VOSHA, they were quite clear to us that the steps we took that have made the situation in our operations, even at 54 South Main Street, and definitely in the way that we've approached the 81 Railroad Project materially we we've materially reduced risk and increased safety in the operations of groundwork services.

Um it was acknowledged that that not every particular detail would necessarily be as it was originally written, and that question of a person and or a metal detector uh piece of equipment is um It's something you're pondering.

Libby situes ponder.

Something I'd say actively considering.

Actively considering.

But but not determined that it's simply a matter of someone writing a check for it.

I want to be careful that we don't leave the impression that it's just a matter of someone writing a check for it.

Okay.

Anyone else?

I would love to say something as a board member.

Um I know time is moving on.

As a select board member, and I would agree that probably everyone at this table considers the safety of everyone in our community to of the utmost importance.

Your employees, your residents, your neighbors at both shelters.

Hearing you talk about how many communications you've had with the Morningside community, I wonder, I'd like to learn how many conversations you've had with the South Main Street community and everyone going.

Do you have conversations with them?

Because that's very important because conversations as you've talked about your partnerships within town, you know, emergency services, police are vitally important, but the safety, please consider having a metal detector.

We make choices as town select board members to spend tax dollars of taxpayers in Brattleboro.

Do we want to spend that money?

Do people want to pay more taxes?

No.

They don't.

But we have to, because we need operating roads, and we need a police department, and we need a fire department, and we need a library.

We make those choices all the time.

As a nonprofit in Brattleboro, please consider the seriousness of making choices to keep people safe.

Thank you.

Okay, so Gemma and Steven, and then the man straight ahead of me.

Hi, Gemma Seymour District 8 RTM and Brattleboro Planning Commission.

I have a couple of questions about the housing issues that are in your presentation.

Uh specifically the the data points.

Uh under housing affordability, you list a number of statistics about wages and how much it costs to afford uh housing in this town.

Uh where is that data coming from?

Is it publicly accessible?

Do you have links for it that you could provide?

Yeah.

Can I answer the question directly?

Uh dress me.

I'm sorry.

And then uh live the and we proceed.

On that note, um I will just continue then.

Uh secondly, uh, under housing shortage, uh, some uh quotes are provided from the Vermont Housing Needs Assessment 2025 to 2029.

I'm wondering where that comes from and whether or not it's accessible, because that data will be important for my work uh for the town.

Uh thirdly, uh there was a uh somewhat of a census given of uh the number of homeless people in this town, unhoused households, uh which is sort of an oxymoron.

But um what I am not seeing under this uh list is a hard number of how many actual individuals are experiencing homelessness in this town.

Um and I'm wondering if that data is also available.

Uh finally, I have uh just uh this is not a question really so much, but a statement, and that I understand while safety is very important to everyone in this town, especially for the staff.

We also have to remember that this is the United States of America and this is the state of Vermont.

And the right to keep and bear arms is a civil right in this country, in this state and in this town that is protected.

And I'm very curious as to how uh people seem to think that people give up their rights because they're homeless.

I understand that Groundworks and every other organization has the right to ban weapons from their property.

But people who are homeless, by definition do not have a place to put things.

And so when they walk in that door, they're not giving up their rights, just as none of us who have houses in this town would give up our rights by walking in that door.

So I'm curious as to how Groundworks is going to go about protecting the rights of the people that they care for.

Thank you.

Libby, would you like to um give sources for your data?

And maybe you'd like to if you can't speak to it now, maybe you could contact Gemma separately with chapter and first.

Okay.

I think I have answers to all of Gemma's questions.

Um the data on uh the affordability gap comes from the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Uh they do that survey of the housing wage for every state in the nation.

And then the numbers that I was giving were Vermont numbers, not Brattleboro numbers.

Um the Vermont housing needs assessment comes from the Vermont Department of Housing and Community Development.

Uh we heard a presentation today from the commissioner offering the same numbers.

Um I would imagine they are all available on the website for that State Department.

Um sheltered numbers of unduplicated people.

Our outreach team does keep that information.

The information that we provided in the slide was from the coordination, the coordinated entry list, which provides household data.

So those were 53 households.

Our team might in the course of a week or a month meet up to 70 perhaps people who are at any given time unsheltered in the community, and they are keeping unduplicated numbers.

I do not have those with me today, but uh we can, if you want to send me an email, we can get you those numbers.

And then protecting the rights of people around the um the right to own firearms.

Um we have an agreement with the Brattleboro Police Department that if someone is literally homeless, if uh they are needing to access shelter, that we can offer them a chance to store their firearm with the Brattleboro Police Department.

Um, and we have had take people take us up on that offer.

Okay, so let's hear Steven and the gentleman in the back, and maybe one more person and that's it.

Okay, you guys.

Can you hear me?

Yes, I can, Steve.

Steve Peterson District 7.

Um it it seems to me like homelessness is only going to get a lot worse.

And with AI coming and flushing people out of the job market, we're gonna hit with so much more need, and we need to get this right.

And I believe the work you're doing is noble, but I also think it needs to take into account other people.

I'm deeply surprised that you're having to beg them to communicate to your neighbors.

That should be mandatory.

I don't think your work any any industry, any operation has impact on the community around them.

And just because you're doing noble work doesn't mean you get to ignore the needs of those around you.

I think people need to think about location.

So it really struck me that you said low barrier.

So users can come, but they can't do it on the property.

So you're saying your business model is to surround the downtown with all of your users, and it's up to these people to pay to pick up the needles.

I've spoken with I've spoken with municipal people who say they spend significant portions every week of our tax dollars, not fixing roads, not doing washouts, but cleaning up your business model.

That's not fair.

And I think that we have to have a mature conversation to your point about collaboration, about what makes sense to put where.

I think the minute you say low barrier, not on our property, you're consigning everybody in your neighborhood.

If this continues with AI coming, how close are we to a downtown doom loop?

And and are we communicating enough to prevent that?

There are win-win-win-win win solutions.

But putting that business model, you can do drugs just right over the road there, downtown where we need businesses to bring tourists in.

That's madness.

That's like putting a pine tree over your strawberry field.

Why don't we have conversations about the right place to do things?

Because guess what?

Need is coming.

We're about to get slammed in this country, but we're doing it wrong.

Unless you don't care about downtown or businesses or more people overdosing and the scissors people leaving.

I think we need to have an honest, deep, mature conversation about location.

So when this stuff hits us more, we're ready for it, and we can put the strawberry patch and the oak trees where they ought to be instead of destroying one another.

We need downtown.

We need we need the business.

We need the tax revenue so that we could fund your noble work.

But I think we should talk about location.

And I know the closing, there have been some ideas about the school for the deaf or somewhere up on Putney Road, or things that wouldn't completely fry our business district.

But that wasn't just ideal, and so that was rejected.

That's not okay.

We have to have truly collaborative conversations about location.

Thank you, Stephen.

Okay, you, sir.

Wow.

Bill Harvey, District 8.

Thank you very much for the work you're doing.

I think it's an awesome job considering what you had to do with.

I want to appreciate Amanda's comment earlier concerning protecting Vermonters' tax dollars.

My interest is in Vermonter's tax dollars.

And I am really curious whether or not there is a residency check for people that we are helping.

I don't mind Vermont or tax dollars going to help Vermonters.

It seems like we have become an easy mark for outer staters to come over to the line and take advantage of the great service that we have.

We're Vermont.

Other states need to take care of their own.

And there should either be a residency check for these people we're we're we are dealing with, or there should be a residency commitment.

So that when they graduate from the program, they can become contributors.

With that said, I'm also curious if there is an incentive program for people to move on from the help they're getting.

And what would that incentive look like?

And how can we, as people in Brattleboro come alongside of you to help with that incentive program so that we just don't start to accumulate more and more people who are in need?

Thank you, Bill.

Would either of you like to comment on Bill's commentary about residency and or some sort of uh graduation throughput?

I'll take the graduation throughput.

Wouldn't it be great if we could?

Um there are lots of ways in which not just groundworks but other organizations that uh are working with people as they move from homelessness into housing do continue to support those individuals, and so um I I think um all kidding aside about you know a graduation gift or something, um the it doesn't end.

The relationship doesn't end when the person gets keys to an apartment.

It's very important that we, as a community, frankly, but those of us who do this work in the in the community um continue to work with folks to help make sure that that housing is sustainable for people who do achieve housing.

Um but there isn't a program that like provides a stipend to um help people launch into that housing arrangement.

And I will say that the the residency requirement is more of a state issue.

Do you have uh do you ask people where they're from?

We do.

And what do you find?

In we collect that data in the drop-in center in particular, and uh what we find is that primarily, and this is national research bears this out for every county in this country, for the most part the large the the vast majority of people who are accessing homeless services are accessing them in the community in which they were last permanently housed.

So in the community in which they entered into homelessness.

And I'm sorry, we're done.

You go ahead.

Well, I just want to say there's an actual data point um that um so for the data that we collect, it's obviously not on the tips of our tongues.

There is um Levy's characterization is you know the overwhelming majority are in the community where they last experience homelessness, and we can provide data to support that in terms of our numbers.

But um, one that is clear and easy to remember because of the way in which it came about was about a year ago, maybe maybe closer to two now, um, Brave Little State, I believe it was, but one of the statewide radio organizations did an analysis uh because of the question that was being asked, this very concern, which is a legitimate concern of like are we attracting folks in need that are then um creating costs and other impacts in Vermont was this question because it was a statewide question.

Um they looked at the participation, they used state of Vermont data looking at participation in the motel program statewide, and separately looked at a survey that had been done by um and homelessness Vermont.

So there was data from um the sort of perspective of people experiencing homelessness and data from the state of Vermont in its administration of the motel program.

And in both cases, it was 96 percent were people whose last residence, last actual home uh with an address was in Vermont, and 4% were from outside Vermont.

And it was it was in in done in real time, you know, approximately the same time by these two very different organizations, so it's a widely accepted accurate figure.

While at the same time, Brattleboro's own data for first responders says that 85 percent of the first responder calls to the motel program were from out of town, and 30 percent was from out of state.

So reconciling those two data points is important.

Can I respond to that data point?

Um, because I sit in one bratleboro where that data point came out.

Um my understanding of that data point, and John, you were there, maybe you could uh confirm this, was that the calls were made uh about people who were not enrolled in the motel program, but were uh conducting activities that uh needed the help of the police department, um, but were not people who were enrolled in the motel program uh having those out-of-state addresses.

I think that's a mixture of drug dealers and and the people that they prey upon.

I think we're saying the same thing.

Yes.

Um our last caller is the woman in the doorway.

Hi.

Um my name's Ashlyn Gates.

Um I am somebody that has been a resident in Groundworks.

And I also um have had addiction issues, and I just have seen a lot of things that have happened firsthand where staff actually truly does not know how to handle it, and I just wanted to step up and speak on that and just let you guys know that you might need to show people more on CPR and Narcan.

Um I have seizures and I have been narcanned unnecessarily because of it, and it has caused me more issues because of the fact that staff doesn't know the difference between the two.

Um also I think just putting people that are uh mentally ill, just giving them a hotel or putting them in an apartment that's not actually helping them with their problem.

Yes, they're homeless, but they're gonna be homeless.

They're on their own either way, and I think we do need help to be able to relearn how to take care of ourselves, which sounds crazy, but I don't know if there's some way to try and have more support in mental health also.

That's all I really wanted to say.

I just wanted to put that out there.

All right.

That's it for this topic.

It's been a very interesting discussion.

I want to thank you both very much for coming and for the work you do and um for answering all our pesky questions.

