I'm calling the Brattleboro Select Board meeting to order for Tuesday, January 27th, 2026.

This is a regular meeting.

And Isaac, let me know he might be a few minutes late.

So let's convene the meeting.

And uh John, has it been properly warned?

Yes, it was.

Thank you.

Are there any adjustments to the agenda?

I actually have an adjustment to the agenda.

Um yes, I um would like to uh take item B, liquor tobacco authority and process and move it to a future meeting.

Um because uh Cassandra Holloway, who advocates on behalf of Liquor and Control Board and our local businesses that do that and our citizens is not here to all right.

Um do we need to vote?

Um Yeah, you could uh because people might have showed up tonight for that.

I think you could um announce it and vote.

And and I I would suggest you could move it to your meeting of um February 5th next Thursday.

Next Thursday, you'll be doing the second charter petition public hearing.

And that's the only thing on your agenda that night.

So if you wanted to move this item to that Thursday.

I think that sounds totally appropriate and great.

So I defer to Chair on Nota.

All right, that happened.

So uh Amanda has moved actually to uh move the liquor and tobacco authority and process discussion from tonight's agenda to Thursday, February 5th.

Um the select board members uh voting in favor of that.

Please raise your hand.

Aye.

Aye.

Okay, that's four to uh four to zero.

And so I'll begin with chair's remarks.

Hi, I haven't missed a thing.

Okay.

All right, so we really had quite a weekend of snow, and there's a lot of um lot of a lot of people and entities I wanted to thank.

Um the town as a whole would like to extend a thank you to everyone in the community for their support and assistance during the cold and winter storm.

And number one, people's willingness to adhere to a travel advisory played a crucial role in helping public works safely and efficiently clear the roads.

Uh you not only supported the Department of Public Works, but you helped prevent injuries and accidents from occurring during these hazardous conditions.

Uh we're also grateful to report that anyone who needed a shelter had shelter with additional beds available each night.

There were no cold weather-related injuries or fatalities reflecting strong community awareness, preparation, and outreach.

And what we also saw was demonstrated was collaboration between all town departments and community partners.

Brattleboro Fire, police, public works, wreck and parks, human resources, town managers, select boards, local shelters, social service agencies, and volunteer organizations all work together to ensure the safety and well-being of our community.

And I just want to thank again every community member, partner organization, and town employee who contributed to keeping our community safe during this winter event, and who will continue to be there for us in the months ahead.

Thank you.

John, do you have remarkable?

Yeah, I had a few things tonight.

Um first of all, snow and ice will be removed from streets and uncovered parking lots in Brattleboro tonight, January 27th, starting at 11 p.m.

So I'm urging the select board to try to end this meeting before 11 p.m.

Uh vehicles parked along the streets and in the uncovered lots.

They must be removed by 11 p.m.

or they could get towed um at the owner's expense.

So please let's avoid that.

If you plan to leave your vehicle in town overnight, please park it in the transportation center or the Preston lot.

There's a lot more information about winter parking in Brattleboro on the town's website, Brattleborough Battleboro.gov backslash winter parking.

Business license renewals have started, and those are due by March 15th.

If you've not received uh renewal email from OpenGov, please go to licenses and permits at Brattleboro.gov to update your information and renew your license, or call the assessor's office at 802 251 8156.

Any new businesses have 30 days from opening to create an account at Brattleboro.gov to obtain their business license.

A couple things from the town clerk's office.

2026 dog licenses are available either through the online portal that can be accessed through the town's website or in the town clerk's office.

All renewals are due by April 1st.

All dog owners should have received an email or a notice in the mail with instructions for renewing their dog licenses.

Please note, though, that town staff are working through the dog licenses already submitted, which is taking longer than expected, and anyone who has submitted online will receive an email with payment options.

Also the town clerk asked me to remind you all that absentee ballots for the March 3rd town meeting day and Wyndham Southeast School District elections will be mailed to those who have requested them on or around February 11.

Voters may now begin requesting their absentee ballots to be mailed by uh logging into their voter portal at vote.gov, or by emailing the town clerk's office at townclerk at brattleboro.gov, or by calling them there at 80251-8157.

In-person early voting will begin on or around February 17th, and an announcement will be made once this option is available.

Uh also I wanted to thank Bonnie Batchelder, Melissa Cole, and Pete Lynch for all of their quick turnaround on the budget.

They took the changes from your meeting last Thursday and incorporated those numbers into a revised budget that made it into your backup materials on Friday, the next day.

Then I feel like uh Pete worked all weekend to find some additional revisions to the budget.

And um he got those to Melissa and Bonnie uh today, this morning, and they ran the numbers again, which includes a lot of working through workforce and a bunch of manipulations that are complex.

And that resulted in a final revised budget that I'll share with you later tonight.

This is essential work for operating town government, and these people step up extremely well with grace and a smile and an attitude of let's get it done and work together to make the town succeed.

So I really appreciate those three folks tonight.

I also want to uh second the words that the chair shared with you tonight on the storm.

And I wanted to also call out Fire Chief Jay Simons for his excellent coordination and communication regarding the weekend storm and cold weather.

That's all I had tonight.

Thank you.

Our select board members uh do they have comments to make it?

I do, yeah.

Okay.

Um I want to shout out uh an important fundraiser that's happening.

Um it's the fourth anniversary of Russia's invasion of the Ukraine.

Uh warmth in the cold care packages for Ukraine.

Uh this uh fundraiser and just community gathering will be happening at Saxons River Distillery, 155 Chickering Drive, Brattleboro on February 5th from 5 to 7.

And the really exciting part of this fundraiser and gathering is that a Lithuanian ambassador Varvulos to the Lithuanian to the U.S.

will be speaking.

And so it's a special opportunity for Brattleboro to be able to be part of this international event.

Um in the words of uh Carrie Secrest and her brother um Christian Stromberg, who are organizing it, they quote in their email um as President Zelensky says the Ukrainian people are defending not only Ukraine, we are fighting for the values of Europe and the world, sacrificing our lives in the name of the future.

That's why today the American people are helping not just Ukraine but Europe and the world to keep the planet alive, to keep justice in history.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Oh good.

Yeah.

Wanted to acknowledge the death of Alex Predi, who was killed by federal agents on Saturday in Minneapolis.

He was a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, U.S.

citizen and veteran affairs medical professional.

He had spent his career caring for veterans.

And you know, this is this is Brattleboro.

But this is also Brattleboro is part of the United States and is affected by what happens around the country.

And it's uh I'm really glad to see that there have been a number of people in Brattleboro who are out vigil at a vigil this afternoon at uh Pliny Park or Pliny Park.

Um just appreciate the civic engagement and uh folks here in Brattleboro who are standing up for our constitution and against extrajudicial murders.

Thanks.

All right.

Uh shall we begin with the um public participation?

And uh there's members of the public who have an item that they wish to discuss that is not on tonight's agenda.

I see Ivan and then Eric and then David.

Ivan Hennessey, Brattleboro, Vermont.

Um as was mentioned, we've had a pretty massive storm recently.

Um town manager mentioned that um the transportation center is available for parking in times when the street and the open lots are not because of the weather.

Uh well, on Sunday night, a bunch of people got tickets.

And it would be a uh a sort of a generous gesture for the town to forego that minor windfall revenue in favor of uh forgiving those tickets, not charging people for trying to help out by getting off of the street and out of the uncovered parking lots.

Thank you.

Um Eric left.

I just wanted to ask if the select board emails were working.

I I've been trying to write to folks, and I and I haven't received a reply, so just checking to see if um if the select board emails are working or when when they will be.

Thanks.

I got emails from people today.

I've been receiving emails.

Yeah.

Um, the third person.

David, thank you.

Uh David Minor Just Seven, uh Chair of the Human Services Committee.

Just wanted to uh make a comment about uh last uh week's meeting.

Um determined that that the number of residents impacted by the organizations that applied for human services was 16,000, which means that uh more than one individual uh you know needs help from more than one organization.

The amount of the full of the application voted for last March represents fifty-five dollars and seventy-five cents of the median-valued property.

The amount that um was approved prior to last week's meeting uh was at one percent.

So that so the amount per median value would be half of that are roughly uh 28 dollars.

Maybe some organizations that residents may not want to support, but the overall value cannot cannot be dis uh denied.

The value provides a much greater good than simply donating the 55 or 28 dollars to a group.

I've heard from nonprofits in town and residents who were shocked by the decision made by the board to not fund human services.

Our town has a long-standing history of providing human services funding support that stretches over decades.

Support was acented further by the by the article placed in last year's ballot by the select board asking voters to select the preferred amount of human service funding.

This question has been discussed and argued ad nauseum, but what was clear is that out of 2,308 votes, 63% chose to provide 1% or more.

Three of you simply turned your backs on a clear majority of electric.

Thank you.

Kate.

Good evening.

My name is Kate Barry.

I'm a local business owner and resident of Brattleboro.

I'm here tonight because many of us in this community have reached a breaking point.

We are witnessing the consistent exploitation of our neighbors' most vulnerable moments, arrests, medical emergencies, and mental health crises, all being filmed at point blank range for social media consumption for a single person's personal profit.

We all know who I'm referring to, Planet Hank.

This isn't about the First Amendment.

It's about the intersection of public safety and human dignity.

When citizen journalists are allowed unfettered access to the inner perimeter of a crime scene, it risks the integrity of evidence and the due process of those involved.

Furthermore, filming people during a trauma or a medical crisis is a violation of the privacy we owe to every member of this town.

We are better than this.

Brattleboro should be a place where people can receive help without it being turned into a viral video for someone else's profit.

Once these videos are uploaded, they remain on the internet indefinitely, forcing individuals to live in the shadow of their most vulnerable vulnerable moments for the rest of their lives.

This digital permanence actively inhibits restorative justice, and it is deeply unethical and inequitable, as not every arrest is subject to the same public exposure.

I have submitted a formal letter to you yesterday, which many of the people on this Zoom and in the room have also co-signed and sent.

We are asking the select board to first draft a journalistic ordinance that establishes a clear, safe perimeter for all media at active police and first responder scenes.

Secondly, review the Brattleboro Police Department's media policy to ensure that there are no special access or informal coordination that compromises the department's impartiality, and three, prioritize victim privacy over the voyeurism that is currently taking place on our streets.

The community is watching, and we are asking for your leadership.

It is time to set a standard for decency and safety in Brattleboro.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, uh, we will discuss that at the agenda setting committee and determine uh when we will discuss it at a select board meeting.

I talked about the truth bridge.

Oh.

Yeah, she's right.

Uh uh Chief Hardy wishes to be recognized.

Hello.

Hi.

Good evening, Chief.

Um, so I've heard the statements that were just made.

I don't know what I'm allowed or not allowed to uh comment on since I heard you say that it was going to be put on a uh agenda setting.

Um, but I do believe that some of the statements are misleading and accusatory of my department.

It's one thing to not like what someone else does.

Uh, you know, I myself have had many arguments with Hank.

All right, and uh my personal feelings do not matter.

What matters is that my department does what it's supposed to do within the constraints of the law and the Constitution, and that's what we do.

Okay, I don't believe that it is fair to blame us for an individual's acts when we cannot stop anyone from videotaping the police.

As a matter of fact, we've had people videotaping us in the past month that come up with their cell phones in my office's face that have videotaped my uh my liaisons, my mental health liaisons, they've come to me uh saying that they're being recorded.

So, a part about uh distance, I don't have a problem with that at all.

I will say that those have all been argued in courts of law around the country as far as distances because it's a perception of what is a fair and impartial distance that the police can have someone stand away from them when they videotape.

Anything else?

I will be happy to address next week.

Thank you.

Um let's hear from this gentleman and then that gentleman.

Hello, I'm Hank.

If you don't know, I run Brattleboro News, which we're all talking about right now.

First up, I would like to offer a copy of the Constitution for anybody who would like a copy.

Would anybody like a copy?

Seems like we've got some people who quite possibly need to brush up.

Thank you.

Point of order.

Okay.

So just be sure you direct your comments to the chair.

Of course.

Okay.

So if we all flip to page 40, we will be looking at the Bill of Rights, particularly the First Amendment.

Which this what'd you say?

I asked Mr.

Hennedy sit to sit down and he has.

So during the first amendment, it's the law respecting the establishment of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the right of people to peacefully assemble.

And so I think we're hearing comments being leveled at the police department and at myself, but those do not supersede the First Amendment.

And I think that it would be an abuse of authority and completely inappropriate to be the first town in the history of the United States of America to even discuss an ordinance that would limit freedom of speech, especially considering the town's desire to film ice.

So what you're basically saying is that if ice comes to Brattleboro, you don't want the right to be able to film them, that you get to limit who gets to be a journalist or who gets to observe police activities and arrests or incidents in the town of Braterboro because some people, including a bar owner, whose business does negatively Hank.

So stay tuned to see if uh we will determine whether or not we'll have a final statement.

I just am asking you guys not to bring this upon Bratterboro, because this issue is much larger, decided by people far smarter than any of us, and I don't think that we need to publicly shame the state of Vermont and the city of Bratterboro because of someone being a very much uh Steve Peterson.

Hi, Steve.

Um I just wanted to make a couple comments that I know that there's a lot of controversy around Planet Hank's comments uh commentary, filming, etc.

I do think that he provides a relevant service that does not exist anywhere else in terms of people understanding what's really happening in town in terms of the issues we all face and need to resolve.

And I I have a hunch that if it weren't for the reporting that is done by him that nobody else had been doing, we'd be at a loss to really try to solve the problems that he is shining lights on.

So that's just one comment.

So I'd be very concerned about trying to shut him down.

I it's very sad what people are going through in these events, but I do think we need to know what as a town we're we're dealing with in terms of uh issues.

The second thing I just wanted to say too is the human services um vote versus a decision.

I think the previous commentator just said you quote walked away, unquote, from the vote um that had been given that bit uh that had been made about what percentage of the town uh budget should be allocated to that.

I think the only fair way to agree that that um is walking away is to it uh from from a real clear mandate in town is to for people to know what that funding means or doesn't mean for other services.

And it's it's only really valid to say you have to adhere to what patient uh what the what the population says in terms of percent allocation, if they know that in adhering to that means less fire department or no West Prattleboro Fire Department or less police or less whatever it is, etc.

So that vote was taken in isolation and is therefore it interesting, but should not drive or handcuff town decision making.

That's all right.

Um if anyone else wants to speak about the um the planet Hank First Amendment commentary, um they'll have to wait until uh it's a warned item because I believe that we have pushed the limit on that discussion, and I don't think it's uh within our framework to have any more discussion on that right now.

Uh Dick.

Hey, I'm Dick.

Uh I just wanted to uh petitions close yesterday, and I wanted to thank all the people that turned in their petitions.

Uh we have three people, it seems like running for the three-year seat and five for the two two-year seats.

And I do look forward to uh uh listening to where you stand on issues.

Uh I think it's uh yeah, my phone is ringing.

Somebody's coming up.

Maybe maybe my boss.

Um and so I look forward to hearing uh how you stand on issues.

We certainly have some hot topic issues.

This budget process.

Uh was not uh the best movie I've seen in a long time.

Um the acrimony, uh the disrespect sometimes that you showed each other was disappointing to me.

Uh I'm okay with people disagreeing with each other, but I thought you you guys crossed the line a few times, and that's not good for the town as a whole.

Uh so I know we can always do better.

I'm always trying to do better.

Every now and then I fall down and I pick myself up, and I would hope that you do the same.

And so I wish all the candidates good luck.

I look forward to hearing what you say about what you think about the issues going on in town and how we can make improvements.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um, Angela?

Uh Angela, are you speaking about the Planet Hang issue, or do you have another comment to make?

Um a little bit about the Planet Hank issue, but I think it's uh also a bit about some other things as well.

I'll I'll limit your comment to the other things as well.

Thank you.

Okay, I can do that.

So thanks for the opportunity to speak.

I'm up at Dartmouth in a hallway hiding, so I appreciate your flexibility.

Um I guess I want to speak about process, trust, and how some recent decisions landed um in the community.

So there's been two decisions recently that have felt particularly cold or dehumanizing.

The first was the emergency zoning in your ordinance.

It was passed just days before Christmas.

It had a significant effect on a community space that's meeting a real and urgent need.

And it was done despite objections from the planning commission, including concerns about their authority being overridden.

The second was the complete elimination of the human services budget, despite testimony from the human services committee and strong public concern about preserving compassion-based services in Brateboro.

I know these are difficult choices.

I don't expect consensus.

I know that there'll be decisions I don't agree with.

But what I do expect, and I think that this is what everyone expects, is a visible effort to listen to people, to verify information, to seek compromises where it's possible.

With the zoning change in particular, we heard statements that if there had been significant complaints supporting the ordinance.

When I submitted a public records request, the town didn't produce records that uh uh reflected that volume.

At the same time, the opposition to the change was visible, documented, and voiced publicly.

Tonight you have a lot of people bringing up a concern that's long-term community concern.

If you want to be listening to people, and you know, madam chair, you said that at the first select board meeting, you said that you wanted to be listening to the community, to staffs, to each other, and to experts and do the work of the people.

But repeatedly, what the majority of people objectively seem to be saying is getting overridden by the committee.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh yes, look for it.

Frick's Bright District 9 rep.

Um the vote on the human services budget.

Um, I think was a usurping of the power of the RTM.

And uh I expect that uh whether or not that issue is litigated properly that uh the town meeting will restore that.

So uh I would uh urge you to count that when you're figuring out what the budget's gonna be.

All right, let's move on so we can get out of here before cars get towed.

Um first item of regular business, the first charter petition hearing.

Nope.

Okay.

Um so um we are going to conduct the first of two town charter petition hearings.

The first is for the Australian ballot and open town, and the second is for open town meeting petitions.

And uh first we need to open the public hearing.

So I hereby open the public hearing.

Okay, that's good.

So um are there do you want to speak to it?

Does Bob want to speak to it?

Or do we should just let uh I can if you want?

I think we should introduce uh the topic before uh sure.

Um the petitioners did.

Yes, and and I think really this is their meeting tonight, but their hearing.

Um so we'd like to hear what what they have to tell the town.

Um but the the select the town, the select board received two voter petitions proposing charter changes uh related to the town's representative town meeting.

The first petition was filed with the town clerk on August 4th, 2025, and that requests the town consider discontinuing RTM and if that measure is approved, conduct certain town business by Australian ballot.

And Tom Franks and Randy Bloodett are here tonight to speak to to that uh petition.

Second petition was filed on September 9th, 2025, and that requests that if RTM is discontinued, the town instead conduct its business through an open town meeting, and I believe Millicent Cooley uh will speak to that uh after these gentlemen.

This evening or at a subsequent meeting?

No, this evening.

This evening, yeah.

All right, because I don't see her here.

I don't see her either.

But okay.

All right, gentlemen, you have the floor.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Good of you all to come out tonight.

Uh would you put up the first slide, please, Seth?

We have slides, a video, and then there's a comedy routine afterwards.

So that's the end.

We can go there.

I know you want it.

We all want to get this over with.

Thank you very much.

Um, our petition asks for the discontinuance of representative town meeting, which I will not be speaking to tonight since we are actually not our but that piece of our vote is not on the ballot, but maybe Randy will talk a little bit about that.

What I will be talking about is Australian ballot.

Our petition asks the voters to adopt Australian ballot for specific guidance, most notably the town budget.

Australian ballot offers every voter the chance to vote.

Other systems do not.

Next slide, please.

So here's what Australian ballot is.

It's an official ballot printed at public expense on which all of the candidates and proposals appear, and which is I left out something marked in secret.

That's Merriam Webster.

It's also known as secret ballot.

Um that has a lot of uh advantages.

Um it's called Australian ballot, it comes from Australia because somewhere in the 1850s, I think the exact date of the complete adoption across the entire country of Australia was about 1854.

The they were finding that there was a lot of uh people were voting publicly and they found them vulnerable to intimidation and coercion.

Those are the words the Australian Election uh Commission.

They then to rectify the session, developed an independent electoral body, which developed the so-called secret Australian ballot or secret balloting.

Um excuse me, going forward, I'll just call it secret balloting.

It's in the legislation as Australian, but they're the same thing.

Next slide, please.

Vermont has a long history of voting, but not everyone's been able to vote.

In fact, in the first constitution, uh free men who had lived here for a year or more were 24 21 years of age or more, were the only people who could vote.

They also were supposed to have a peaceable and gentle, uh what it was the actual words are quiet and peaceable uh behavior.

Now I'm sure many of us wouldn't qualify now.

Um, but they also had to put Deuce and Oath.

Women, on the other hand, about a hundred years later got to vote in school meetings.

And but they had to be tax-paying women in 1917.

Taxpaying women, once again, there's a qualification on the ability to vote, uh, were able to vote in town meetings.

And the final interesting point when uh you uh suffrage was enacted by the 19th amendment.

The state of Vermont didn't ratify it immediately because the governor didn't want to.

So we have a mixed history on voting.

Um next slide, please.

So what I this slide shows, I took some data from the Secretary of State's website.

The red line is the floor vote or town meeting votes.

They they collect the data, it's voluntarily collected.

It's not submitted by all towns, but I did check into a few.

And they say, how do you vote?

And I forgot to start my timer, but I got it now.

Okay, thanks, Randy.

And as you can see, floor voting, and the bottom line is a little hard to see, but there are five size categories below seven, fifty voters, and then over five thousand.

Bradler was in the over five thousand.

Uniformly, participation in open meeting, representative town meeting or anything that they call floor voting is much lower than participation in Australian and secret ballot.

The key here is participation.

All other voting systems produce barriers.

And some of these barriers, the core of the barriers is you have to, in the open meetings, that you have to be in a specific place at a specific time for an unspecified duration.

So you have to be able to do that to actually get to vote.

You can show up at a town meeting and want to vote on one article, but your phone rings, you're called in for a fire, there's an emergency, you may not get to vote on that matter.

Let's see.

Am I done there?

Yep.

Next slide, please.

This shows what's voted across the state and by town size by Australian ballot.

81% of all towns over 5,000, and they're not a lot of them, and the only ones that do not vote everything by Australian ballot are Brattleboro and Middlebury.

They're very different towns if you look at their taxes, their income streams and their bases and and their participation.

So in the um, if you look at it, we we do do officers and some public questions, but by and large, big towns do everything by secret ballot.

Next slide, please.

Australian ballot or secret ballot has been gaining traction in the state of Vermont in the last three years, uh 31 towns have adopted Australian ballot.