Thank you.

Thank you both.

All right.

Um next item.

Smoke and munch second class liquor license.

Yep.

Um is that?

Do we uh do we have the applicant for this license here in attendance?

Madam Chair, when do we plan to take a break?

Well, we usually take a break at 8 o'clock.

Can you wait 10 minutes?

John, I don't think anyone heard you when you asked that question.

Is the applicant for smoke and munch here present uh Mr.

Sejan?

Is Mr.

Sejan here?

Is he online?

Is he online?

Yeah.

Oh, we got him.

Great.

Well um Seth is is fine finding him.

Why don't we take our five minutes now?

Go ahead.

Let's call the meeting back to order.

Thank you all very much.

And we are looking for the gentleman from Smoke and Much, I understand.

Well, we just introduce it, Liz, if you like.

So we we've had a renewal application for smoke and munch uh located at 707 Putney Road for their second-class liquor license, tobacco license, and tobacco substitute endorsement permit.

And um uh the uh proprietor, Mr.

Sejan is here to um talk with the board because uh although the staff are recommending that you prove this, it was brought to our attention that there were some tobacco compliance violations in September and December of 2023 and again in June of 2024 and um that the select board had not had a chance to check in with with you on this um uh since since those happened and this is the first opportunity for the renewal, and it is our policy to check in with uh folks who've had uh violations to see that they are addressing those and correcting them.

And so if um the chair wishes we we might um ask Mr.

Sejan to explain the um violations that occurred and what he uh what he has done to uh rectify that.

I do wish.

So uh would you please, Mr.

Sajon, tell us about these violations and what actions you've done to correct them.

Oh Seth.

Well, we we can't hear you.

We can't hear you, so hold on just a second.

Seth, how's that going?

Mohammed BC TV is telling me that you don't have a mic.

Could you just double check the interface on your phone?

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Okay, I would like to say thank you for the opportunity for the Vermont and Town of Broadboro uh granting me opportunity to do the business.

And I'm Sajan, uh growing entrepreneurs.

And coming to this straight point because uh I had an employee in our store.

Uh he was doing very well, and uh after a while he became a little bit irresponsible, you know what, uh on the shift.

I mean uh duty and responsibilities.

And uh we had occurred the incidents, you know what he has sold to the uh minor by mistakenly because he was using all the time on the phone.

So that what that's what I mean, uh like he was irresponsible doing the job.

He was all holding phone all the time and he didn't check the ID first time.

So I have given excuse for him for that employee on September's and after the month, and he made the same mistake again.

I have given a third chance for him too, and uh he made uh another mistake again.

So I couldn't hold with him, so I have to take him out of the uh business or like your from the uh job.

Then after that, uh I have hired uh two uh responsible employees and well trained employee to check the ID and compliments to uh to protect the community too, and you know, what to serve the community uh uh according to the law.

And uh they have done very well.

And uh I have another new employees working also well trained for the checking IDs and uh uh to work on the uh to work on this tobacco complaints as well, like you know, the product not to go to under 21 years old.

And plus I have implemented the new POS system, like which is uh point of sale systems that you know will not allow uh sales that if you scan the ID, so it will not allow to go for the sales.

It will stop the transaction if they are under 21 years old.

So those things are like you know, helping me a lot to product these kind of uh mistakes to happen.

Great.

Thank you for thinking.

Uh are there Select Board members who would like to comment?

Isaac?

Well, thank you, Mr.

Sejan, for taking the time to speak with us and taking this issue seriously.

Because I think for uh at least for myself and and many of the people that I've spoken with, we have concerns about addiction in our community and about substance use, um tobacco use and other substances by minors in our community.

Um I am interested to hear uh uh first of all a little bit about the those there are three violations in a nine month period, and it sounds to me that it was just one person who one staff member who um was.

The same staff member they did a mistake, so I have done up because I was opening the job and he was.

Yeah, he was doing very well.

Then after that, you know, he got a phone user, you know, the uh working in the job, his phone is now um uh avoidable, unavoidable.

So like, you know, so the same person was doing the same three mistakes after that.

You know, I take him out of the job because you know he was repeating the same mistake again.

My my question is if times that he was caught with there were three violations.

Um isn't it quite likely that there were many more mistakes made by this staff member over that nine month period?

Uh no, I was uh after the first mistake.

Uh I was uh I was really concerned I was really uh behind him to not to repeat the mistake again.

And I was keeping it like you know, repeating and on uh but eventually uh it is a f it was a phone addiction that he was not paying attention for the customers.

So those kind of things, you know, really um so after the third mistakes and uh I I just really didn't want to take a risk of it, you know, doing the same mistakes, so I really take him out of the jobs and I went to state of uh I went to the Vermont State of uh the liquor and tobacco.

So I was discussed with them to finalize this issues, and I have mentioned them that I have fired this person.

So they're okay with that.

And uh then we continue the uh regular business, yes.

And then if I may, madam chair with my second question is when was the technology implemented?

After the third uh mistake happened, so we implemented a new system that we uh scanning the ID most of the times.

After the third uh mistake happened so we implemented a new system that we uh scanning the ID most of the times and uh it will allow us to uh not to sell to the miners so we always checking the ID and we uh manually we are checking too and we uh we are scanning the ID too.

So we are taking like two steps and plus every sales without ID or without any um without ID scanning and it won't allow to uh it won't allow to sell them is it's going to be identified this is minor or this is under 21 years or over 21 years old thank you um you know accountability is so important at all levels of our community and I appreciate your answering these questions.

Thank you very much.

Uh anyone else um I want to appreciate that you got to work and and made a change um to run your business better.

Um I would like to know about how you do your trainings for your employees I train personally how to deal with this because I have experience on it and uh second of all that we have a training program in the Ramont State that we go to that five with the training programs so they will be more familiar with that.

Uh anyone else uh anyone like to make a motion oh we'll hear from the public does anyone from the public have comments on this matter yeah I would like to should I make a motion first you certainly may is that all right yeah so I I appreciate the work you've done and I um know that uh you know it like Isaac said it's our responsibility to um take these matters seriously as a select board because we are uh the body that decides um whether someone can have the privilege of having a liquor license and um and we take that very seriously and we think that um our businesses should take that seriously too so I'm throwing this motion out um and we can discuss it um and hear from the public too to approve the renewal of applications for smoke and munch located at 707 Putney Road for their second class liquor license tobacco license and tobacco substitute endorsement permit under the following conditions that the tobacco license is renewed for six months with the understanding that smoke and munch will ensure that all of its employees have taken a tobacco training course certified by the Vermont Department of Liquor and Lottery and that employees are carting all customers of tobacco products with visual check of ID.

It's recommended by me that this training actually is an in-person training and not merely an online training.

First let's ask the gentleman if how does he find those conditions is he able to able to comply with those conditions yeah sure no problem so I can carry out like you know I'm also certified for that training so I can uh I can try and I know I can I train in person every time every day is a reminder for them I'm training every day and also I can do uh in-person training is available so I can send them for the in-person training and uh and also uh I really agree your terms great um okay I also say so we can conversation with Cassandra Holloway who actually thought that all of our select boards should also take a training and that um the compliance organization really wants um it to be uh information educational for all so I hope are there comments from the public I think someone yes Rick for express district three up um the uh good gentleman for uh all his best intentions uh I don't believe actually answered Isaac's questions um he danced around them but he did not answer them uh so I'm speaking in favor or against what you're doing but I just like to point that out he did agree to these conditions and he did identify uh the training that was proposed so if if we're gonna hold him to the I go I excuse me so uh after the third incident and uh we never had any uh issues violence or anything happened it's been almost more than one year now great thank you so we are working on uh Amanda has made a motion and uh are we ready to vote on it great I uh Amanda moved to approve the renewal of applications for smoke and munch located at 707 Putney Road for their second class liquor license tobacco license and tobacco substitute endorsement permit under the following conditions that the tobacco license is renewed for six months with the understanding that smoke and munch will ensure that all of its employees have taken a tobacco training course certified by the Vermont Department of Liquor and Lottery and that employees are carting all customers of tobacco products with a visual check of ID.

I uh Amanda moved to approve the renewal of applications for smoke and munch located at 707 Putney Road for their second class liquor license, tobacco license and tobacco substitute endorsement permit under the following conditions that the tobacco license is renewed for six months with the understanding that smoke and munch will ensure that all of its employees have taken a tobacco training course certified by the Vermont Department of Liquor and Lottery, and that employees are carding all customers of tobacco products with a visual check of ID.

All select board members in favor of that motion, please raise your hand and say aye.

Thank you.

Sorry, Jimmy.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And so moving right along.

Let's talk about the review of the draft charter and discuss related petitions.

And for that, I'll ask Kate O'Connor and Peter Ella to come to the table.

Oh, Maya, thank you very much, Maya.

Anyone else from the committee?

Yes.

All right.

Um before you begin, I would just like to get some questions.

Before you begin, I would like to again thank you all for the uh intense commitment of time that you've made to our community for the work that you do.

It's much appreciated by all.

John, do you want to introduce this in some way?

Uh I could.

Um so the Charter Review Commission joined you at I believe you're your your one of your July meetings and you had a preliminary discussion about uh several proposals that the Charter Commission was advancing at that time.

Um we've since there's since been some developments uh around um some citizen charter petitions that have circulated in the community, one of which uh uh are actually now uh both have now been certified by the town clerk's office as having adequate signatures.

So those petition and I um the second the first one is in your packet, and and uh that was the one for Australian ballot.

The second one uh that was for the open town meeting.

I will put in your packet for your next meeting, but it was just certified today.

All right.

Um and so the charter commission has also written you a letter and provided you with a draft version of the charter, including a red line, which is also in your packet tonight.

And I believe that they wanted to speak with you about how things proceed from here.

Okay, great.

So again, we have Kate O'Connor, Maya Hazegawa, and Joy Cherno.

Uh and please tell us what you want to tell us.

Great.

And I also want to introduce um Hannah Clarice, who was on the Charter Revision Commission, Denise Glover, who was on the Charter Revision Commission, and Peter Elwell, who was here, and he's also on the Charter Revision Commission.

Um as John said, and as you folks I know remember, we were here on July 9th to sort of talk to you about where we were.

Um tonight we come bearing a gift, which is our draft charter as of September 1st, 2025.

Um, and there's two versions of the same charter.

One of them is the red line version, so you can actually see what we add and what we took out, and then there's the clean, as we're calling it the clean copy, which you can read it a lot easier.

Um it's located for people in the public.

You can get it on the select board page with a backup material for this meeting, but it's also on the charter review page of the Broad of Bar Town website if anybody wants to read both or either version.

Um the charter that we um have tonight is a product of 42 public meetings over a more than a two-year span of time.

Um I've noticed there are some people here that have come to our meetings.

They're they were all publicly warned.

You can watch them on BC TV if you missed any of them.

Um so we put a lot of work into it.

Uh we began again two years ago or two and a half years ago by reviewing all of the work of the previous charter commissions.

We reviewed the history of representative town meeting.

We sought input from every department head, every town committee, select board members, the town attorney, the town clerk.

Um we also did a review of the 102 uh other town charters that were uh voted on by the legislature.

So we took a lot of time to do a lot of background information that informed what you have in your packets tonight.

One of the things that was paramount importance to us was public participation.

We took public participation seriously at our meetings, and again, anybody who went to a meeting knows that our listening to the public was encouraged by us, and comments were always solicited when anybody wanted to make one.

As we said, we were here in July when we were here in July, that was before the two petitions that John mentioned were circulated calling for Australian ballot and the other one calling for open town meeting.

So when we were here in July, our intent was to come back to you this evening and say, would you put our charter on the ballot for a vote on November 4th?

But seeing that we have now not one, but two charters that have been certified, we think our two petitions, I'm sorry, two petitions that have been certified.

We believe that that request to put our petition on the ballot for November 4th is premature as we sit here right now.

So what we'd like to do is come back to you when you folks have decided what you're going to do with those two charters.

We have a meeting that we have scheduled on September 18th to look at our charter again.

But I can assure you on behalf of all of us that when you are ready to have that conversation with us about when our charter goes up, we are we will have our charter done.

And what we we've been planning, and which depends on your conversations.

I mean, we're ready to have public discussion about all of our charter recommendations.

And as you can see, when you look at the red and the green lines, we've we've we have some a lot a lot of recommendations.

So we're ready to present them to the public whenever you are ready to tell us to present them or have us present them to the public.

Um but tonight we're happy to answer any questions you may have or any questions anybody um has.

Um we're proud of the work we've done.

We've spent a lot of time doing it.

We're we're this close to being there, and we will be ready when you have figured out what you want to do with these other petitions.

So thank you for letting us come tonight.

And again, we are happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you very much.

Um Kate, my first question is in reading the work that you've done.

Um it assumes that RTM is no longer.

Yet you are not suggesting that we put that on the ballot as a separate question.

We're not suggesting that we put RTM on the ballot as a separate question.

Well, as it's our understanding of the town attorney can talk to this.

Um that is the that is the first question that needs to be asked if we're going to change our form of government.

And that's not a charter change.

That's per state statute.

That the first question, it would come before an open town meeting question, it would come for before an um Australian ballot question is do you, the voter, want to rescind representative town meeting?

But you've written your charter draft under that assumption.

Under the assumption that RTM will go away.

Is that what you're asking?

Yes.

Yeah.

I mean, we had to our job when we started this when we two and a half years ago when we first sat down was to go over the entire charter and make recommendations to our fellow citizens about how what we thought would be the you know best form of anything.

If you look, it's again it's not just about representative town meeting.

And through our discussions and through our listening to the public, through everything that we heard over the many meetings that we met, we came to the conclusion that open town meeting would is the best form of uh town meeting for the town of Brattleboro.

So we in that conclusion the byproduct of that conclusion is that you do not believe that RTM is the best form of government for our community.

Based on again, our 42 meetings, what we've heard and we've been, we have listened and we have heard what everybody in the public said.

Based on everything we've heard, everything we have discussed, we believe that open town meeting is the is that's what we're recommending because we believe that based on everything we have heard from the people that like representative town meeting, from the people that say representative town meeting isn't the way to go, from the people that think open town meetings are the way to go, from the people that think us really valid is the way to go, all of that listening that we have done has come to us, is that balancing what everybody has told us that really open town meeting is what we're hearing from everybody, what we're hearing.

Well not to say that everyone in Australia ballast goes that's what you're hearing from us.

What we're hearing is everybody wants to be.

Yeah, everybody wants everyone to be represented.

Or not everybody, again, I don't like to say that, but there's a different that the majority of the people that we are hearing from want to have a discussion.

They also want everyone to be able to take part in our town government.

And from our point of view as a commission, that is through open town meeting.

Thank you.

Okay, so let's hear from Bob.

But just one more question, Kate, for you.

Um because the charter says that the select board upon receipt of a petition shall place an article on the warning for the next annual town meeting.

So the two petitions that we have are pretty much required to be in March.

So it would seem to me that all of these questions should best be conducted in March.

Yeah, and I I think tonight that's why we are saying to you, putting our petition or putting our charter recommendations on in November and putting the other two petitions on in March, it's back, you know, it's premature.

I to ask you to put ours on in November.

I would agree.

Let's hear from Bub.

Thank you.

It's it's my recommendation that the board set the vote on whether or not to discontinue representative town meeting form of government for a special meeting on November 4th.

The reason that I recommend that is that both petitions as well as all the work that the Charter Review Commission has done.

When Kate says we're hearing that folks are saying we want to have everyone counted, whether it's the Australian ballot or whether it's open town meeting, that's assuming that people want to discontinue representative town meeting form of government.

So my recommendation is that you hold a special meeting, which is a based on the statute of you you once you vote to have representative town meeting, you continue doing that until there is a vote to discontinue it.

I think that vote has to come first.

Once you have that vote, then you have you have two, let's let's go either way.

If representative town meeting is sustained, we're going to continue that, and we're going to prepare for a representative town meeting in uh in March, the same way we would do.

All of the same budget, same appointments, et cetera.

You're still going to put both charter uh petitions on for the first Tuesday in March ballot question because they've been petitioned as uh charter changes.

So you have to put those on for a vote.

And so, yes, you would be voting potentially again, potentially you could have a vote in November if you so chose to have that vote.

And let's say representative town meeting is continued in November, you're still going to vote on that in March, but your March meeting still would be representative town meeting the third Saturday, because that charter wouldn't go even assuming that there's a vote in March to discontinue representative town meeting as a charter change, that wouldn't take effect until the legislature approves it.

So for 2026, if the vote in November is to sustain representative town meeting, you're going to have a representative town meeting in March of 2026.

Now, if you go to a vote in November and the vote is discontinue representative town meeting, then you're going to prepare for uh what is an open town meeting for March.

And at that meeting, you're still going to have the petitioned articles, except there would be a technical correction of the the first, both of these petitions have two articles, the first being whether to discontinue.

Well, I is the second one say that?

No.

The second one, only the first one.

But the first one has the shall we discontinue?

If that's already been decided, then that would be stricken from the warning as a technical correction.

But then you would be voting in March on whether to do Australian ballot or to continue open town meeting as a petitioned charter change.

But your actual town meeting for March 2026 would be an open town meeting.

And from my perspective, it makes sense to know how what to prepare for in March by having a vote on whether or not to continue representative town meeting in November.

Do you want to add anything?

No, that's uh that uh is you know, that's the our position is town attorneys and um it's uh you know, as a member of the Charter Review Commission, we have been looking for pretty much the entire time we've been going through this process on a way to get town wide input and um it it this would also give the opportunity for us to guide to guide our work and and you know all this work we put into the charter if the town voted to continue with RTM, then we we know we wouldn't have to pursue it any further, or in the alternative to you know, adapt it to whatever town wants.

Okay.

Let me let's ask some more questions about the petition.

What happens if the petitions pass?

For example, what how would a petition when you have the two essentially competing petitions?

How does how do you say one versus the other?

You can't.

And so what does that mean in practical terms?

It means that they could both pass and it could be up to the state legislature to decide which, if any, to ratify.

We would hope that the typical voter would apply some common sense and actually read the articles because the two petitions are quite different.

One's open town meeting and one is Australian ballot.

So you figure you would if you vote yes on one, you'd vote no on the other.

But it's possible.

But so the question then is, or the answer is that the one with the most votes wins.

No.

No.

No.

Each article, the petitioned article, if there are more yes votes than no votes on that article, that article passes or fails.

And so that's where Hannah says it's possible that both articles pass.

If that's the case, we say, here you go, legislature.

All right, you know, figure it out.

All right.

So there could be an additional article that's a select board could place on the ballot that says if both articles pass, what do you want?

So that the voters of our town can make that determination.

Right?

It's it's essentially voting twice, but it it gives it gives us control over what the voting public actually wants.

Because these two petitions, each petition is an island in itself.

So in order to understand them in relative terms, I think the select board would have to make a third, a fourth article that says if both petitions pass, what do you want to do?

And then that would allow the majority vote to be sustained.

I would think so.

With these petitions and even with the charter revision, the way it would be presented to the public would be in a strike-through and addition change to the charter.

So I mean there might be a way to do that as some sort of like advisory vote or binding vote, but in terms of actually what the charter looks like, you you wouldn't be able to present that.

Well, I'm not talking about the charter.

I'm talking about You're just talking that the charter change, but a an article for the first Tuesday that in order of the articles would be in the event that the answer to the prior two, if both pass, then what do you want to do?

From I suppose it's legally possible to do that.

I would actually suggest that that confuses the matter even more.

Uh because then you're raising the question of both of them passing when really each petition is exclusive to the other.

So I've had conversations with both sets of petitioners as to, in some respects, it's unfortunate we've had these petitions from my perspective because it complicates the big question of whether to continue RTM or not.

And with regard to the second petition that was uh certified today, they that those petitioners decided to go forward with that, but then it creates the possibility of two articles where both articles could pass.

Whereas if you didn't have it, you'd have uh a lobbying group saying vote yes for uh Australian ballot and a lobbying group saying no vote vote against it because the default is open town meeting.

The way it's worked is we have two certified petitions, and I think we just let it go to see how the votes go.

Theoretically, if you want Australian ballot, you're going to vote yes on that one and no on the open town meeting and and vice versa.

But it's legally possible that both pass.

All right.

Let's hear from the public.

Can we ask?

Oh, sure, you have questions?

Yes.

Yeah.

Several.

Um thank you both.

Questions in no particular order.

And I think just approaching this completely as how do we make this the least confusing and weird process that still remains to us.

Um so bear with me.

So you said if we're considering as the tentative plan, the RTM vote in November, both petitions go on the ballot in March.

You said that if the RTM vote is well, after the RTM vote, that we could make a technical correction to the petition for March and get rid of Article 1 on the first petition because it's already been answered.

That's something we can do?

Only in the event that the vote is to discontinue RTM in November.

Okay, because then that's already been addressed, so you don't need to vote on that twice because it's already been discontinued.

Okay.

Let me ask you another question.

What if we put on the ballot in November RTM yes or no?

Second question, open town meeting or Australian ballot.

And then once both of those questions are answered in November, don't all of the petitions in March then become completely moot and subject to technical correction, and we have our answer and we're all free.

Would you be doing that as a charter change or just a vote?

Because the petitioned articles are for charter changes.

Now the select board has the ability on its own motion to create a charter change, but then you're going as you're going to have to have your whole charter ready to go.

So it's not so much of I I get what you're saying of just have voting on the choice, but if you do it as a charter change, you've got to have your charter all prepared.

Okay.

Okay.

No, that doesn't sound that appealing.

Um let me know when you find something that sounds appealing.

Yeah.

So you referenced in the current charter, I think, that this is just a clarification that the petitions have to go on at the next town meeting.

Does that have to be?

That's actually by statute.

Okay.

And so does that mean because we had heard before they have to be at latest at March.

Is it only that they can go on at March, or is it that we could call a special meeting ahead of time?

You can't call a special meeting.

It's to once a petition for a charter change comes in by petition, it's it's then, depending on the notice provisions, at your next annual meeting, your next primary, or your next general election.

Well, we don't have a general election this year, and we don't have the uh primary this year.

Or we're passed at anyway.

I had at least heard before that we could do it at any point up until March, but just to be clear, you're saying it is only March.

One other thing to note on that is that under the statute you have to hold a um informational meeting at least 30 days before the vote, and that needs to be warned 30 to 40 days before that.

So you basically have a 60-day lead time for warning those those two votes over past that already today.

For November.

Okay.

Thinking then I guess my only other questions are if we're thinking about the idea of RTM vote in November, petitions on in March.

I'm at some point in this discussion, I'd like to hear I know there was some question of the logistics about doing an election in November, so maybe hearing a little from John, or maybe that's all fine, and then also hearing what the Charter Review Commission thinks of that general idea.

But those are all my questions.

Well uh there I mean there's logistics around whatever you you all choose to do.

I wouldn't want that to be an obstacle to your process.