It works best, it works better than uh floor vote or town open town meeting for a large group.

There's some little bit of research that shows the optimal size for a group decision making is between five and seven people.

If you have more than that, the the it needs to be a mediated or assisted decision making process, and there's some great ones of that nature.

Uh New Hampshire did a wonderful uh process, that would be glad to talk about it another time.

Next slide, please.

So I mentioned that there's some barriers initially, and the key barriers are you have to be in a one place at one time, and you don't know how long you'll be there.

The barrier, none of the barriers that we're addressing here are presented by a secret ballot.

RTM in particular has an extra barrier, eligibility.

You have to be elected to go to and have a voice at RTM.

This is all about as you know, we said one person, one vote.

Participation is critical.

We believe in a we as a country talk about everybody getting to vote, and open town meeting does not permit that, nor does RTM.

So the first three barriers are location, uh, sorry, schedule location, and duration.

Um I think almost all of you have sat through a uh representative town meeting.

They've gotten longer since I've been on the on it.

Um there are other barriers that I'm gonna tell you I didn't catch them all.

There's language, you know, you can if you're there, maybe you could bring a translation translator, but you have to be running back and forth inside the rope.

There's some visual things.

There are a lot of things that are presented, um complex materials, things are handed out at the meeting that uh could be a visual um challenge.

Next slide, please.

Um thank you.

Hearing, we do have ASL, but it's not necessary sometimes at the meetings and sometimes it's hard to see, but it's not necessary at all for secret ballot.

Physical barriers.

If you can't get there, if there's a place that you can't sit still, if you're if you have an accident and you're a representative town meeting member and you can't get to the meeting, that's there's no vote.

None of these barriers are presented by secret balloting.

And then there's personality.

Um I don't have well, I do have a personality problem, some people would say, but I don't mind standing up and talking.

We have representative town meeting members who are less forward than I am, and the loudest voices of the room often say the most and may prevail, or at least that gets to the next fear and coercion.

And the loudest voices of the room often say the most and may prevail, or at least that gets to the next uh fear and coercion.

Secret ballot protects people from against that.

You can vote the way you want.

And our freemen's oath.

I think if you're a voter, you've taken the freeman's oath, now the uh voters' oath, but it states that uh you will solve you solemnly swear to give your voter suffrage touching any matter concerns the state of Vermont.

You will do it's so as your conscience you shall judge will most conduce to the best good of same as established by the Constitution without fear or favor of any man.

That's a pretty high standard.

You speak your voice and you do it clearly and honestly.

And it's really hard to meet for some people in a public setting.

So uh next slide, please.

The one of the concerns I've heard about uh secret ballot is there's no participation.

We won't be able to deliberate.

We will not be able to um learn.

Um we essentially have the same opportunities with a secret ballot.

The instead of having a representative town meeting information session, there are mandatory hearings under Australian ballot in the statute.

So instead of being in the outskirts outside the rope, anybody who wants to can come in if they can show up at that time or zoom in because it would be permissible and ask questions.

We have the same access to select board members.

We could all show up here.

And I think that I will just make sure I check my notes because I start running and you never know what happens.

Um that was it.

It's open to everybody.

Uh and I just want to say something, and we do have a little video to show, and I think we'll still be under our we'll still be under time.

Our time limit, but if do you want to say something?

Yeah, I just want to bring up why we have the hearing that the people that signed our petition that the RTM Article 1 was um changed by the select board so that it is on the ballot now as a vote from them in essence.

Um and if that's enacted, it goes into effect immediately, and the ordinance by the state statute would change it to open town meeting.

Um so that's why we're not going to talk about that because it was changed um by the select board in a recent vote uh a few months ago.

Um but I think we're ready for the video.

Oh, yes, would you run the video, please, Seth?

My name is Darrell Pillsbury, I live in Brattleboro, Vermont, and I am for the one person and one vote.

Uh I was a former town meeting member.

Um it was an okay system, but I think we can do better.

I think we can get more representation by doing the one person one vote.

Would you please tell me your name?

Judith Miller or Judy Miller.

Would you be interested in voting on the budget and other things?

Yes, very much so.

And why is that?

Well, in the past I was not a member of the town meeting uh group, and but that meant that I couldn't vote.

And I certainly couldn't.

I have had two major back operations, lower back operations.

There was no way I was going to be able to sit through three or four hours of or longer of meetings.

My name's Frank Howard.

Thank you.

Could you please tell us why you support Australian ballot for Brattleboro?

I do.

I I think that uh every taxpayer in town should have a say of where and how their tax dollars are spent.

Thank you.

Anything else you'd like to say about one person, one vote or Australian ballot?

I think everybody should vote for this, and I hope it passes.

Thank you very much for your time today.

Tell me your name.

I'm Patty Byther.

Please tell me what you think about one person, one vote.

And I feel that I really miss being able to express myself personally.

Um I in a one person one vote, you get to decide.

You don't tell, you don't get to pick somebody who then may or may not decide for you.

Um I prefer being able to do the uh one person one vote because you get to say.

It's simple, it's fair, everybody gets their their say, and the majority wins, which is how it should be.

Hi, would you please tell me your name?

My name is Roger Miller.

Would you like to be able to vote on the budget and other issues in the town?

Yes, I would.

And why is that?

Uh because I've been a resident of of this community for a long time, and I do feel very much a part of it.

I would like to continue to have a say in the direction that the town takes on matters of finance and issues of uh services that are offered to the residents.

How would you feel about attending a representative town meeting these days?

Attending as I remember them in the past.

I remember them being very, very long term events and being very tired and uncomfortable.

I think I would have both physical and mental objections to sitting through a long town meeting these days.

Thank you.

And one last question.

Do you support the idea of having Australian ballot for the town of Brattleboro?

Yes, I do so support that idea of Australian ballots.

You get a sort of wide range of voices.

And you know, if you don't have time to be a representative or you, you know, don't have time to go to the town meeting because you're working, you don't have the day off, you have a child, um, that really limits your involvement in the town decisions.

And so I could see how one person won't vote would allow for you know someone like me that's full-time that has a small child to like participate in those decisions without having to take a 12-hour day to do that.

Roger.

If um they have Australian ballot, will you let me vote?

Well in the old system, I guess you couldn't vote, but certainly in the new system, if it passes, you would you would have the right to vote.

Oh goody.

I I would just like to say the one reason that we started this petition um is we want everyone to vote.

So I would please urge everyone.

March is as important as August, as important as November.

We have less than 3,000 people on average vote in March, and we have over 9,000 voters in Brattleboro, and we average around 70 or 72 percent in November.

So please show up.

Please vote locally.

Thank you.

Do we take questions now or later?

How are you doing this?

Do the other one.

Would people can would you can take questions now?

It's it's an open hearing.

So it's the and there'll be a second hearing too.

So you can do some now.

It depends on whether or not you want to hear from Millicent's presentation first.

And then take questions after.

So why don't you guys stay put?

Because Millicent's online.

Okay.

So let's hear from Millison and then we'll have general questions of both petitions, if that's all right with you.

All right, Millissa.

Good evening.

Hi, and thank you for letting me speak.

Just a second, please.

Um, and thank you for uh Tom and Randy for your presentation.

Let me um sorry, I'm trying to get to my I need to minimize this so I can get to my own notes.

I'm sorry.

There we go.

So um the reason I am promoted and did a petition for open town meeting is that I think that um like as with RTM, it's really important for everybody to be able to debate and discuss the most important issues of the town at the time of voting.

Um if RTM is ended in the vote, people can still do that at open town meeting.

Um at both RTM and at Open Town Meeting.

People can hear not only the number of people who voted for something, but they can hear their point of view and why certain things are important to them.

Um open town meeting happens to be uh the default um option for towns if RTM is ended according to Vermont Law, because it is so widely used in our state.

Um but um I think it's also important for it to be on the ballot because it should be something that people choose to vote for as our governance um system or not choose um directly and um not just feel that this is an option that they somehow ended up with because RTM lost.

Um at Open Town Meeting, uh voters can still amend articles as they can do at RTM.

This is um a power of voters at RTM, and it will remain a power at open town meeting according to law.

With Australian ballot, you can only vote yes or no, but you cannot amend articles.

You cannot amend you cannot make amendments.

If we end up with open town meeting, we will continue to vote by Australian ballot as we do now for certain things.

We already vote for Australia, use Australian ballot for, for example, to vote for officers to make bonds and some other things.

And that that works.

So for them.

Anybody who can attend open town meeting can vote.

And an all-day meeting, I understand people who can't always come, but it's a worthwhile investment of time to arrive at the best understanding about the reasons that people are voting in certain ways.

Around the budget and other complicated decisions where people should understand each other deeply.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Let's hear from the public.

If I can hold those thoughts in my head.

Dina, please.

I'm sorry.

I'd like to defer my comments.

Oh, I really I I can't.

I can't manage that.

So please speak now.

All right.

Gemma Seymour, District 8, uh representative town meeting member.

This up a little bit because I'm stupidly tall.

Uh first I'd like to say that I find the uh presentations that have been given tonight to be prejudicial and irrelevant to the business before uh the public and the select board.

We are not here to debate the merits of these proposals.

We are not here to debate whether or not they should or should not be on the ballot.

They have been so far as we can tell, at least we've been told, uh, duly uh proposed.

However, uh I would like to suggest to the select board that that may not actually be the case.

Uh under the terms of the Brattleboro Charter, the Select Board does not have sole authority to place an article before the public in this manner.

Uh excuse me.

My laptop has gone to sleep here, so I don't have my references in front of me.

But the Brattleboro Charter, while it does provide uh means for both the select board uh to to place articles before the public, it's not actually just the select boards, the select board and this the uh school board which have to vote on it.

And to my knowledge, there has been no involvement of any of the school board members in placing this article on the ballot.

Uh furthermore, uh a petition uh pursuant to 17 VSA 2645 uh does not permit uh the public to have a referendum on a charter uh on a charter petition or or charter amendment.

Um the provision of 2645 17A, which talks about Australian ballot is a subordinate clause to 2645-1, which specifies that the town meeting is the one who votes upon uh any charter amendments.

And uh I should also reference, I believe it's 2680, which speaks about the uh relevance of the Australian ballot provision to 2645 17a.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um would our legal team like to weigh in on any of those comments?

Sure.

With regard to the petition, uh it's been it's been petitioned pursuant to Title 17 2645, which allows a proposal to adopt a charter amendment to be petitioned by 5% of the voters of the municipality.

All of the hearings that you're having tonight have been duly warned in accordance with 2645.

And as referenced in 2645 section 7A, voting on the charter proposal shall be by Australian ballot, which it will be uh come March.

So, in all respects from our review, uh these two petitions have been duly petitioned.

The uh number of uh signatures has been uh vetted by the town clerk's office.

Uh so I we're having a hearing and I think we're we're good to go on that.

And with regard to the school board, um, those portions of the charter are moot because we do not have a town level school board.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um Neil.

Thank you.

I'm Neil Banders, West Burnboro, uh, District 7, and uh Madam Chair, uh I have sinned, and I would like to make a confession.

Last year was my first year in terms of being involved with the RTM, and I represented a whole bunch of people, apparently, in West Brattleboro that I never talked to.

I went to the meeting, and for the most part, I went to the meeting because I was already upset with taxes and the amount of the budget, and so I was taking my personal objectives to that meeting, and maybe I agreed with some of my neighbors, but for the most part, I was doing this on my own.