Um once you know what you want to do, we can figure that out and let you know what it would cost.

Well are there other select board members who have questions of the panelists before I open it up to the public?

Questions for these people.

Other personal.

So I spent a lot of time saying democracy doesn't move quick and it's confusing.

If you ever doubted that statement, here we are.

All right.

So it's your recommending your recommendation is to put RTM on the ballot in November up and down, right?

Correct.

Okay.

And then you just made a statement that we're past the window to do that.

No.

We're not just the window for petition.

Pass the window to warn for the petition.

Thank you for that clarification.

All right.

So explain to me.

RTM goes on the ballot on November 4th, vote up or down, simple one yes or no, you like it, you don't like it, whatever.

Uh it passes no RTM.

It doesn't pass, we just do RTM.

And this does not involve the legislature at this point?

Correct.

But if we wait until March.

It does.

Right, because it's been petitioned as a charter change.

But if we all right, so we cannot put this on as a charter change in the November election.

Correct, because you're past the time for that.

Okay.

Well, you could on your own as the select board, but the the problem with that is then it does it would have to get ratified by the legislature, so it's not going to resolve anything before the vote in March.

All right.

So just a straight up and down vote.

Basically, we don't do an RTM in March.

Right.

Right.

Okay.

And before I open it up, I m my concern is that stretch of time from November to March is a long time for the public to understand what the hell is going on.

Like we want to have a town wide discussion about our form of government, which is so important.

And we're going to do it in this proposition is in piecemeal fashion.

So that the public is like, yeah, let's vote this way in November, and then we all hold our breath until March doesn't make a lot of sense to me, because what the people will be voting on in November would be incomplete.

It's an incomplete thought.

It because the people need to know what type of government we have, and you're only giving them half of the answer because the petitions are out there in March.

They have to be in March.

And I think it would be better to have a uniform discussion of all the questions that are that we're asking the public for input for that we understand that this is a complex problem, and we want to give them all the information that they need at one time so they can vote on it.

Can I just give you an example of by having your vote up or down on representative town meeting form of government?

I don't disagree that you're if if you voted out and you're back to this operating via the statute.

The default of the statute is open town meeting unless there's a vote to do it by Australian ballot.

Okay.

So absent these petitions, we still could have had that exact vote come March.

But we but we have the petition, so we're gonna deal with it.

But my point is that if you know from a November vote if it is discontinued, then you're not gonna have to have all the representatives getting their petitions and for for going through the caucuses and all of that sort of thing.

Your committees on on how they're formed and how and how we're going you as the select board are going to make the warning for town meeting uh to pass certain articles such as the human services, those sorts of things, you'll know because you'll made that that decision in November.

So you'll know how to prepare for March.

So there are a lot of these practical things.

And I would I don't disagree with uh Hillary Francis, the town clerk that says by having a vote in March, there is certain uncertainty of having to try to reserve the gym on two different dates and different schedules with uh playoff games.

Uh Hillary has brought up some pretty good points there, but to me it's the knowing what form of government you're going to go forward with, and then come March you refine it, either you're gonna stick with the default of open town meeting or you're gonna go to Australian ballot.

Can again can I add to that that the this discontinuing RTM is sort of a threshold question, it's not three equal options.

This discontinue vote has to happen first, and we so right now it's a lot of if this then that and if that then this and you could actually narrow the scope and maybe make it a lot easier for under people to understand how the vote happens in March by addressing this threshold issue and and knowing the answer to that before you talk about so that it's less hypothetical.

It's more like these are these are your choices as opposed to having these sort of tiered discussions.

Yes.

Just the world's briefest question.

What are we what are we trying to come out of this meeting with today in terms of decisions or shared understanding?

Are we head nods for doing it a certain way or it would be well John, you go ahead.

Oh, um, I would just suggest that if you if you want to accept Bob's recommendation, really we would just know that we should prepare for an October 3rd meeting, which would be within the window to warn something in November.

If you if you want to go with what the Charter Commission is saying, then you don't have to make any decision tonight, and you can just wait until 60 days prior to uh town meeting day to warn an information meeting.

I think that would be the next step.

Thanks.

All right.

Shall we open it up to the public?

I just I'm sorry.

Squeeze in just one more clarifying question.

And I just want to make sure I'm understanding this right.

So November, we voted up or down.

Let's say we eliminate it.

Uh what happens to does that nullify?

There's some there was some language thrown around about it nullifying one of the pet uh petitions.

It only nullifies the first question on the Australian ballot petition, which is identical to the proposed language we would have you vote on in November.

Because that vote's already happened.

Just went deeper in the hole.

Okay.

So does anything get eliminated in March if if if RTM and I'm assuming March happens the way we're discussing it if if everybody says no, we want to keep RTM.

So I'm just putting us in a scenario where it gets voted down.

So it gets voted down.

Um, you know, we've we've sort of discussed that one of these petitions is semi-redundant to that, right?

Um, and then what happens with the uh with uh the Australian ballot then?

You sort of said that, but it is.

It's in your packet, the Article 1 is shall we discontinue RTN?

Right.

So if you've already discontinued RTM, you can delete that as a technical correction because you don't need to discontinue something that doesn't exist anymore.

I have one more caveat.

If if that is petition is Article One, you would vote on the second article, would renumber them, and then you'd have the second petitioned article as your next article.

Okay.

Let me ask you this.

If RTM in November would be voted in to continue.

Then in March, would Article 1 as it's written on this petition remain and you could vote on it again?

Yes.

But you would be voting on it as part of their charter change, not as a town-wide vote that would go into effect immediately.

Meaning that if that vote would be on the first Tuesday, and let's say that that vote in March was the opposite of what it was in November, meaning it RTM is discontinued.

It doesn't mean that you wouldn't hold your RTM a couple Saturdays later, because that the Charter petition has to be approved by the legislature.

So that doesn't go into effect until 2027 essentially.

All right.

Are there other select board members who have comments?

And then I'll open it up to the public.

I do have a question.

So what happens to Section 2 in the new charter draft talks about the um the way committees are formed, Finance Committee and Human Services Committee, and that's by Australian ballot.

So what would happen if we defaulted to open town meeting?

How would that go for this year?

So if we took the November because our charter, our charter changes would not have been, would not be voted on.

So what we have in the charter isn't happening yet.

So we would default to how we did it with representative town meetings, but in open town meeting?

Okay.

The charter would continue to do until your charter is amended, you would continue to do it pursuant to your charter, except instead of doing it at a representative town meeting, you'd be doing it first Tuesday in March.

Thank you.

I was confused, Mr.

Are we uh is the board extinguished questions for the time being?

And we can open it to the public Dr.

Reichman.

Thank you.

Good evening, Franz Reichsmann, Brattleboro citizen.

Um you folks find this confusing?

Well I'm Yeah, I'd say so.

Um there's uh a book about negotiating solutions to problems.

Um it's very well known actually.

It's called Getting to Yes.

And it starts off by saying that what you really want to do in a negotiation, which this kind of is, um, is adhere to principles, not positions.

Now, the Charter Revision Commission has done the work to adopt positions.

They've been working hard on this and thought it through.

But for the rest of us, almost no one has done that work yet.

And what's really important here is to consider the principles by which we want town government to operate.

Getting to the point of discussing positions now is premature, because we don't understand them.

Heck, we don't even understand the process yet.

You know, just the fact that we're sorting through this, you know, clearly your legal advisors have come up with an approach that makes some sense but still leaves a lot of unknowns.

So my what I really want to advocate is that people take a step back from the positions and look at the principles by which we want town government to operate.

And for me, you know, I just put together a few things that I think are important principles.

One is we want to maximize participation, we want to maximize inclusiveness, where explicitly the Australian ballot folks want everybody to have a voice in the decision.

And that goes for the open town meeting as well, because at least theoretically, practically it's another question, but theoretically everybody could have a voice in that decision.

Um but we also want discussion, a robust discussion, especially by people who really know what they're talking about.

And that occurs more in a town meeting setting than certainly by Australian ballot.

Um we want the possibility of amendment.

You know, if somebody's got an idea and says, no, let's do it this way, then that should also be on the table.

So to me, those are the important principles, and what we really want to do is that in looking at any of the positions that people are taking is see how they affect those principles.

And that's what I would advocate at this point for the vast majority of us who haven't had the opportunity to think it through carefully.

It's still early in the process.

To adopt for most of us to adopt positions right now, I think is premature.

And I think that goes for the board too, because you guys clearly are struggling with the same issues that the rest of us are.

So that's what that's what I would say.

Let's do it the right way.

Let's get to yes.

Thank you.

Well, and again, thank you, Franz.

We're not discussing the merits of one choice over the other.

We're discussing how to vote on it.

How to put it on the ballot.

What's the best way, the most conclusive way, et cetera, et cetera.

So, Gemma.

And on that note, I have some procedural questions about this very issue because I am not an attorney, however, I do understand legal language and I can read like most people can.

As I read 17 VSA 2640A 3D, a vote establishing a representative form of annual or special meeting shall remain in effect until the municipality votes to discontinue or establish a new representative form of annual or special meeting at an annual or special meeting duly worn for that purpose.

My reading of that law is that this cannot go to to a townwide ballot.

This must be voted on by RTM, because that is the version of government that we have, and that is what Vermont law states.

Furthermore, as I read the current Brattleboro Charter, uh in section uh Article 3, Section 2 initiative uh B petition for inclusion of the warning of an article to adopt an ordinance.

Uh three, if the date of the next representative town or town school district meeting falls within 60 days after receipt of the petition, and if the petition is presented within sufficient time, uh it shall be included as an article on the warning for that meeting.

Otherwise, a special representative town or town school district meeting shall be called within 60 days after receipt of the petition.

So the two petitions that have been received have to be voted on by RTM, not by the town as a whole, as I read that law.

Now I'm sure the town attorney uh will have more information on that, but that's how I read it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Let's um so just to address the first question about how the vote to discontinue occurs.

There is actually language in addendum A, which was the act to adopt RTM that specifically says that RTM cannot vote on its own existence, so it would have to go to a townwide vote.

Okay.

And then to address the second part, the um quoted language that you just read from the charter is regarding an ordinance, and this is a charter change pursuing to state statute, which is cited as the first option of charter changes in the la second to last section, I believe it is of the charter 17 VSA.

Do you know it off the top of your head?

Um, um but it's it's in there, it's the difference here is that what you read there speaks to an ordinance and a charter change is not an ordinance.

But the the reason I I brought that up is because I'm trying to find language in either the Vermont statutes or the town charter that governs the uh inclusion of a petition on the town ballot.

I'm not voting it.

It's near the end.

There's a section that that deals with how you amend the charter.

Uh it it's and the option one or a or whatever it is is by statute.

And that's the that's the site.

Um that's the or is that the charter?

Uh Article 8A in the manner provided by 17 VSA 2645.

Okay.

Well, that was fun.

Uh Randy, you had your hand up first.

Randy Blogged, District 7 RTM member.

Um, so uh I have a couple things.

The first thing is in the charter itself, is there any precedence in the state or elsewhere to not have a preamble in a in a town charter?

I tried to read through a bunch and I find conflicting answers, not that I'm an attorney either.

So that that's one question.

Um is there a place large enough to even hold open town meeting in Brattleboro, like and what would that limit be from the fire marshal?

Um if there is a vote in November that RTM would be voted out.

And then open town meeting would be the new form of government under statute.

So does that technically correct out the new petition?

Is is another question that I'm I'm just trying to understand all these variables.

Um is there legal or state precedence to have two competing petitions for two different forms of government that's ever happened in Vermont or or another state?

Um and can all this be legally challenged that we're just waiting even longer.

Um I'm just curious on all those notes, and I know it's a lot to digest.

All right.

Um now I I'd happy to ask the attorneys to answer Randy's questions.

Uh but I I I really I want to make a distinction between the merits of one versus the other, which I don't really want to talk about versus how to ask the people to vote.

So please can you answer the question?

You may need to help me with preamble.

I I think you'll see in different charters, depending on whether it's a village or a town.

Some have preambles, some don't.

Uh that's really a matter of style and and history, perhaps.

We we uh Peter or um Joy or Denise might be able to speak that.

They looked at all 1200 charges, they could probably tell you how many do and how many don't we don't need to get into that.

You had a bunch of questions.

The question as to whether or not this has come up before of two competing charter changes.

I just simply don't know the answer to that.

Uh uh on that, just not having researched that.

Um there were five questions.

I got two out of five.

That's not very good.

Um what was the second?

I guess if it could be legally challenged, oh yes, so all of this at the end.

Any of it can be legally challenged through uh uh any vote, whether it's on a charter or a town meeting article vote, there's the opportunity by petition for a referendum or a reconsideration.

So depending on whether you're proceeding by our charter or by state law, there is the ability to seek an additional uh vote on that if by petition.

And of course, if uh somebody thought that uh procedures were not followed, they could uh seek a declaratory judgment action in court, theoretically.

I think one of your questions was whether or not the vote in November would invalidate the new petition, and it would not because there's a difference between operating under state statute and having it be a charter change.

Okay, that's why I was just curious with all those variables.

You'll be right.

I've seen without all the one more.

That's four out of five.

Yeah, it's Kate can speak to that.

Well, the you don't have you don't it's about six thousand in March.

Yeah, yeah.

Um and Kate can Kate knows the capacity of the high school.

I don't I don't know if you want to get into details about that right now, but I can assure you that we've had numerous conversations with the town clerk about this, and we can host a open town meeting.

And if you look statistically across the state, uh for open for most of the towns have open town meeting, and the turnout is not all of your registered voters.

So you have to take some of that into consideration and what to expect.

All right.

Let's hear Dick, Frick, and Steven.

Well, I'm going to address the November meeting uh vote.

I think we should have the first vote in November.

I would agree with the town attorney.

Uh under Randy's question, is there a facility big enough to handle the number of people?

I would just remind everybody that's listening.

There are roughly 15,000 registered voters in our district that are eligible to go to the BUHS district meeting for the high school that got the vote on their budget.

And if you got uh 300 people there, uh you would win the lottery prize.

So the reality is uh I would be happy if we could get 2,000 people, and I think it was back in 1996, so I'll give you a little history lesson.

That I believe uh a little over 900 people voted to reduce the budget at that meeting.

They called it uh the Valentine's Day massacre.

So uh and then there was a revote and some money was put back in the budget.

So I'm not as concerned about a facility hoping uh holding an open town meeting.

Uh there's enough room up at that high school, even if you have to use the auditorium and two gymnasiums, they could certainly do it with uh electronics.

So that that to me is uh uh a moot point, whatever side you're on.

And again, uh I believe we would be kicking the ball down the field if we took the first vote in November.

Thank you.

Um I think we have been spending too much money, and I agree with Dr.

Reifman that rush that we don't need to rush into this with a November vote.

Um it's not um It's not a time of year for us to be considering things carefully.

I think I'm far from the only one who is very preoccupied with getting ready for winter holidays.

And the expense of an additional vote and the certainly poor turnout will not give us any meaningful poll of the community to uh determine whether people really feel strongly one way or another.

Um the the um the survey that was done um I didn't even know about and many other people didn't even know about, so the the charter committees claim that they, you know, have uh a good feel for the community's feeling on the subject is I think uh um a little overstated at best.

Um I I really don't understand how a open town meeting and a representative town meeting are in any way meaningfully different in terms of preparation for it.

Um the only difference is you either prove that you're an elected representative or you're proved that you're a citizen, and then you come in.

And that that that's the that's the entrance exam that can happen on that day and can be decided the night before.

Um that's not a big deal in my mind.

I don't see how it how it could be, and I'd love to hear something different.

Um the other thing is that uh I don't I don't know what anybody means by needing to prepare the gym for two different days.

Um I have uh lived in towns where we had an open town meeting and we held our open town meeting on different days or nights than town meeting day.

So uh that we could keep our town meeting where it's always been in terms of scheduling, and uh, you know, the results of the vote or the results of the vote.

I'd also uh my understanding is that there is uh there's lots of a a petition in support of RTM, which would uh add a third confounding yes or no question, and and it would have, I think, been ideal if we just had a a three-option question as one.

But uh yes, democracy.

Anyway, um good luck.

Okay.

John.

Oh, Stephen.

Pardon me.

Oh, Stephen, I'm sorry.

Two people.

John Kennedy District 7.

I'm confused.

Um, but I'm gonna advocate that we do one election in November.

We do the election, uh, not excuse me, March.

Okay, we do um RTM, yes or no.

We do Article uh petition one, Australian ballot, yes or no.

We do petition two, open town meeting, yes or no.

Okay, I think that as the Chair stated, it's the time of year that we're used to voting.

It's a time of year when we're ready to think about voting, and we have all of the votes together to focus on at the same time.

Okay?

This is a momentous decision that this town is making.

Okay, this is gonna change our form of government potentially.

We'll be writing about this in the beginning of the annual report at the town meetings in the year's future, and they'll talk about 1960, then they'll talk about 2025, maybe, depending on what happens.

Because there's a lot of assumptions here that people are going to vote out town meeting.

I'm not so sure that that's going to happen.

And I think that we're putting the cart before the horse.

Whereas if we have one meeting, one election, and we don't worry about the mechanics and the logistics of holding a follow-up election, and yes, it's going to mean we're going to have to have representative town meeting for at least one more year.

Okay.

So what?

I mean, in the term of sixty years of RTM, it's not a big deal.

In the term of 250 years of our town, it's even less of a big deal.

I think that we owe it to ourselves, and we owe it to the townspeople to take this opportunity to make this kind of change at an election which will have the largest turnout, will have the largest representation historically at town meeting as opposed to a special meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chairman.

Stephen.

Steve Yeterson, District 7.

Um, and John, you took the words right out of my mouth, actually.

It's deeply concerning from a kind of spent a lot of years uh uh conducting and publishing on surveys, and I see massive problems with trying to pop something out in November with people not knowing, well, what's the alternative?

What are we gonna have?

You're taking it away from me?

I see magnitive cognitive massive cognitive problems for your average person trying to interpret what the hell that thing says.

So I I completely agree with John, like we need to do this right.

There has can be no confusion.

They should wait until March, and who cares if we have to wait another year for the implementation?

I also think we need a lot of time to communicate to educate the community.

Some people don't even know what RTM is, much less what it does, and do we even have it?

So we have a huge education campaign to make sure people know what the choices are and they make the right decisions.

I'll also say one last thing, too.

Is there no hybrid option?

Can't like I hate to complicate situation, but really town meeting is just a meeting.

Can't we open up the gym and open up a Zoom and let the fur fly, and then people can come go back to their homes and send in their ballot?

It seems to me like we can have it all if we figure out a way to flex a little bit.

What?

Thank you, Stephen.

Thank you.

There's a oh, it's our moderator.

Mr.

Gardenstein.

Gardenstein, District 9 voter.

Um I want to thank everybody for engaging in the discussion.

I think it's way important to have this uh fully vetted and fully discussed.

Um I have a question uh for the town attorney and for uh Anna, if you can answer, since the um representative town meeting is adopted by statute and by charter.

Can you explain why a mere town wide vote would be enough to rescind it without needing to go to the legislature to adopt that?

That's number one.

All right.

The second uh uh question I have, and it follows up on the hybrid issue that was just uh uh addressed.

Um is it possible to have the budget as adopted by select board presented to town meeting, whether open or representative, and then another check being Australian ballot thereafter within a period of time, uh based upon the number that's been approved by the town meeting after it's been adopted by select recommended by select board.

Okay, David has two questions.

As the charter stands right now, you could have the the check of the vote on the budget at representative town meeting by the voters by referendum, but that requires doing a referendum.

It would require a charter change in order to make it automatic that it gets voted upon by your reps and then again voted upon uh by the voters.

Uh but it's not that it can't be done now, it's just to do it now requires a referendum uh vote on that.

The first one, it's by statute as to whether to discontinue uh representative town meeting or to form it.

And as Hannah had said, it's also uh is with regard to the uh nothing is conferred upon representative town meeting.

You can't you can't have representative town meeting vote on its own existence.

So by virtue of that, you have to have a vote of the voters by Australian ballot in order to do away with it or not.

So if you if you had it at the question goes to whether that is a statutory change or a charter change, it would become a charter change because the idea of the Charter Revision Commission is we'll take the answer, and then the Charter Revision Commission also has a myriad of other good changes which are gonna be made theoretically, whether or not it's it's representative town meeting or Australian ballot or open town meeting.

So there's a lot that this commission has been waiting on for working on for two years, and now it's gonna have to wait more for implementation.

And just one other point on that.

At the time that RTM was adopted, it there was no provision under state statute to vote to have RTM, and that statute has been passed since this was adopted.

So it's sort of so that's why this was done as a charter um change and it can now be undone by a vote because that statute came into place um, I believe in 1990s or something like that.

Thank you.

If I may please point of order.

Sure.

I I have to address this because that is exactly what I was getting at before.

Um the uh there I see nothing in any of our charter or Vermont statutes that allows uh a vote by the people to discontinue RTM to have that take effect immediately.

According to Vermont Law, what I'm reading is that RTM continues until the General Assembly approves that charter proposal.

And if that's the case, um even if you're talking about the law about representative town meeting being passed later, that law is very specific about how a representative town meeting can be rescinded.

It has to be by town meeting.

So there's a a lot of confusion here as to the propriety of even doing this in the first place.

You know, I just want to be sure that you know, I mean, I will say for the record that I oppose this change.

I oppose all of these changes, not all of the charter changes, some of them are necessary, but as far as concerns uh representative town meeting.

But if we are going to go forward with this, we first have to ascertain whether or not this is even being done according to the law.

I think you'd like us to address that question.

Representative town meeting.

Stephen for a town meeting in Brownboro is representative town meeting.

There is people meeting the.

So um the this the statute that uh speaks to a town wide vote to discontinue representative town meeting is 17 VSA 2640A sub D.

17 VSA 2640 A sub D.

It the statute number is 2640 A.

It's not 2640.

Um, and then sub D says that a vote establishing a representative form of town meeting shall remain in effect until the municipality votes to discontinue.

Um and as Bob has already mentioned in that's not the entire statute.

Well, no, she can't because this is a point of order, okay.

Until the municipality votes to discontinue or establish by new representative form led uh let this attorney continue.

Very well.

It it uh there is a a second half of that sentence, but it is about establishing a new form of meeting um at a meeting warned for that purpose.

Um so that is inapplicable to the discontinuation situation, and um in uh page 16 of the current charter at section 10, um it states that the act creating representative town meeting does not abridge the right of the inhabitants to assemble and hold general meetings, nor does the act confer upon any RTM the power to finally commit to the town any measure affecting its municipal existence without action thereon by the voters of the town at large using the ballot and the checklist therefore.

So it the existence of RTM cannot be voted on by RTM.

Great.

You still want to debate this?

That is not my interpretation of that section.

Let me just say one thing.

One thing.

Whoever's clause is correct, the fundamental tenet of democracy is not that a group gets to exist on a reality.