I know that I'm not the only one who was doing that.

I know that there were a number of people in RTM who did spend time and went out and talked to representative or their their constituents.

But I also know from talking to other RTM members that they didn't do that.

Now, maybe in years past I've heard that people did do that.

But I think, given the last number of years, from what I can tell, it's not happening.

So I would say that if we want people to know and get a chance to vote, that we need to go with the Australian secret ballot in order to make that happen.

Open town meeting won't make that happen.

The odds thing that I would say is that the big thing I've heard about RTM and OTM is that we don't get a chance to discuss.

I've been proposing for all year, the select board needs to be as open and transparent as they possibly can be, and I think you have been trying to do that.

That people need to come to these meetings, and if they have an objection to the budget that you be are proposing, that they raise that objection here and now, so that when you come up with a final budget, you have heard those objections and you know what the basically the population wants.

So RTM, one vote, one person, one vote, please.

Thank you.

So you've sinned, and this is your penance.

Uh Tim.

Madam Chair, thank you.

Australian ballots about inclusion, open town meeting, representative town meeting are not plain and simple.

They automatically exclude large portions of our community, not because people don't care, but because they simply can't be there.

Want to tell you about my aging neighbor.

She watches every select board meeting on Brattleboro community television.

She is informed, she is engaged, she cares deeply about this town, but she doesn't have transportation, and she certainly doesn't have the physical stamina to sit through a 10 or 12-hour meeting just to make her voice heard.

Why should participation in democracy require physical endurance?

Why would we deny her a say when a simple absentee ballot would allow her to vote from her own kitchen table?

I also want to tell you about another neighbor, a single working mother with a precarious job, struggling to put food on the table for her kids, asking her to take an entire day off, risk her employment, and arrange child care just to participate in open town meeting or representative town meeting is not reasonable.

It's exclusion by design.

She cares about this town too.

She deserves a voice, a vote as well.

Democracy should not be limited to those with flexible schedules, reliable transportation, financial security, or the ability to sit in a meeting all day.

That's not representative.

That's not fair, and it's not who we say we are.

Australian ballot, secret ballot doesn't silent voices, it amplifies them.

It amplifies them.

It allows seniors, working parents, people with disabilities, caregivers, and hourly workers to fully participate.

It meets people where they are.

If we truly believe in broad participation and equal access, the choice is clear.

For these reasons alone, we should vote Australian ballot so that everyone can have a voice and a say.

Thank you very much.

Yes, I'm only five feet tall.

Dina Chadwick, um, District 9 RTM member, and also I'm running for the one-year seat on the select board.

I just want to speak in favor of the Australian ballot.

I'm not going to go into great details because Tim just covered that for us, which is fantastic.

What I will say is that we need to bring the power back to the people of our community because it seems like we're quite divided, and I'd like to see that change.

And if everybody had a voice to vote, and they're not going to show up at these meetings.

I talked to them.

Hundreds of people.

They're just not going to do it.

But they want to vote.

They want to have their say.

So let's bring our community together.

Let's do Australian ballot and move forward.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Ken.

And Ivan Ashier here.

Microphones get in the work out.

Yeah, it is.

Uh Ken Faye, District 8 RTM member.

Um, I'm somewhat confused because we vote, we have one person, one vote already for the select board, and they do the policy.

And um, I think we had less than 30% or about 30% participation on a very contentious year that actually voted out two incumbents, which is amazing.

So you have a really contentious year, one person, one vote, and you only have 30% of the people participating.

What we're doing now, I think with this is arguing about the second level.

You have the first level, the people sitting at that uh table, and they do a budget, which come to think of it.

Uh we vote for representatives for the US.

I don't approve that budget.

They make the budget, I don't approve it for the state.

We rep we uh uh elect representatives.

They make a budget.

I don't approve that one either.

I I don't, I can't have a say on that.

You elect people to do the job.

We elect these people to do the job.

I think we're making a mountain out of a molehill between this um open town meeting or uh Australian ballot.

You you know the the actual real election is electing the people at the table.

Thank you.

Okay, uh Steve Patterson.

Steve, I can't hear you.

Hi, can you hear me now?

Great, thank you.

Um, actually, it's the previous uh commentator, uh it's perfect timing because I actually do believe there's a significant difference between open meeting and Australian ballot, and I'll tell you why.

And my background position is that RTM is not really representing people.

That a very nice testimony from the gentleman earlier indicating that he wasn't necessarily distilling people's desires in his district.

He was really voting for his own interests or goals or objectives or feelings.

Um I speak with agree that that there's some who listen, there are a lot who have narrow interests and are pushing specific agendas, often in a very organized way.

So we do need to return power to the people.

Um, one I'm concerned with open meeting.

We noticed when we had the RTM uh meeting um here in West Brattleboro about the safety ordinance.

A strategy was deployed by a certain faction to to at the very 11th hour bring in legal threats.

That had a completely destabilizing, chilling, blocking effect on the previous dialogue.

Everybody got cold feet, said we don't want to be sued, and that carried the day.

We also saw this strategy again deployed.

In a recent um select board when we were discussing homeless encampments.

In a recent um select board, when we were discussing homeless encampments, uh in was brought the ACLU at the 11th hour to make a legal threat that we know I think believe was hollow.

But this is not a tactic that we can be bullied by anymore.

I propose if you want to have an open discussion, great, but we must have it uh uh uh a period of time before an open meeting and the final vote so that these veiled threats, empty threats, and slick tactics can't derail true consensus.

So for that reason, Australian ballot, please.

And if you're gonna do an open meeting, fine, do it.

But give a week to clear the air about uh false false statements before people vote.

Thank you.

Ivan.

Then Frank, uh hello, Ivan Hennessey Bradlberg Vermont.

Millicent raised um an issue, which is that uh articles cannot be amended with the Australian ballot, which obviously makes sense.

There would be no process for that.

So if there's an article for zero funding for the human services budget in an Australian ballot, and that article is voted down, what happens?

Uh two.

There would be the select board uh if it's a a budget, well, I guess that would be if you have a specific article solely on that, but anything that's if it's voted down, it's voted down.

If it's a budget and which is a separate article, and that gets voted down, you then revise the budget, hold a public hearing on it, and then another vote, and you keep repeating that process until you get a budget.

But if it's a separate article by Australian ballot, and you either have a zero amount or one dollar or ten dollar or a hundred thousand dollars for human services, and that gets voted down, that's that's binding.

Thank you.

Um Frick.

Sorry, can I follow up with Bob real quick just to clarify?

So when you say it's voted down, yeah, let's say it's it's a separate article for something for a dollar, and the voters say no, then it's not funded at a dollar and also just goes away, right?

Correct, because that's separate from your budget article.

Okay, thank you.

There's a specific statute on how you repeat the process when a budget is voted down until you keep uh you keep doing it until you get a budget.

Yep.

Randy, you had a question on this legal question?

Um so if there is that separate article and it's for an amount and it can be voted down.

In a future charter change, is that part of the local charter or the state statute?

If you're with regard to this and you're voting on all things by Australian ballot, that would be in your charter because this ultimately we'd go to the legislature, depending on what the legislature does with it, uh it will be similar to the statute, but it will be a charter amendment if this vote uh passes.

Okay.

Hi, I I think uh Ken has a uh good point here, and uh I think uh deliberation and uh becoming informed and uh building consensus is overrated, and I think we should get rid of all of the deliberative bodies and not just uh vote up or down on the state budget uh by Australian ballot and uh how about our national budget as well.

Uh perhaps I mean you guys probably don't feel like sitting in the seats all these hours, and all of us here we spend hours uh sitting in joining you and uh supporting you.

Anyway, um obviously I'm joking.

As a long time RTM member, the vow the community building and consensus building process that happens there by people who've chosen to take the trouble to run and serve their three-year terms without knowing what's coming up in the upcoming town meetings.

I have found extremely valuable, and the fact that we are elected, even though the number of people who run is been give or take the number of people we've needed, and uh uh in recent years, if you missed the uh opportunity to run, you could get caucused in.

Um that's usually been uh a very easy process.

So uh the fact the idea that somehow RTM is less inclusive.

I think is uh factually incorrect.

Jen.

Oh wait, I'm sorry, Janet.

Uh look, I want to do Gary first and and then you and then you two on the front, and then we'll give uh Ivan one more shot.

Jackie and Nell and then Jackie now.

And then no one else wants to speak.

Okay.

Okay, so did Dick speak on this yet?

No.

No.

Okay.

So when everyone's done, Ivan gets a second shot.

Gary.

Thank you, uh, everyone else in the city.

I'm just trying to understand we do have informational meetings prior before our RTM keyword informational.

Uh there are videos on the town's website with Andy Davis explaining how it works.

Um if needed, we also have meetings from the district chairs at the library somewhere that's neutral.

For any QA's.

I've been out there walking the streets.

It's not just RTM people don't either know that exists, let alone committees for the town.

I mentioned committees.

Do you know we have a plan to commit?

What's that?

So my thing is You know, looking at both RTM and OTM.

The time that you're going to be spending, and people really like reading that book, and that book has gotten thicker over the years.

And if you looked at your history, I checked way back in time.

Landowners were the only ones that were able to vote at these town meetings.

We've come a long way.

And I feel that progress needs to be continued.

There is vested interest, but this is not information.

There is not knowledge.

There's not education.

Explaining to the people one-on-one if they need, like the gentleman said.

Um there's a lot to digest in that book.

And a lot of people don't have the time.

I mean, I could imagine the books that you have in front of you before you have to read before you become come to select board.

And either you know what it's entails the agenda or the article, or you don't.

But I think that's the main concern for me is people either RTM or OTM, will they know what their book once you make the vote, that's it.

OTM.

RTM we have time to discuss.

So I just think people should take time, take a step back, they could decide what it is they decide they want to go forward before they make any harsh or rational decisions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes, please.

Uh Janet Therese, um, I live in West Brattleboro.

I'm gonna repeat the same thing I said when I first heard about the Australian ballot, which is the one thing that we know, the only data point that we have is that RTM does not represent the population.

We have that from um we voted, I voted not on RTM, but as a as a citizen on whether or not I wanted the safety um ordinance in place, and I also voted um how I felt about the distribution of the human service budget.

Both of those differed from um the RTM.

I mean, there's no way of sort of sh sugarcoating it.

I I I hang out in the laundromat from time to time to do my laundry, um, and I chat up people in there, and they are not represented.

They feel defeated, they feel unheard, um, and they don't come to these meetings.

They don't they don't sit through them.

But if you had a process where everybody got a chance to vote, they care and they want to say something, they thought that they had these I'm really animated because the only data point that we have is that RTM does not represent the population.

It just doesn't.

The second thing is that we know that there are people in this community that want to speak out, and they are not able to.

Um the more I guess my final point, if I can put it sort of eloquently, I don't know if I can, but the more people think that they can influence the vote, the more they'll show up.

So if people during a particular election thought they really could get their voice heard, vote on something, and it would be it would be listened to, appreciated, that it counted, that vote would would we would have many more people coming out to to speak their minds.

Anyway.

So that's it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Janet.

Okay, so now uh Nell, Jackie, and Dick.

Hi, Mel Mayo District Date.

Um so many things to kind of put together in thoughts here.