All right, all right, all right, all right.

I'm sorry about that.

First of all, you address me.

Sorry.

Sorry, um second of all you guys should have that conversation outside offline which and I'm gonna go to the people who are I'm just saying whichever statute uh prevails, it's the right of the people to decide what they want.

That's all I'm saying, and we need to find a way to do that.

Let's hear from Andy Davis.

Hello.

Um great conversation.

I think it does reveal a need for some education across the board on how this goes because we don't want to have the end result be a reduction of people's confidence in our self-government.

Um I have I do think that creating time for looking at all the options as a town is important.

And I was very concerned about moving to a multiple choice question in November.

And I feel we're drifting away from that for good reason.

Uh the idea of having all three considered for a vote in March.

I like that because November is going to be upon us extremely soon to make a decision.

Um someone mentioned uh uh hybrid.

We have a hybrid system now.

We have a representative town meeting, we have a select board that is voted by Australian ballot that is fully accountable.

I think accountability is another one.

Uh Dr.

Reichsman mentioned underlying principles.

I think another underlying principle is accountability.

And some uh we have a an accountable body in our select board, which has many of the legislative functions of this town.

So we have a hybrid system.

We also have a system of checks and balance.

And I think that we need to, it's not three separate systems.

We're not voting between A, B, and C.

There's overlapping functions.

And I think it really does take a full conversation.

Um option is improving RTM.

I think uh anyone on RTM has ideas for improving RTM and responding to some of the critique of RTM.

So I really do think I'm in favor of time to have uh can can uh can convene informational meetings and discuss this and educate the public because it's a big big decision.

Another part of getting to yes that was also mentioned by Dr.

Reichmann is appeal to objective criteria, and I think we really do need to agree upon the process and get that crystal clear how it's working.

Back in the 1960s, this was debated.

RTM was very controversial.

It was voted out, there was lawsuits, it was voted back in.

Um I think we could learn a lot by looking at history and try to get this as a really clear um decision made by the people of Broaderborough.

Thank you very much, and thank you for having the visible clock there in front of the uh uh select board.

That's extremely helpful.

I'm done.

Thank you, Andy.

Appreciate your conscientiousness.

Uh Beth.

Um I do want to kind of follow up.

I I appreciate what you had to say, Andy.

I also really appreciate what Franz says.

Um David Gartenstein's article in the paper was really helpful, his op-ed piece, if anyone hasn't read it.

Mike, I have a simple question, and maybe you want to direct this to the attorneys.

I'm not sure, Elizabeth, but it in light of in the notion of um a hybrid.

Is it a possibility to be creative in a way that you have an open town meeting, but do have certain things on an Australian ballot to improve inclusiveness for you know people who don't want to show up who can't show up, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Because I think inclusion is important.

I think discussion and understanding among people in this community at this time of of dangerous divisiveness is essential to keep our community whole.

So it it's just a question of of what is the what's the possibility um of a more hybrid.

Yeah, I mean, I know what Andy was saying about we do have a bit of a hybrid system, but but making it you know, can you play with it?

Thank you, Beth.

Um so Kate, you have been raising your hand.

I have been looking well, I've been waiting to all the public says something.

I didn't want to butt in.

Um I just want to I'm gonna speak personally right now, not on a m as a member of the Charter revision commission, but I'm gonna speak from my experience on being on the Charter Revision Commission.

That I know I, and I can say this assuredly, that my fellow members of the commission, we've worked really hard on the charter that we put forward.

And it's taken us as long as it's taken us because we wanted to get it right and we wanted to make sure we listened.

So I would suggest that when you're discussing the timing of when you're gonna do the vote that you take that same thing into consideration.

Um because it is somebody here said, and I think we all agree, changing our form of government is really important.

And you know, I walk down the street now, and because of the petitions, people are there's interest now.

And I can't tell you how long it takes me to go from my office at the chamber to my house one block away.

I mean, it can take me an hour to get home.

Um just because I'm explaining, oh, this is this and this.

So I think it's really important that the way that this vote happens, people can understand and they're not confused.

And personally, again, we have not talked about this as a commission.

We've talked about what happens to our thing.

Um personally, I think asking people the same possibly the same question twice, once in November and then in March is going to be incredibly confusing.

And because I've actually had to explain this to people already, and it's incredibly confusing.

So again, this isn't I'm not giving you an opinion of the Charter Revision Commission.

I'm giving you the opinion of somebody who's on the Charter Revision Commission and has spent a lot of time explaining well, if this happens, this might happen, this happened, this might happen.

So I really would really think really clearly of whether having a vote in November and then possibly having that same question on the ballot again in March is the right way to go.

And I think the question just the questions alone on changing the form of of annual town meeting is going to take some great deal of discussion for for us to have.

And you know, as you know, we were prepared before the petitions to have, if our our charter was going to go before the voters in November, you know, we would prepare it a month-long, we were preparing for a month-long education campaign about all of our charter changes because we really want people to understand what it is.

I think it's a huge thing.

So again, I'm speaking as a person, not as the Charter Commission, but that's what where I'm coming from.

Well, and Maya, would you like to speak as well?

I I just wanted to encourage everybody, no matter which form of government you want to support, whether it's RTM, whether it's open town meeting, whether it's Australian ballot, to please read the charter changes.

Because there's a lot in here that has nothing to do with open town meeting, RTM, Australian ballot.

There are we have worked that is has been kind of um, I wouldn't say a minor part of our discussion, but it hasn't been really the in the entire focus of our discussion.

And I think it's very sad that people have decided to focus on that issue instead of looking at the charter as a whole.

Now, what we've done, if the votes are different, can be modified to to take into account how people want town meeting, the town to be governed.

But there's a lot of stuff in here that has nothing to do with that.

And so please, everybody read the charter.

Read the redacted version and then read the clean version.

Let me ask you this.

Would the Charter Commission be amenable to having two versions of the Charter, one for open town meeting and one for Australian ballot?

Um I think oh, well, we can we're we're having a meeting next week, we can talk about that.

One of the one of the things I'll just throw out, some of the things are dependent on the other.

So, and again, and we have to talk about this next week, but that's a very tall, sort of a tall order for us because we are recommending open town meeting.

Obviously, if a vote says no, we want to do Australian ballot, we will go back to our work.

But to have us now redraft an entire charter, you know, with one thing after two and a half years, you know, of putting the work in.

Okay.

One thing to you though, I just really quickly, with the timing, just if you're thinking about this.

With the timing with if if you have these votes in in March, um, and I've talked to Hillary Francis about this, there is an election.

There's a primary election next year in August, and there's a general election in November.

So there are two opportunities for the town to for our charter revision com our charter revision recommendations in whatever form they come in to you wouldn't have to have a special election if you didn't want to because you have August and November.

Good.

Yes.

And and that is a question uh that we haven't discussed, and that whatever the outcome is of said March election.

Umfortunately, your work continues.

Exactly.

And and you guys are in for more than a pound because uh it would involve putting yourself forward for the charter to be reviewed at either one of those elections.

And I and we've have we have oh Peter's frantically, if he wants to wait.

We've we've had we've had those discussions at at our last meeting about you know the results of an election on these two petitions may mean we have to you know change our recommendation.

And and I I will say too that the one thing that hasn't, and I know we're not discussing the merits of one versus the other, but um Australian ballot includes robust informational sessions.

So there is opportunity for discussion.

And yes, I saw you roll your eyes.

Peter.

Thank you.

Peter Rowell, I'm um resident in District 9 and also a member of the Charter Review Commission, and I'll offer the same caveat that my colleagues just offered about.

Um it's a little awkward for us because we're having a discussion or we're we're participating in your discussion on some details that we haven't actually discussed thoroughly ourselves, and so it's important that we flag that it's our own opinion and we're not necessarily going to agree with one another, so it at least proves that we're not violating the uh open meetings law in our own work.

Um what I would say is I agree with Kate's last statement.

I think it's really important that this question gets settled.

And I agree with the things that have been said by numerous people in this conversation on the dias and in the audience around the importance of getting it as clearly settled as possible.

Um and I agree with those who say that's putting all three questions on in March and not doing this in two pieces.

I think that's pretty essential from my perspective.

Um but the reason that I rose was not just to tell you what I think about what other people have think about it.

I I actually um while I recognize that this is complicated and challenging to get put before the community in as constructive and straightforward a way as possible.

I I don't think there's anything regrettable at all about where we are.

I think it's actually fantastic that we have the work product that we are um so far uh have prepared as a commission in the process that's sort of the normal every 15 year thing, and comprehensively looking at all the different aspects of the charter and in in due time at the right moment, that fuller process will come to conclusion with a vote of the people.

Um but in the meantime, you know, the people have come forward in various ways.

And I think it's actually speaking really well to our um the the uh strength of our local democracy and the participation that citizens themselves in that we have these two petitions, and now we're hearing maybe even a third.

Um that puts the select board in a position where you can put these questions up for a vote side by side in March, and we can sit tight in the meantime as a commission.

And then when the community has settled the question, you know, there was there's a lot else in the charter, but this is a fundamental question of how we conduct the community's business.

Um so to settle that question by the voters and then have us as a commission finish our work by incorporating the outcome of that into the rest of what we have prepared feels to me actually like a really healthy um process that we should all be proud of.

Trick being that we get the vote put up in the right way, and I think you're heading in the right direction if you do it all in March.

Great.

Thank you very much.

Point of information.

There's the uh draft uh charter was not included in the agenda packet for this meeting and does not appear to be available anywhere on the town website.

It's it's on available it's available on our charter revision page.

Um I'm not finding it.

Yep.

Seth put it on.

If you go to the thing and it's um I don't have my thing in front of me.

It's should be in the packet.

I also in the package in the packet.

Yeah.

Thank you.

It's it it is there twice on the it's in the Slack board meeting and it's on our thing.

Let's figure that out.

In the meantime, the man directly opposite me.

Thanks.

My name's Neil Manders.

I was, I guess I was a one-year term RTM district seven rep at last year.

It sounds to me like what we've got here is, and I'm hearing a lot of this is first of all, let's hold off until March.

Secondly, is let's educate what's going on.

Who's gonna do it?

Right now you basically have three sort of separate groups.

You've got a Australian ballot group, you've got an open town meeting group, and you've got the charter group.

What will end up happening unless you control this to some extent, is that each group is going to stand up and defend its position as hard and fast as they can.

And I think there's a lot of information out there that both all sides need to hear.

So maybe the way to get around this is I don't think that any youth select board are so busy doing other things that you're gonna individually have the time to chaperone and and guide this information distribution uh method.

So maybe you need to find somebody that's willing to do that, uh, who's willing to pull together, put articles in the paper, listen to both sides or all sides and put information out, have informational meetings, small group meetings, similar to what we tried to do with the uh individual RTM uh district meetings, um, and have people come together and sit down and say, Well, I don't like that idea on the charter.

And talk about it and get this thing so that in March you've got informed voters rather than people who have simply happened to fall in line with a particular philosophy.

That's all I think.

Thank you, Neil.

I think that um the elements of the charter are a longer term discussion that the charter will conduct.

Um but in terms of what's on the ballot, I'm sure the um town clerk will have uh an interpretive statement of of the ballot.

Is that one there will be by statute by the petitions submitted, there needs to be the informational meeting.

So as far as the education, the select board will be warning of those meetings.

And then given that there are two competing uh somewhat alternative, you know, opposing uh petitions, uh we're going to have to talk to each group of petitioners about the draft of the charter that is to be uh presented because the voters are supposed to be able to look at that and review that.

Um so we'll we'll have to have a conversation on it.