But what an undertone of what I'm hearing is that people are frustrated when what their personal view isn't always carried forth through essentially, you could call it a representative body.

I don't actually think my understanding for why representative town meeting was employed was to ensure a basic quorum as opposed to open town meetings, such that you need at least 75 people there to pass articles, whereas open town meeting doesn't have that same burden.

So to me, that's a bit of a misunderstanding in terms of what the goal is for getting those districts.

They want a representation of people across town and they want an obligation of a certain amount of people to show up.

My personal feeling is again that we have a misunderstanding of the power balance when people say, Well, if you want your voice to be heard, come to the select board meetings.

We can come to the select board meetings, and the best we can do is attempt to compel you with our voice, and either the person who is elected is going to listen or not.

Through town meeting, we have a fail-safe if you feel so strongly such that your your view isn't represented through select board that we don't through Australian ballot.

And that is the power to amend articles.

And as we just heard from the attorney, we could go through the process of rejecting the budget over and over.

Ultimately, I would argue that would take much longer than the one 12-hour day for town meeting.

Um and frankly, I think that both this year and last year, whether or not the budget passes has been a relatively non-partisan issue.

There are people that are connecting over ideological lines that they wouldn't have on other issues.

Um I took notes.

I have to look at them.

You have nine seconds.

I feel that there is an obligation to participate in a participatory democracy.

And I ran out of time, but thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Um Jackie.

Uh Jackie Reese, District 9 rep.

So I'm listening to numbers flying around, and and one of them I heard was uh only 30% of the people come out to vote.

30% of the people is 3600 people.

I mean, 12, 24, 36, right?

So that's 3600 people.

It's a lot bigger than 120 or however many town reps we have.

And people talk about how people aren't if they want to affect something, they can come to these meetings.

We got 30 seats here.

We got some spillover, which is usually taken up by other town folks.

So I don't see how that makes any sense that this and the and the representative town meeting is better representative of all the people, then even if it's just 3,600 out of 12,000 who come.

It just doesn't make sense to me.

And as far as coming to these meetings, you know, I love coming to these meetings, and I don't always have time or the energy, you know.

Uh I don't even always have the time or the energy to do it on Zoom.

If I had a couple of kids or anybody else that I was taking care of, you know, this would go out the window.

So, and if I had, you know, a full-time job and then other responsibilities, the same thing.

You know, the people who come to these meetings are people who have the time.

And that's it.

I mean, everybody who wants to vote will vote.

There sure, there are plenty of people who don't, but you would have a lot larger number of people who would be voting on these items, and that's why I think that the Australian ballot is the way to go.

It's the only way to me to make this fair and not have things happen to us that we have no control over to our tax dollars and to us.

Thank you.

Okay.

Uh Dick, Robin, and then Ivan again.

Thank you, madam chairwoman.

Uh, before you start, can I just see hands of anyone else who would like to speak?

Because you know, we gotta move those cars tonight.

He wants to speak again.

You want to speak again?

Heidi wants to speak.

Heidi wants to speak.

Sue.

Heidi and Sue.

Madam Chair, I'm wondering, will there be time to take a break during the hearing, or are we going to wait till after the hearing?

Uh well, we generally take a break at eight, and that's 7:30.

All right, Dick, please.

Uh, for years, town meeting was really devoid of interested candidates.

We would have three of the districts with several six, seven, thirteen, pick a number.

Uh, not interested in in RTM.

And what happens, I heard someone say, Well, we caucus.

Well, when there's a caucus, what happens is you go out and recruit somebody who's a like-minded thinker, and that's not good for RTM.

When you have votes up here, three to two, four to one, I'm okay with those.

I don't need five, oh votes to say, hey, everything is wonderful.

I look for different points of view, and we haven't we don't get that at RTM.

We had a special meeting a year ago, and we had a lot of one issue candidates show up at the school up in West Brattleboro trying to become RTM members for that one issue.

Those aren't the people that represent the whole.

So that's not what I'm looking for.

That's not good for the town one issue, and that's what RTM has become.

One issue candidates.

Now I'm not sure if I'm looking for OTM, open town meeting, or Australian ballot.

I haven't come to that conclusion.

But I can tell you, I've been around RTM longer than most, not as long as some, and I have never felt that it has been a representative of the whole town.

And it has evolved since when I first got involved.

So I think you really have to think about it.

And when you look at, we do have an open town meeting right now, and it is the high school budget.

There's 14, almost 15,000 registered voters, and how many people go to that meeting?

And I feel that that's a potential for our open town meeting, that maybe the first couple years that we may get a high number of people showing up, but like anything else, I think it will die down.

And so that's what really scares me about open town meeting.

And I would agree with Jackie, I'd have to I'd rather have 3,000 people voting on the budget than 150.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Uh Robin.

Yeah, thank you.

Um I just wanted to bring up that I'm not sure if this point has already been made, but to move from a town meeting format, whether it's RTM or open town meeting, to an Australian ballot is diminishing the power of the voters because it changes what voters are able to do from adjusting the budget, giving feedback on the budget, increasing or decreasing specific articles to simply a yes-no vote on the budget.

And so if we were to vote no on a budget, like last year we voted no on the budget at RTM, and there was a a lot of discussion about why people were voting no.

So when the when the um select board reconvened with the and developed a new budget, they knew what everyone had been complaining about and what needed to be changed.

But if it's Australian ballot, they're not gonna know.

Did they vote it down because it had too much spending?

Did they vote it down because people wanted us to spend more on this specific area?

There's no feedback, and there's no power to the voters to have their their will be known about things that they want to change in the budget.

So all they can do is vote it down.

I I would strongly guess that if you switch to an open town meet uh switch to an Australian ballot, that is gonna result in more budgets getting voted down, and that can really cause delays that are tricky and troublesome for the town.

So I don't think that's the position we want to be putting ourselves in.

We have a lot more chance of passing a ballot that people are happy about if there is a mechanism for feedback and discussion and adjustments at the vote.

Thank you.

All right.

Heidi then Sue.

Heidi Fisher District 7.

I'm also an RTM rep as of last year.

And I'm totally open to changes in our system.

I think that's healthy, and it's healthy to have these conversations.

When I think about the Australian ballot version, the place I get stuck is we come to people who come to meetings or listen to Zoom meetings on Zoom, the select board meetings, or are in the conversations, have listened to a lot of different opinions and understand more of the nuance of the issue.

I don't quite understand how with a yes-no vote only, that people would really be understanding, and this is not belittling people's knowledge.

It's just they have if they haven't heard those nuances of the conversation, they may wind up voting a yes or no in a way that they don't really understand what they're voting for because they haven't heard those nuances.

So I'm curious what you guys would say about that.

And I mean, I'm I don't know where I stand with all this.

I'm open to hearing about it.

But I that is a big concern of mine, the just flat yes no without necessarily knowing the full story.

Thank you.

They want to address it.

Uh gentlemen, do you wish to address that comment?

You've been interrogated.

Go for it.

You go first.

No, you go first.

I I feel there's been a couple things to clarify.

Um Heidi made some good points as everybody has.

You have to remember we're talking about representatives in in two in one form and voters in two of the other forms that we're discussing.

RTM is a select group of, you know, people they were elected to represent people.

They're not voters in the seam of there's 9,000 and some voters, according to our town clerk currently in the town of Brattleboro.

The school board that Dick mentioned is a larger body in the community.

So when you say voters, 27, 28 percent of that 9,000 or something show up to vote in March typically.

That's historical.

70, 72 percent of those 9,000 something show up in August and November when there's federal seats on on the ballot.

So that's just telling you history is people think those elections are more important than our local election for whatever reason.

I get that people want to discuss, they want to amend, they want to do things.

And you know, but would they all want to do it?

I don't know.

That's why we should have an election and find out.

I believe that I've heard from numerous people when we've gone around getting these petitions and and uh going around just talking to people in general about what goes on.

They care way more about where our taxes are, where who's running the town is.

Um, and they think we've gone too far, and they want to be able to say yes or no on that.

So I don't have a final answer on what's right or what's wrong.

We're gonna have an election to figure that out because everyone has an opinion.

But I would remember there's representatives that are elected, and do they represent a larger body or not?

You know, Neil said no in some circumstances.

Other people, I know Gary, you know, we've talked a lot at different times, and I believe sincerely he goes around and asks his neighbors what they think so he can represent them.

But I still believe, after sitting through a lot of these meetings, a lot of charter reform meetings, that I rather have 9,500, 700, whatever the number is today, decide our town's issue than 150 at RTM, or whatever lower number might show up at OTM, because we won't have 9,700 or 600 show up there.

A, we don't have room.

Uh Tom.

Yes, thank you.

I I just like to say that the deliberation, the discussion, the amendment, all these things that are touted as benefits of either representative town meeting or open town meeting, face the same exclusion.

The people who can show up get to do that.

And it's very clear that the people who can show up are perhaps a special class and perhaps a minority of the town.

Let's take uh there are a lot of examples of barriers that we didn't touch on that I forgot to mention.

None of them exist in Australian or secret ballot because no matter what your job is, if you're an essential worker, if you're a first responder, if you're a busy parent, if you've got a job you cannot miss, you get an absentee ballot, and you vote in your own time.

If you're someone who has trouble understanding words going very quickly, or someone who thinks slowly like I do, it's better to be able to read them, read the ballot and decide what you're gonna vote on.

The um I think that we are a we are disenfranchising a vast number and unknown number of voters by requiring we do know how many di voters we disenfranchise, we effectively disenfranchise all but 135 voters when we have an RTM.

We effectively disenfranchise all but 135 voters when we have an RTM.

We have an open town meeting, we disenfranchise the voters who cannot get there.

And there are a thousand reasons you can't get there.

I how about a little I'd love to do a little uh poll of the room.

I've named I will name first responders, people who are on duty and can't get to a town meeting.

We sat around and we thought about it as a thought exercise.

Who else could we come up with that couldn't get to an open town meeting and may not get to vote on the issue they want, even if they got there.

It's all about whether or not it's about the barriers, the barriers to participation in our democracy.

And it's really important to me, and I I presume to all the 400 plus, close to 500 people who signed the petition, that we all get a chance to vote, and there's no um evidence.

I mean, there there are assertions that the uh town meeting format in um improves community and there, but there's no data that improves the outcome of the deliberations.

Being able to amend something on the fly, that's the worst way to edit anything is in a group.

I mean, I don't I don't know if you ever tried to group edit, but it's just terrible.

You're better off sending off one person on their own, and they edit it, comes back, and it's a lot better.

And I'll stop in because you didn't start the time, I'm sorry.

Uh that's fine.

Thank you very much.

Okay, what I see before me is yes.

Yeah, I oh I was making sure you saw her, sorry.

Uh what I want is just call on Sue.

Um I I'd like to know if anyone else wants to speak.

I see the people on the screen.

And and there are people who have spoken, and the second chance is for Ivan, Ken, and Steve, and they'll only have a minute.

Sue, would you like to begin before moving to uh Susan Bell Bell Brattleboro, um, before moving to Brattleboro as a permanent resident, I lived for 25 plus years in Guilford.

Open town meeting was how they conduct business, they still conduct business that way.

I my children were young.

I did not have the luxury of being able to attend open town meeting and have my voice heard because one of us, either myself or my husband had to stay home with the kids.

I was disenfranchised as a young person from participating in town government just because it was open town meeting.

Um when the kids got older, the town of Guilford decided to start offering child care services, so I was able to bring the children and pay for child care services while I participated in town government.

Um they knew I was not too far away, so oftentimes we got interrupted.

Um let's fast forward to now living in Brattleboro.

Um last about two years ago, I got a harsh reality check around health issues.

I have an arthritic right knee.

Um it took a long time to get on a good regime where I could move uh successfully without a huge amount of pain.

And in the middle of that uh process of getting stable, I um was a representative town meeting.

And sitting in the school gymnasium um was very, very painful and very uncomfortable.

Um the moderator uh didn't acknowledge me in numerous times when I had raised my hand to speak.

That was discouraging.

And then I had to use the bathroom with my arthritic knee, walking for seven minutes to get to the bathroom area.

That was really, really discouraging.

I don't feel that my ability to vote and have a say and how things are run in the town of Brattleboro should become a medical marathon of pain and discomfort, and I strongly support open to uh represent Australian ballot.

Australian ballot because it matters that people get out to vote and they have the right to do that.

Thank you.

Okay, so um before these three people have their second there's some is that someone new uh Gary was he?

Uh Bob Ozer.

Bob, you you get to be the last uh first uh voice.

Hello.

Um a lot of good arguments from folks.

Um the two that I felt that were compelled, or one correction, I think, that I I feel needs to be made.

We keep talking about representative as if it is representing.

And I think on the town website, the way representative town meeting is structured is that there's an equal balance of representation from the three different districts.

So that's what representative town meeting means.

You can take another meaning to it, but that's the one that apparently is in stone.

The other the other argument that I thought was compelling was the example of if there's an item on the ballot, which is uh say, for example, the uh one dollar for human services, and it's yes or no.

You don't know what that answer means.

Similarly, if it's the budget itself, and the only the only thing you can say is yes or no.

You have no idea what that means.

And so that means we're having another election, another election, another election.

Which is not cheap to do all the time.

So I just thought those were those are arguments that uh that was swaying.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, so um let's go back to Ivan for his minute.

Ivan Hennessey Brattleborough.

Um this article, which will be up for Australian ballot in March, is a demonstration of how Australian ballot drastically shifts power to the select board.

Um as they mentioned, there were two parts to it.

One of them has been removed, it's been offered up as an article by the select board.

Um it just illustrates that what you end up with on the ballot is determined by the select board.

You all have this extraordinary power all of a sudden to decide what's an option.

Um the people have a yes or no say, and that's it.

But the the voters aspect is a little less important than the fact that the select board just grabs this option for controlling the articles even more than you do already.

Uh Ken?

Madam Chair, could we have a point of clarification?

What was removed from I don't recall anything being removed.

The select board uh acted at the recommendation of the town attorney and the charter commission to put an element uh article on the budget saying shall RTM be I don't know what the discontinued right we took that out of these people's petition so that it would have the clarity and effect of of a local law and wouldn't have to go as the two petitions do, up to the legislature to the governor, and back down again.

Right.

So that when we vote to yes or no to rescind RTM, that can take immediate effect in our town.

Right.

And that was the point.

Right.

Thank you.

Ken.

Thank you.

I just wanted uh Ken Faye District 8.

I just wanted to uh confirm or let people know I'm really for RTM.

Uh I just think you know, this and if RTM went away, I would I'm for OTM.

Uh and this what I just don't understand, you know, talking about the disenfranchised.

Um were disenfranchised people with RTM when 27% of the people vote, that means there's 63% who are already disenfranchised.

And so to me, those are the people who uh uh you know who we need to talk to.

Uh they're already, you know, like they don't like this rain these reindeer games, and uh we're making it even worse.

Um so to me, I think we have to think about keeping it simple.

You know, what we have now, and also the RTM uh's up on all I'll go.

Madam Chair, can I just ask a question since it's our hearing?

Uh yes.

I I just want to understand who's disenfranchised if there's 9,000 and some voters, and 27 or 28 percent show up on average, and they all have the right to show up, but they chose not to show up.

That's that's their choice.

That's all I wanted to ask.

Okay.

Um what I'm gonna do is hear from Steve and Gary each for a minute, and then I'll ask the two petitioner parties to briefly uh wrap up.

Closing statement.

Okay.

So Steve.

Hi, um, I just wanted to comment a little bit further.

Um in terms of the um the uh open meeting um and issues around that.

I I I I know that with it with the RTM and with the acrimony that uh occurred around the vote for the safety ordinance.

I know that there was a frequent expression of intimidation, pressure tactics, boycotts, bullying um around that safety ordinance.

And for that reason, people didn't really feel truly uh free to express what they wanted or what they believed.

I think uh open meeting small town, everybody's very interconnected, and an open meeting presents that same problem and and in disenfranchises people specifically because of that.

I also think that there are ways around some of the RT uh the Australian ballot issues, um, maybe in terms of ranked choice voting or the way things are structured, or uh really let's lean into AI and synopsizing positions for quick reading before the vote happens.

I think there's a lot of ways around the issues with Australian ballot.

Okay, Gary, one minute.

Okay.

Quick and brief.

I just want to make sure also too.

Thank you, Randy, for that.

This uh the people that I do come in contact with, just to understand also you have a lot of new people that came up here that don't understand the town's operations along with people who are current people who live here that are steep-rooted to give them that understanding too, the pros and cons.

There was a great uh PowerPoint presentation you guys did, but I'm sure people are gonna want to know, okay, that's great, but we need to know more about OTM.

Is it similar to RTM?

Um listen to Sue Bevel mentioning about daycare.

There's a lot of factors of people who can't make it to your seniors and substrap.

So that just having probably a informational session in regards to that, and um letting people know and understand the pros and cons of what what it entails so you have they have a better understanding on how they're gonna vote and not just throw it out there and say, okay, I guess you know, because I have a hard enough time understanding my health care.

Imagine everybody else happened to figure this out.

Um so that being said, if there's something that you guys could put out there or have a meeting, that'll be great.

Thank you.

Okay.

Statement.

And um shall we shall we ask uh Milson, would you like to go first?

Yes.

I'm I'm having a little trouble with my screen.

Can you hear me?

See me?

Great.

Okay.

Um it's interesting to hear what everybody says.

And I I actually think that there are good things about every one of these systems.

Um, you know, there's a lot of people that have spoken about um the problem of influ, you know, a small group of people or trying to influence the vote.

And I really I think that's a problem with all of these systems.

And that's gonna that's also a problem with Australian ballot.

I mean, it's not like that's gonna solve that with Australian ballot.

What you have is um uh you have the uh the internet and social media, and we see what that has done to our national politics.

Um and I feel that um people do try to influence each other.

I mean, some people I think even run full for select board and try to in order to try to influence other people and influence other issues.

That's that's that happens all the time.

But in um in a in a in a face-to-face meeting, it's you know, people know when it's a little easier for people to tell when other people are lying and um miss you know, misinforming them.

People get challenged immediately on the floor.

Um I I'm actually gonna be voting um for RTM and OTM, and I I this isn't the meeting for this, but I want to make sure I think there's a lot of confusion about how the actual voting is going to work and how the voting rules work.

So at an you know, we have to make sure that that's really really clear, no matter what you want to vote for.

We have to really help people understand that.

But anyway, I think that um I think that RTM and OTM um are, you know, you're looking at people in the eye when you when you say what you think.

And I think that with Australian ballot, it too is vulnerable, but it's vulnerable to to social media misinformation, much more so.

Um anyway, I hope we I hope we make the right decision.

It's whatever.

Thank you, Millison.

Okay, one of you gentlemen, please sum up.

I'd like to sum it up with that there are plenty of chances for informational meetings, caucuses, district meetings, coffee with your neighbor, coming to a select board, joining a committee, going over and just talking to your neighbor and writing the select board, talking to the select board.

I've done it.

Everybody can do it.

Do they want to do it?

We have, I'm gonna use 9500 voters as an example.

You know, that's around 6,500 show up for when it's a national election, around 2700 are showing up when it's a March town meeting.

And that's their choice.

They're not disenfranchised, it's their choice.

So they didn't come, so they abstained, which we've had happen at select board meetings and at RTM meetings.

It's their choice, it's democracy, it's messy.

Everybody that's talked is right under our law, under our country, the way we think.

And I applaud that.

All we're trying to do, and the people that signed our petition want to do is have a say, not be second guessed, not be told we're gonna do this to you because you're one of them.

They just get to vote and move on, and we do our business as a town.

Please, no matter what you think, show up and vote.

All right, then I will bring the uh the hearing, the public hearing for charter petition one, Australian ballot, and for charter petition two, open town meeting to a close.

Madam Chair.

Yes.

A question.

What happens at the second?

Do we do this again?

Uh in a word, yes.

Another presentation.

And I well, it's it's up to you, but I think I think uh it's an opportunity to reach different people who may not have been able to hear it tonight.

And I think that's the point of having the two meetings.

So come on back.

Okay.

All right, now let's uh have a break.

How about uh until 10 after?

All right.

Uh thank you all for coming back to order.

Um so we're on to as we discussed, we've moved item B, and we are now at item C open meeting law refresher.

And I appreciate our our town attorney and assistant town attorney.

Okay.

Should we get Isaac?

Uh I'm sure he'll uh mosey in.

Would you like me to start or wait for him?

Does anyone see Isaac in the room?

Dave.

I guess you should be able to do that.

Let's just jump in because this is a good idea.

You should begin.

Seth, can you start our slideshow?

Um, so we were asked to to provide you with a little refresher on open meeting law and the rules around that.

Um so we've prepared a short um slideshow just to make it a little bit more digestible than putting it into a memo.

Um so the open meeting law is created um pursuant to the Vermont Constitution, which requires that um of uh government officials are accountable to the people they represent.

And so, in accordance with that power and that accountability, the um all meetings of the public body have to be open to the public, um except for executive sessions, and there's a couple other exceptions that we can get into.

And um, so Seth, you can go to the next slide.

A meeting is any time there is a gathering of a quorum of the members for the purpose of discussing the business of the body or to take an public action.

Um the business of the public body means the body's functions, including any matter over which it has supervision controlled jurisdiction or advisory power.

Basically, any time you're making a decision or discussing town business, um, if there is a quorum, then it qualifies as a meeting and needs to be in compliance with the open meeting law.

Next section And a quorum is three.

Sorry?

Quorum is three.

Correct.

For your board, yes, a quorum is three.

So there are a couple things that are not meetings.

I won't go through all of this in detail.

You cannot discuss any other business.

And all of those communications are public records.

You are also not considered a quorum if you were to all attend a social gathering, convention conference, training program, media event, or otherwise gathering, so long again as you do not discuss the business of the body that you think will become or something that you think will become business at a later date.

It also doesn't mean a quorum at a meeting of another body.

So if you were to all attend a committee hearing or appear before the legislature, you that would also not be considered a meeting as long as you don't take action on any business.

Next slide, Seth.

There's a couple different time frames for that depending on the type of meeting.

The agenda has to be posted for all meetings except for emergency meetings.

If you allow for public comment, you have to provide public accommodation.

You must record the meeting, and you must take and post the minutes of the meeting.

So the only times that a public body can meet in private.

But site inspections for the purpose of assessing damage or making tax assessments or abatements, clerical work or work assignments of staff or other personnel.