But there will be the informational meetings for that.

So that goes without saying.

All right.

Randy, Ivan, and Frick.

And that's Madam Chair.

Yes.

I just wanted to Mr.

Ken has had his hand up for quite a while.

Sorry, I've been I'm left-handed.

Real quick, real quick.

Um I'm just I would just like to uh uh echo uh Mr.

Davis's comment, I think on um being slow.

Uh we are changing our constitu our charter, which is our constitution.

Um that's and changing our type of government.

Those shouldn't be taken lightly.

I don't think anybody here is thinking it's we're taking it lightly, but I mean the general public uh to educate them to to make sure all the ducks are in a row so that we can uh get an uh informed public uh making informed choices.

Thank you.

Right.

Yeah.

I ready blogged district seven.

Just the question.

So are we having Randy separate meetings?

I'm sorry, separate meetings on both I just want to like how are the informational meetings?

Each petition has a warned double meetings or informational meetings?

I'm just curious.

There will be an informational meeting of the town, correct?

Correct.

And and all three items would be discussed.

Uh Ivan Um Ivan Hennessy.

And an important point that I think might help reduce the odds of like confusion about multiple initiatives winning their individual ballots is just emphasize to vote on all of them.

Because there's the weird interesting thing where like people vote for this one and don't vote on this one at all.

And this one wins and this one wins when people I think it would help.

Yeah.

Uh Frick, you're the last one.

I can go up and go to bed.

Uh Frick Sprite, District 9 rep.

Uh I have three things.

One is uh my reading of the Charter is that uh though the RTM or whatever form of government we end up with is a very fundamental and important part of the charter and deserves the uh extra scrutiny it's getting.

Um it is not woven into the fabric of the charter writ large.

So the idea of having two possible options, one of which includes RTM and one which doesn't.

Um I don't believe, and I would love to see where and how many different pages would have to be amended to uh accommodate that.

Um I have not seen it in my rating of the charter.

Uh the I was involved in the charter revision last time, and we as RTM as we uh go through the budget every year went through the proposed charter changes line by line and amended, adopted scrutinized every part of it.

Is there something that's changed between last round and this round that uh excludes town meeting from this process?

Well, that sounds like a charming experience that you went through, but let's ask Bob.

As far as the changes from the last time of the charter review to now?

Yeah.

That the changes took place line by line.

The final draft of it was amended and approved by RTM.

Well, that's because it came from a charter review.

Well, depends on which charter change you're speaking about in the last 15 years.

But the last time it was done by a charter review committee, uh and it it it had different articles, and you were kind of like a menu of doing that.

There have been others that have been done by resolution, which is subsection C that were done by RTM, and that's by virtue of how it was brought to our representative town meeting.

So some of them were brought by resolution, like changes on the uh dates and the so many Tuesdays before, those were brought by uh resolution and then voted upon at the next year.

But those were minor amendments, not the other thing.

Those were minor correct.

Yeah.

Then the time the when the last charter review commission was together, it came up with all of its recommendations and to fast track it, gave it to the select board.

The select board then said, okay, we'll adopt these and put it on for a vote by Australia and ballot.

So that was one way of doing it.

So it's been done different ways, depending on which of the four ways it came to the voters.

So sometimes it goes through Australian ballot, and sometimes it goes to the representatives, depends on how it's introduced.

Okay.

Um, so I I think um there is clearly some debate also about uh a uh change from RTM being whether or not it would in fact be a charter change and whether or not it would have to go before the legislature.

And um I think uh pushing that through quickly or this coming year would invite um uh legal action.

That's my read.

All right.

Now let's get back to the board.

Ladies and gentlemen.

Unfortunately, I do have a question.

Go ahead ahead.

It feels like in the last 45 minutes or 10 hours, whatever it was, everyone started drifting towards just the two petitions in March with no vote in November, but that I want to toss it back to Bob and Hannah because that's not your recommendation.

My one thought on it before asking for your thoughts is that it does seem like it at least avoids the technical problem of what town meeting we would have, because since these would all be charter amendments, whatever decision we make would not change.

So at least that part of the confus that possible confusion doesn't come up.

But I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that and how it your recommendation is.

If you and depend and depending on people's views on open versus Australian ballot may affect whether they vote to discontinue under Article One.

So the reason that I was suggesting of having whether to discontinue as a separate special meeting in November is you talk about the fundamentals.

That deals with whether you have representative town meeting or no representative town meeting.

It says nothing about whether you're doing it by Australian ballot or open, it's representative or not.

And so for my thinking, you're dealing with these things sequentially.

That's a fundamental question to vote on first.

And if if the will of everyone is to put them all on for uh March, it's not illegal to do that.

You're going to have because if you do that, you're then going to prepare for a representative town meeting, which could be a lame duck representative town meeting.

Lame duck, its decisions would still hold.

It would just be the last one.

Right.

Probably.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

So board.

Um what do we want to do?

Uh where there's no motion proposed, and there's no decision to be made.

Uh except for the we can say uh do we want to entertain a future select board meeting wherein we would warn a November ballot, or do we want to um do as has been discussed tonight, have it all in March.

Here's kind of where I'm leading on this whole thing.

There's been just a tremendous amount of information that has flown around here.

A lot of real cogent good points.

Um, I mean, my initial thing is just to put one thing on on the November ballot so that we have one thing to think about, but with the understanding that probably the worst thing we could do would put it on the November ballot because we don't have enough enough information to get to people.

So I'm I'm hugely conflicted by that and and what to do.

So I'm thinking for this evening, what we need to do is kind of put this conversation to bed, put it on the agenda for the next meeting or the meeting after that, if if what you're saying and what I feel like is coming down the pipe, that we have to we have to say we're gonna do this here, or we're gonna do this in March.

So uh I'm not prepared to make a decision at this point given all this the this flurry of information and discussion.

Um so I mean that would be my my recommendation is to maybe kick this to the 24th or October 3rd to make that decision because I think both if uh asked John both would give us enough time if we decide if we all came back and said we need to warn this thing in November would give us enough time to do that.

All right.

What are the other board members think about that?

I don't hate it.

I'm pretty fuzzy after all of that, and it we don't have to decide at this exact moment.

So I'm okay.

I think that makes sense.

We could have another very lengthy discussion.

Well, it could be shorter than I think it's a wise suggestion, Peter made you weren't for another meeting.

I think I do think time is our friend, and I did hear many different people here share who have I think have very different perspectives on the number of things, including what kind of government or how we want to make decisions, say let's wait until March to make this um decision.

I do know that we have a number of other things that we need to discuss, like our finances, our budget.

Um there's a lot coming down the the pipe, and so I rather than locking us into having to have this discussion again where I imagine people here might have similar opinions as you had tonight, and we might kind of repeat ourselves.

Like Peter has has suggested.

Yep.

And we we let this be for now because we don't need to make a decision.

And if somebody on this board feels that it's really important for us to continue this discussion and talk about it more because they really want to have, they want to have they want to make a proposal that we can have that vote in November, then you could do that.

But we don't actually have to do that because from what I've heard, there's not a real strong rallying cry from the public that we need to have this vote in November.

That's my suggestion is that we we let it be without locking us into having to have this discussion again in the next before November.

We need to um respond to the recommendations of our town attorney.

So we will table it to have a meeting, have it at our next meeting, not the Thursday meeting because that's a listening session.

But the 24th.

Which, by the way, is going to be held at 7.15 on a Wednesday night because that's the end of Russia Shana.

Madam Chairwoman, one clarification.

Um will we be voting at that time?

Uh no.

We will be discussing and determining whether or not we want to bring it up for a vote on October 3rd, because that would be the time to warn it on November 4th.

Okay.

Everybody good?

Kate?

Maya, Joy, thank you very much.

Uh we'll be back.

I thank you very much for for all your hard work and for your discussion this evening and all the members of the Charter Commission and everyone who came who's rapidly leaving when all we have all these fun things to discuss.

Yeah.

Uh no, thanks for driving.

Bob and Hannah, thank you.

Yeah, let's take a five-minute break, and then we have two items to discuss.

All right.

Uh let's call the meeting back to order.

There's a lot more air in the room.

All right.

Uh let's see.

Monthly budget update for July of FY26 discussion.

Presentation by town staff.

That would be you.

So our regular monthly budget reports in your packet um for July, the first month of fiscal twenty-six.

And um we are reporting that with 8.3% of the fiscal year completed.

Uh in the general fund, we uh seeing expenditures at 9% of the annual budget.

But when we prorate it and take out things like insurance payments, human service payments, and other things that are front loaded, reduces the general fund expenditures to 6% of the annual budget.

So we're looking pretty good overall there.

Uh similarly on the revenues, Oscar asked me about uh prorating that.

We're at 80% of the annual budget uh right now with um with the receivables, but if we prorate annual revenues, it would be 6.6% of the budget, which is slightly below the 11th of the of the plan.

So that's you have a question on that?

No.

That's surprising to me.

So it looked like it was up.

So but apparently I'm not worried about it personally.

Yeah, I don't I don't think it's anything to be worried about.

Um cash balances in the general fund as of July 31st are at 14,914,726.

So we're in good shape there.

Umtility fund with we have revenues at less than one percent of the annual budget through July, but we aren't gonna be assessing revenue until October when the first quarter readings and invoicings completed for July through September.

Um expenditures are at 5% of the annual budget, so again, um utilities is looking to be in pretty good shape on the expenditure side.

Parking fund uh expenditures are a right around target at 8.1%, but um revenues are 11 and a half percent of the annual budget.

So parking is starting to knock wood stabilize a bit, and we're hopeful about uh the results that we're seeing there.

Also it's the um the rent from the car.

Yes goes directly into the parking plan.

Yes.

Thank you.

Yep.

Uh also in your in the report is a loan report, uh, grant report, and a transfer port, like we do in um every month.

And yeah, that's that's pretty much it.

If you have any questions, I'll try to answer them or uh get get you the answer offline.

Great.

Yes.

Well, um, yeah, a couple things I'm gonna call out as that we've talked about and at least are aware of.

Um parking revenue is above pace.

We don't know if that part of that is because it's summer, so we don't really know for sure if this is a good July or whatever, but it's still a good sign.

Um apparently having all the taxes in as of day one is just how it should be done.

Yeah.

They're just being treated as we're a municipality and we're gonna get the taxes, so they're receivables, and that's a little confusing to me, but I can I can work around it.

Um then EMS revenue is receivables based on the percentage 32 or 38 or whatever percent of expected reimbursement.

It the receivables in here are only from July of this year.

We're not including anything from the previous fiscal year, which is good.

Um, and they're very high, so that may help us in some other areas, the obvious areas being police and fire overtime, which are looking a lot like last year, which is something we will have to figure out how to work out over the course of this year, and we I think we'll budget for very differently in this coming budget.

And yeah, I think that's it.

There's a bunch of line items that are up and down.

It's one month, it's hard to tell if some things are obviously just not things that happen monthly, like clearly a lot of departments spend their whole clothing budget in the beginning of the fiscal year, probably it's the new fiscal year, we're gonna get all our new uniforms, etc.

So that budget is totally gone in one month.

That doesn't mean we're on pace to spend that much every month.

So a lot of those will be clearer as we go forward.

And other than the overtime on the negative side and the EMS on the positive side, um, there wasn't too much else that I flagged.

And those are the ends of my budget thoughts.

Thank you, Oscar.

Anyone else?

Yeah, I had one question.

So for the day camp total electric, um, we use 61, just a little 61 and a half percent of that budgeted amount.

Is that what is that for exactly?

Where are you?