And deliberations in connection with a quasi-judicial proceeding, which is basically any time you are weighing evidence, taking testimony, and deciding something that affects the legal rights of one or more person.

And so the deliberations are the weighing and examining and discussing of the reasons for and against those decisions before you ultimately make the decision at a public meeting.

And the other main exception is for executive sessions.

Next slide, please.

So just a couple specific points to keep in mind.

You can't ever use them for discussion purposes.

So I would recommend against that.

Except again, in the situation of a quasi-judicial proceeding where if you were all working on a written decision together, that would be allowed.

Next slide.

So there are consequences for violating open meeting law.

There are both criminal and civil consequences.

The criminal consequence is it that if you are a member of a public body and you knowingly and intentionally violate the open meeting law, it is a misdemeanor punishable by a $500 fine.

And then the civil consequences, an action can be brought by the attorney general or anyone that's aggrieved by a violation.

They must first give you notice and give you an opportunity to cure, which you can do by ratifying or avoiding any action that was taken at a meeting that was not in compliance with the open meeting law and adopting specific measures to prevent future violations.

And adopting specific measures to prevent future violations.

And if it's not cured, then they could go file an action in civil in civil superior court.

And there is a chance that you could be subject to attorney's fees and litigation costs if they were to prevail.

Last slide, please.

So just to summarize the uh this is a way of ensuring that you are accountable to your constituents by making sure that all meetings are open to the public.

And any time a quorum meets to discuss the business of the public body or take any action, open meeting law applies.

Any questions?

Well, thank you very much.

I think I think kind of the um maybe you could discuss like serial conversations.

So the the issue with serial emails where it goes from one to another and then two or three people reply.

Essentially, if you do a reply all and it's not for scheduling or agenda setting, uh and you're discussing the business of the public body, that can be a violation of the open meeting law.

And in bringing this up and having this refresher, the whole idea is to make sure you don't do that.

It's pretty easy in today's world with social media, the reply all front porch forum to mistakenly uh uh violate the the law.

The the good news is there there is the safe harbor of ratifying it saying, hey, we made there have been times in the past where we have for you know a glitch in posting uh a warning and you ratify that at the next meeting, take steps to make sure that doesn't happen again.

All of that is is pretty good.

But we don't want you to inadvertently uh violate the law.

It's just better government if you comply with it right up front.

But uh my question was also kind of um you know, like telephone tag.

You know, like I'll talk to one member, but uh and I I could talk to the long as you're having a conversation with one other member, that's okay because that's not a quorum.

But I can't I can't tell another member what the first member said.

Um typically yes, there can be that's the tricky part.

That's the tricky part.

Um you generally don't want to do that.

But there's not a prohibition of you calling individually each select board member so long as that phone conversation is only the two of you and not three.

So the problem comes in when you tell one person what another person said, because then that's that serial, that's no different than a group chat.

Well, thank you.

I think could you speak more about the uh front porch forum posts?

I understand what the concern is, but what are the things that members of the select board could do to, besides not posting and not using that tool.

What are the things that could be uh steps that could be taken to mitigate mitigate any risk?

You are absolutely free to post on front porch forum.

It's just that you need to be cautious if there is a an ongoing dialogue amongst multiple people that not there are not more than three members of this board chiming in on that dialogue.

So if you're posting something and disseminating information and that's it, that's perfectly fine.

About a vote that has been about the vote that was taken or about um a particular like an opinion on an issue.

It's just the issue is if I if if Amanda posts on front porch forum and then um theater uh then his time, then I shouldn't then chime in my and then I start chiming in, that's when it starts being an issue because then it's just kind of a conversation.

That's the real concern.

Right, yeah.

It's really when you're you're all collectively discussing uh an issue that you should be discussing here.

Gotcha, thank you.

Isaac Oscar.

Um just to clarify.

So I I chaired two town committees before this that are subject to the open meeting law, and even having done that, this stuff still gets confusing for me sometimes to understand the part about serial conversations just so people listening understand because it's been confusing for me in the past.

The idea is that you can s we could sort of simulate a full board discussion by just talking to each other individually, and I could talk to Liz and say, should we do this, and then go to Isaac and say, Liz says we should do this, and I agree, and then bring that information to Fish.

And I'm just talking to everyone one-on-one, but we've sort of simulated well, we've had a discussion and reached a decision, but it was all in private.

And that's the key thing to avoid in those scenarios.

Is that it's not only making a decision, it's having the discussion.

Right, exactly.

So it's both.

Right.

But yes, you you just have to to make sure that you're not collectively sharing your opinions on this.

But for example, let's say because if I'm wrong on this part, I'd love to know.

Um let's say there's some issue, we're gonna you know, buy a new vehicle, and I feel strongly about it.

I can individually talk to each other member of the board and say, I Oscar think this is a bad idea, right?

That doesn't have any open meeting law implications.

Right.

The the issue is when you say, I think this is a bad idea, and Isaac thinks so too.

Right, because now quorum of us.

And then you go to l then you're basically speaking for two of you by sharing his opinion in that conversation.

Great.

Okay, thank you.

Anyone else?

Anyone with the public?

Gentlemen.

Um, yeah, I have a question for the town attorneys, if that's okay.

Yes.

Um I'm curious if um because there are restrictions on electronic communications.

Is there any way for a warned meeting to take place electronically, say through a text forum, where that meeting would essentially remain open um so that discussions and deliberations could take place on an asynchronous basis without having to go through the formal process of opening and closing a meeting.

Well, you have to be able to record it and take minutes and provide for public participation, so an asynchronous conversation would be difficult to achieve.

That's why I'm specifying it in like a text forum, um, where there would automatically be uh a full text record of it.

I think that there might be public accommodations issues with that as well.

Yeah.

And and the warning of it for a particular time and date and and location.

But so uh perhaps technology on our legislature will someday get there, but for right now, we're we're constrained.

That's why I'm asking, because this area of technology is actually my specialty and it's something that I want to work on so that we can improve our communications in in our municipal and state politics.

Thanks.

Gary I just wanted to ask in regards to that, since we have a huge social media platform, not just here but abroad, when you're dealing with front porch foreman is replies, but there's no way to BCC, because you could BCC someone and still not be considered having a open meeting, correct me if I'm wrong with that.

And secondly, if you're meeting somewhere in a tea room or somewhere like that, I mean there's no buffers, there's no way of knowing.

So that being said, even with AI saying, uh uh, no, you can't do that.

We haven't created anything in that sense.

How do you know?

I mean, they say discretion is the better part of valor.

Uh be able to know yourself if you're not violating that particular open meeting law.

I'm sorry, I don't really understand the question.

Well, if you go on, if you go on report form, is on reply.

There's no BCC, so I can't be C C so even on i Bratterborough.

If you go on there, you're replying to someone's rebuttal or editorial, or whatever's being said, there's that conversation of that string going on it.

Doesn't that consider as to that negate that being an open meeting of people discussing the same topic?

Just to be clear, it needs public body to discuss the public business a quorum.

So if individual people are responding, that's not an a meeting.

Um and BCC does not get around open meeting law.

You can't just BCC and think that doesn't count.

Okay, because I've only sended BCC, so that way you're not saying everybody's replying back all.

That does help with that, but the the initial sending of a BCC does not not make it a it's still another member having knowledge of what you said.

Right.

Correct.

Okay.

Right.

Um Oscar.

Yes.

Well, okay.

I'll hopefully I'll remember my second question, but my first one is okay.

So my uh my point to Gary and just again to confirm that the reason there could be a problem in the comments of let's say an I Brattleboro are uh uh um article is because if three or four or five of us get in there and argue with each other, we're essentially having a discussion in an unwarned unwarranted setting.

And particularly if we get to the end of it and say, like, oh great, we all agree now, we'll take this action.

We've violated the public's right to know what's going on.

Um haven't thought about this in a while, and I haven't uh you know taken advantage of this, but I my understanding from my committee days was that it was really the um the reply to the first email that really got you into that dangerous discussion territory.

So for example, if I wanted to say to the finance committee, uh here's my latest draft for you to look at for tomorrow's meeting and send it to the whole committee a quorum, as long as nobody replied to the group and started a group discussion that that was fine.

Yeah, disseminating information for a meeting is one of the exceptions.

Great.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, are we good?

I want to thank you both very much.

All right.

Uh let's see.

Item uh D.

Revised FY27 Select Board General Fund budget.

John, take it away.

Yes, thank you.

Um so at the board's January 22nd meeting last Thursday, a motion passed to approve the budget with three changes, putting recycling and compost back in the budget, eliminating the finance clerk half position, and taking the human services budget to zero.

At that meeting, I calculated a rough number on the fly while we were here, which is lower than what staff have subsequently recalculated as the total expenditure.

This uh this discrepancy had to do with sort of the complexity of taking out and putting in all the elements related to the three streams of solid waste and adjusting the bag prices and all that.

Um so for transparency, I'm bringing a revised budget back to the board for confirmation and approval before we tell publish the town report.

Um last Thursday, I had um said that the solid waste put back would be an addition of 577,682 dollars when we recalculated it with all of the um workforce model being run and the staffing and everything put back in, it came at 701,762.

That's what's in your packet.

Um as I mentioned in my uh comments earlier, uh Pete Lun Pete Lynch looked at this and he came up with uh a way to um reduce the solid waste put back further.

And um I I believe he'd be available to share that thought with you all tonight.

Um there is a updated budget that you have at your desks, and there's also some copies that Seth has over at the side table, which would make that solid waste put back be about a little more than 100,000 less than what was recalculated, so it would be $600,102, um, which gets you to a total FY27 budget of $27,408, which um would result in the need for uh property tax um increase over FY26 of uh $1,244,592, which would be a 6.3% uh increase on the current taxes.

Um happy to uh answer any questions about that.

Um or if you would like to hear from Pete about his thoughts on how we found an additional savings on the solid waste side.

Well, I think it's important to hear from Pete.

Is it uh everybody agree?

Yes, thank you, Pete Good evening.

Good evening.

Thanks for having me this evening.

Um I'm happy to talk about how we came to the difference in the number, or I'm happy to cut straight to the solution, whatever your preference.

I vote for the solution.

Okay.

So we once again we took another hard look at the solid waste budget, all three streams to see if there was anywhere that we could find additional savings.

And while this is becoming terribly difficult at this point to come up with something, um we discovered that if we were to um defer the automated recycling pickup, that's the truck that picks up from the carts on the street.

If we were to defer that and continue with manual pickup for a period of five months at the beginning of the fiscal year, that we could realize about a hundred thousand dollars savings, and I'm happy to go through line by line and discuss what those are.

But in their totality, it comes to about a hundred thousand dollars, and that would have little or no effect on the user base as we see it today.

It would be exactly the same on July 1st that it is right now, and the transition to carts with automated pickup would um happen five months from then.

And we've we've begun to enter into uh conversation uh with all the parties that would be effective, and we think this is going to be a positive outcome if you so choose to do it.

Super.

Any questions for Pete on the board?

Um I have no questions, but gosh, I really thank you for taking the time working through the weekend, um John said to get it done, and also the delay on the carts.

It's great news to me.

We should appreciate finance too.

They were heavily involved in that.

Thank you, Finance.

Anyone else?

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah.

I not about this, but I might as well say I think we you know, the more we can do our job without eager without ego and with humor, the better.