It's on page 139 of 201.

It's in um uh, I guess wreck and parks, it goes, it's at the very bottom.

Electric day camp um total unless it's pool.

It's pool.

And so is that for I mean it's not a big thing, but I'm just curious.

Is it just because it's a seasonally budgeted amount that we would get up to that amount?

Yep and then plan on it being okay.

Yeah.

Gotcha.

All right.

I'm sorry, I have one other thing.

Uh John and I talked this morning about these negative overtime numbers, and we are confused or were confused and are gonna look into it.

Yeah, and um I understand that it would that was a an issue with uh loading the right numbers in the budget, and that has it was kind of a clerical error, so that was the correction, but they didn't want to change anything in there.

So it was um something to do with the year end with accruals and reversals, and we'll we'll we're still looking into why that's showing up that way.

Okay, so I I also had one other like nitty-gritty silly question.

Um so for um this is fire um on the very bottom um page 134 of 201.

Equipment maintenance, and I I wondered how equipment maintenance change is different from maybe this is not am I looking in the right thing?

Maybe I'm at police actually.

It's a police line.

Um how does equipment maintenance differ from like repair?

Because repair is posted on another line.

You guys see what I am on?

Well, right here, so five oh five one oh two three equipment maintenance, and I think actually it's for police.

And where's repair?

Um it's the same.

I thought I saw repair.

Well, there's building repair.

Are they one and the same?

We have building repairs.

No, yeah, so equipment maintenance.

Equipment maintenance.

So that would be that would be maintaining any uh any equipment that they have, including vehicles.

Okay, okay.

And is that typical that and that's is that is that one of those things that just gets used as it's needed or needs to be budgeted like throughout the year?

Um it's pretty there there are some things that are planned maintenance, so oil change or what have you, but um uh others might just come up because the equipment is in, you know, it was an unplanned uh maintenance need.

All righty.

Uh Amanda, you you've asked But I would love to know.

Can I could I find out what what it was for?

What it was for?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I think this is on the this is on police.

So it's it's 51023.

Just kind of curious, because it's a big number for one for the first month of the budgeted year.

Yeah.

Um so as we were navigating through fiscal 25 and trying to reduce expenses in that fiscal year.

Uh some things may have been postponed to July for deferred to getting they were deferred.

So that they may be picking those up now.

Um we could go back through the warrants and pull out those items for you if you want.

Um I could look as well.

Yeah, I have that.

Okay.

Also, the um the I I understand they're very close to having these up on the um on the open gov, and so you can just go on there and look up this item, and I think it drills down.

I'm not sure if it drills down to individual things, but it would it would show that item on there.

Awesome.

All right.

Gentlemen to my left.

Have you questions on the budget?

I'm good.

No questions here.

All right then.

Um we have no motion to make.

Um but you know what that confuses me, because sometimes we do make motions.

Is that quarterly?

The quarterly one you accepted that.

Quarterly one we accept this as well if you want.

It's up to you.

Yeah.

Fine.

So the question is um we'll close this item.

There's one more item.

Oscar, do you do you do you wish to amend your item?

I'm just curious, any public comment on the sorry, I forgot.

Is there any public comment on the financial report?

Not for me.

I think questions on Gray.

Uh unless somebody has the information, but since you haven't met John, you probably received the two checks for the last quarter of the one percent rooms and meals tax and sales tax.

So I don't think you probably have that off the top of your head.

If you could have that at the next meeting and just say what they were and where we finished for the year.

Unless you look it up now, you might be able to.

I may be able to find it.

And then the other thing is what Oscar said about parking.

Uh that it's nice to be ahead, but I remind you that the board uh during the holiday season is giving free parking, I believe, on Saturday and Sunday, or at least one of the two days which is going to affect the yet to be determined, but there'll be the Holly days and whatever else is determined.

Uh so the question is.

Well, John, you can get back to Dick with that number.

Sure or sell it at the next meeting because it's important to be.

And I do have the totals if you want to hear the matter.

Oh, sure.

Okay.

Ready, Dick?

Um, so I'd like to wait till the next meeting.

I want to hear.

Oh, the Christmas present now.

So for a quarter for the rooms and meals tax receipt was 129,596 and 69 cents, which brought our total for the year to 492,339 and twelve cents, which was 94.6 percent of budget.

On sales and use tax, quarter four came in at 284,455 and 91 cents for a total of 1.154 million, which was 102.8 percent of budget.

So we did a little bit better on sales and use.

That's that's what we had.

Thank you very much.

Uh okay, the public is set.

Oscar.

Yeah.

I uh I don't have anything really to say about the priorities, but Dick wanted to pull them, and I'm happy to hear public comment on it.

My only opinion on them is you know they're not exactly my priorities, but they're a reflection of what this is.

Yeah, we voted on them as a group.

I think they're a decent reflection of these five people.

We'll work on many things that are not those priorities.

And uh but I I'm certainly not going to stand in the way of public comment on them.

Should we talk about the process that we use to have them be our priorities?

Please no.

Because none of them high priorities got chosen.

Yeah, me neither.

If I could just ask, are you talking about something that happened at the last meeting?

No, we're talking about the select board retreat.

Oh, okay.

And there were five priorities.

John, can could you read them again?

Yeah, and in fact, we have a um motion for you to consider, which would be to adopt the following 2025 to 2027 select board priorities.

A increase revenues, b advocate for state revenue sharing, C work towards child safety zones, D, expand the housing stock, and E maintain financial responsibility and health.

And that's on page 34 of 201 in your packet.

And there's actually a really detailed breakdown of everything we nominated, how the votes went in that two-page memo in the backup materials.

Yeah.

All right.

So there is someone would you like to someone like to make a motion um which would be found?

Or just what he just said.

Except was that warning?

It was on the consent agenda and Dick asked us to pull it.

Oh we could we could have a motion and then we could have public discussion.

So I'll motion that we accept the select board priorities as presented.

Very good.

Now, who would like to comment on the select board priorities?

I would love to comment briefly just to just to for the public to take note that the priorities that were considered and also um there were additional proposals.

So they weren't they didn't make the mark is getting to be top priorities, but they're still and you know, initiatives to be worked on.

Okay, public one, two, three, four, five, six, Ivan.

Ivan Hennessy.

Um I just have a quick question, hopefully with a quick answer.

What's a child safety zone?

John, would you like to answer that?

I can.

Um understanding the administration's understanding would be that the select board was looking to revisit the idea of some sort of ordinance or uh setting up uh safety areas for children in the downtown area, and we would continue to explore that idea.

Any other comments?

I see Kate.

I'm Kate O'Connor Bratterboro.

Um I'm obviously disappointed by these priorities because I was hoping that the town finances and the budget would be number one.

Um I know you have a priority that says maintain financial responsibility and health.

I would argue that it should not be maintained for financial responsibility and health, but achieve financial responsibility and health, because I don't think we are at anything to maintain.

Um I also note that you're talking about priorities for the next two years.

You folks are only here until March of 2026.

So I think that your priority should be for the next year, not 2025 and 2026.

That's a technicality.

Um but there's another election in March of 2026.

So thank you.

Yes, John.

Um as I think we discussed this at the retreat, but these aren't really in any sort of priority order.

We're we're sort of figuring they're all your top priorities.

So A doesn't mean it's any more important than E.

So that's to the first point that was made.

So really it's hard to even work on some of these priorities in the current year.

It's really more about how are we setting up a plan, a budget to do them in future years.

So it's worth saying that we're not locking future select boards into anything they can't change.

All righty then oh, Dick.

Uh two things.

Uh what is your definition of when you talked about the budget uh low single digit increase?

And my second question would be that you uh have uh increase revenue 13 points.

If you could just talk about that, what your ideas are on that, and then what your definition of low single Oscar, why don't you tell us what you mean by low signal digit increase?

Sure.

Uh three, four, or five, but I will point out that that that was my nomination for the one big idea.

That is not the one that made it onto the top five.

Um maintained financial responsibility and health was a different thing on the board that went up onto the top five.

So we have not adopted as a priority, keep the FY27 budget to a low single digit increase.

But I was thinking three or four, probably higher than five, and people start getting pretty upset.

Well, we'll just have to see.

Uh let's hear from now first.

No, but you didn't answer my second question.

Oh, well, revenue about the revenue.

There were revenue increasing revenue ideas um that sort of got brainstormed and kind of l no one specific one was chosen.

So I, for example, um had invest in the covered bridge to rent for events as a revenue a way to bring on revenue.

Um I think maybe Peter had some other specific ideas too, and they got kind of glumped.

The exploration of a gas tax, the selling of uh municipal lots that are not currently used to add them back into the tax base.

Um just off the top of my head, those are just the two, but you know, like taking a hard look at uh increasing revenues that will you know lower the tax burden and and get get us to Oscar's goal.

Thank you.

No, seems like we're not saying names, but no mail district eight.

Um I was just looking at the points that they received and would just like to flag, especially in light of some of what was said by Libby Bennett and Peter Elwell, that I think uh probably the concerns that are prompting the call for like a renewed ordinance as is mentioned under like the bracket of child safety zones.

I would say a lot of those would be well adjusted through expanding the housing stock, which I see is you know, we've got 10 points child safety zone, six points housing stock.

Um it's hard to know without being specific, but you know, a lot of the markers of people being visibly poor in public and what's deemed as like undesirable behavior associated with that.

A lot of we know we know that addiction is linked to poverty.

We know that the two exacerbate each other.

We know that you're gonna end up more traumatized once you become homeless in the first place.

And we know that we have a huge housing and affordability crisis in Vermont.

So I would I would just love to see that if one is a priority to understand the way that the two are linked, um, especially given how much money we just fundled it, funneled into um the substation, which did come from UDAG funds, which was the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

So that's all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Any more comments from the public?

Um we have a motion.

I think Yeah, I would just like to address the concern that um Kate brought up in terms of uh wording of the the prioritize the town's financial responsibility and health.

I suggested that.

I what we have, what we just approved in our minutes is it's listed as prioritize the town's financial health and res uh responsibility and health.

So you know it's a friendly amendment to this list.

It's just that we match it to what we have on this in the minutes that we just approved, which is prioritize the town's financial responsibility and health.

Um it's a little redundant because we're talking about these are all priorities.

Um but if that would address this, that's that's fine.

I don't understand what you're asking.

You're asking to change the results of the of our of our retreat.

It was the wording the maintain.

That word is new to me.

Yeah, we didn't say maintain at a retreat.

That's a word that was added in in this presentation.

I wasn't gonna make anything about it, but just to match what we have approved in our minutes from the retreat, which is prior, it says number five, prioritize the town's financial responsibility and health.

Sure.

So I think that addresses the concern that was raised.

I agree.

A motion has been made, and I will amend my amendment.

Pardon me?

I will amend what I said.

Very good.

Uh so the language of the amendment, I think I just folded up and put in my first that we were out of here.

All right.

This um did you want it?

No, I was just interrupting.

Okay.

Which you're welcome to do.

Um all right, so Peter made a motion that's been amended by Isaac that could read uh we move to adopt the following twenty 2025 to 2027 select board priorities.

A increase revenues, b advocate for state revenue sharing, C, work towards child safety zones, D, expand housing stock, and e prioritize financial responsibility and health.

All select board members uh uh interested in voting for that motion, please raise your hand and say aye.

Aye, aye.

That's five zero.

Thank you very much.

We have one more motion.

All in favor.

Aye.

Thank you, Seth.

Thank you, BC TV.

Thank you.

Thank you, all in attendance, and thank you, John.

Yep.

Oh, that was a short one.

That was a question.