So we might as well recognize that on Thursday Kate told us that we should wait for a revised budget to come back, and we voted for it anyway, and now here we are.

So Kate's in the audience.

Thank you, Kate, and thank you for your email reminding me with the smiley face earlier today.

Isn't that nice?

She told me in person, basically.

Unapologetic.

Was there a smiley face?

No, no, no.

Okay.

Well, and uh, you know, we all have can have stickers that say I told you so, but we're uh trying to work together here.

And I think um it was I I think it was important for us to make the decisions that we made last week, and then also important for us to see uh you know that that brought out.

So um let's um let's have you stay there for a little while, Pete, and then uh we'll see if members of the public well, and first of all, is there anyone who wants to interrogate John on the on the budget refinements as a whole on the board?

And then we'll seeing none, let's uh see if anyone from the public has comments on either the final budget as a whole or um Pete's particular uh area of interest.

Go right ahead.

I see Heidi and then Dick.

I was trying to Heidi Fisher District 7, just a question for Pete, but I'll direct it to you.

Um except I can't see you because this is totally in my login efficient.

Uh so by delaying the carts for five months, I think you said saves us a lot of money.

Can we delay the carts period and longer and not have to pay extra money?

Let's let's ask uh Pete, you know, obviously this is part of the negotiations and we've been delaying and delaying and delaying.

So what do you think our our contractor uh will bear?

Uh so this has been part of the discussion since last March, and uh we were quite grateful to um to be able to eliminate the carts from trash pickup.

Um we worked really hard to get to a point where we were down to one cart at each household.

our our contractor uh will bear uh so this has been part of the discussion since last March and uh we were quite grateful to um to be able to eliminate the carts from trash pickup um we worked really hard to get to a point where we were down to one cart at each household and um while we were can continue to do our best to um put together a final contract that will work for everybody I'm not sure at this point that um the total removal of carts is is going to happen so uh I would imagine that you would say that this is um something that is yet to be negotiated but certainly um we can put this to rest for at least for a little while before we start deliberating again correct thank you uh Dick you have comments thank you uh madam chairwoman I think uh what's happening here just underscores the fact of how important it is to have a finance director sitting here I'm not sure why we didn't have Ms.

Batchelder here last Thursday uh assisting us and assisting John so and the other thing that I brought up uh a couple of months ago or a month ago is this gentleman over here to my left uh it's great to pat somebody on the back but not giving him a stipend for all the work that he's done for this community he is uh he deserves something and you should amend this budget and put some sort of stipend in this budget for all the work that he's done for the town in the past year thank you all right is there someone online oh we have uh Millicent and Fidel I assume that that's David so uh who's first David is first David was first okay David I'm district nine um I certainly cannot object to the idea of saving a hundred thousand dollars in the coming fiscal year but as Hardy's question suggested that hundred thousand dollars is going to come back next year and so uh the challenge will be for the next select board to uh be really tough on the budget from the get-go.

Thank you Millison thank you um can you hear me okay um yeah um and thanks to John and team for again for um all that work I could tell um on my end how much work was going on it's really intense to do that much in this short of a time from the last select board meeting um I oh I am um asking this in my role on the finance committee um yesterday yesterday evening um our committee looked at the new budget version um that is being shared tonight and we have a question um there is appears to be a discrepancy of two million twenty two twenty two thousand eight hundred and eighty nine dollars when you compare the total town revenues for fiscal year twenty six actuals that appear in the general fund budget versus those same actuals that appear in the finance report five months on ending November so I can if you want I can point out the pages and where you could find that exactly I don't know if you want me to give you that now but um the general fund budget says total revenue actuals for for FY26 of 24 million six hundred thousand plus and the finance report says twenty two thousand uh twenty two million twenty two thousand plus for the same um data point so just you know wanting wondering why those numbers are different um yeah and John do you want to answer that now or do you want to uh sure I can speak to um so uh the numbers is the actual numbers are calculated on the fly out of open gov so they are uh up to date to through January 22nd 2026 and you're comparing those against numbers that are through the end of November 2025 so between November to the end of January we've had additional revenues come into the town and those are reflected in the new numbers the as you've been two million dollars there's been two million dollars of revenue and that's that revenue shows up on open job okay okay up to the minute I'm assuming that would come from without having found it that would come from like a big chunk of rooms and meals tax or a payment of that type yeah okay and those those numbers have not been checked yet but they're what the system is showing so there sometimes uh corrections that are made before

Okay.

Oh to the minute.

I'm assuming that would come from without having found it, that would come from like a big chunk of rooms and meals tax or a payment of that type.

Yeah, okay, a program.

And those numbers have not been checked yet, but they're what the system is showing.

So there's sometimes uh corrections that are made before uh Bonnie publishes her monthly report to you.

So all right.

So are there further comments?

Are there yes, sir?

I was unable to attend the last meeting when a lot of the waste stream discussions were happening, and I know there was talk about keeping recycling and compost out of the budget.

And I just have to say this, because I guess you know I've gone to a lot of select board meetings.

I went to the informational session at the library, and the select board for a long time has been discussing what a financial crisis we're in as a town, and to keep I'm don't know the numbers off the top of my head, five hundred thousand dollars for recycling and compost, curb site pickup, which everyone claims oh we got the Cadillac of the waste stream in Vermont.

Well, we can't afford a Cadillac anymore, and I just can't understand why we have to make a decision to have curbside recycling and compost where it's just as easy to spend fifty dollars on a sticker to go to Wyndham Solid Waste.

We can't please everybody in town.

I know certain people might not have a vehicle or this or that we can't please everybody, and we know what's gonna happen at town meeting.

Human resources is gonna come back in for another $500,000, and you know the tax rate, you can throw this out the window because it's just gonna jump.

Thank you.

Um someone like to make a motion, sure.

Oscar.

I move to approve the revised FY27 general fund budget and capital plan as presented.

Thank you.

Uh John, do we have to specify as presented from this hot off the press version?

Is there some way to uh differentiate that?

Uh so it's the one I described to you.

I uh read the numbers of the total budget off, and um it would be in the record.

Okay, very good.

Yeah, all right.

Um Oscar has moved to approve the revised FY27 general fund budget and capital plan as presented this evening by John Potter.

Um all select board members in favor of this motion, please raise your hand and say aye.

I all select board members not in favor, please raise your hand and say no.

No.

Okay, that's uh four to one with uh Isaac being the one.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Peter.

All right.

Uh let's see.

Um the next item is town audit town audit update.

Yeah.

And uh yeah, I had actually wanted to speak to that.

Um the budget?

Yeah.

We've is this the time to do it, or should I do it at the beginning of the next meeting?

If anyone had any comments on the budget before I lend it out to the public.

I do have comments, but if you prefer I can wait till the next meeting, it's not a problem.

Okay.

Um Seth, is Bonnie on the on the line.

No, okay.

Um I wasn't sure if she was gonna join us, so I will do this one.

Okay, very good.

All right.

So we've been struggling to find an auditor to do the FY25 uh audit and single audit.

And the town has sent three rounds of requests for proposals out.

And um the first two rounds went un unanswered.

We had nobody responding or even asking questions about it.

Uh we tried a third, a third attempt, which uh the responses were due last Friday before we published this information, and we um fortunately got one response, and uh that came in Friday before the end of the day.

And the quote that we got was good for FY25, FY26, and FY27.

And the proposal meets our requirements, and the auditor that responded can begin the end of April or early May.

Um we would be able to have our audit done by the end of the fiscal year and then be on target for the FY26 audit starting in the normal time that we now have uh an auditor on board.

Uh we will bring that contract for you to approve, but um essentially it looks like we do now have an auditor, which is fantastic.

Um we will uh comply with reporting requirements in the town report.

We'll have um but we'll have uh Bonnie's firm draft the financial statements for the government uh all the government fund statements to be included in that report, but they will be marked as unaudited, they will be good numbers, they just will uh not have had an independent third party review of them, which this now this successful RFP will be able to allow us to do that um by the end of the fiscal year.

So that is the update on the town audit saga, and um I'm be happy to try to answer any questions that you have about that well congratulations.

It does sound like a saga.

Are there anyone from the slide board who would like to make comments?

Just that that's great, and that I thought we would be getting a less happy update today, so this is great.

Yep.

And will you repeat when the auditor for hire will start the work again?

Will you repeat that one more time?

Yeah, the the end of April, early May.

So a lot of our issues in finding someone was that everyone's engaged already and they have multi-year contracts with other towns, and um I I learned in this process that there are a number of other towns who are in the same boat, and they are they've been unable to find auditors as well, so we're not unique.

Um it's just uh I I would suggest anyone in high school or college who wants to get into a nice business.

This would be one to do because uh this is also gonna cost us more than we normally have been paying for this.

So and how long will the process take once it's initiated?

Two to three months typically, depending on their other obligations.

And is it a contract or is the person paid per hour?

It is a contract, it's a lump sum amount, and they will be that they come to our offices, they go through all the books, they ask random questions, they pull files, that kind of thing, just to make sure that they've got our standards and the sign off on it.

So in previous meetings you mentioned that but Bonnie's going to prepare um prepare documents so they're really efficient, they're ready to go in efficient, which will save time for the auditor.

Does do we see any cost savings with those efforts that she's gonna engage in?

Um no, we didn't.

Okay.

Just to make sure I understand.

So we're we will essentially be offering a three-year contract to do the current outstanding audit, the budget year that we're in, yeah, and the budget that we just approved.

Correct.

Yep, great.

Yep.

Gentlemen to my left.

I'm happy.

I'm happy that you're happy.

I mean if you can be happy about auditors, I just do.

Oh, thank you.

Town manager Potter.

Okay, so uh anyone who makes from the um public need want to make a comment about the uh arrival of an auditor.

Great.

All right.

Shall we move on?

Um, the 2026 warning for annual town meeting and representative town meeting.

John, you want to present this?

Yeah, so you discussed this at your last meeting.

You you discussed drafts of these at your last meeting.

And um in your packet, uh, I I wasn't totally clear on the direction for how to order things on the RTM warning.

Um so I I brought back two versions of that with the uh articles in slightly different orders for you to consider the but first your attachment A in the backup is the annual town meeting warning, which has your article on discontinuance of RTM plus the two uh charter petitions that you heard about earlier this evening.

That is not changed.

Um I would hope that you could adopt uh adopt that tonight.

The um actually I hope you adopt both of these tonight because we really need to get them warned, but um the second the the other uh warning is for the representative town meeting, and you'll see uh that there are two versions that I supplied you.

Um has uh has the the first one version A has your what that's on page 90 uh has all of your sort of um town discretionary articles following the budget article.

So article five in this one is your budget article, then um, as you requested, I put uh an article six in here that addresses the human services budget.

You you have it in you you have the human services in at zero in your budget currently, but in order to put an article on the warning that the town attorney um suggested that we we start with the sum of of one dollar um because you can't really put a zero dollar article on the warning.

Um so we did that, and then also moved the three um exemption articles that you did also discussed at your last meeting uh following following the budget as well, and then version B, which is on page 92, has the same 14 articles or 13 articles, I guess, 13 articles in it.

Um they're all the same ones, they're just in a different order, and in this particular case, the um exemptions and then the one dollar article on the human services committee all come before the uh budget article, so it kind of um just separates it in that order.

And um yeah, I'm happy to answer any questions about that.

If you do motion on this, it'd be helpful to know which version you want to do for the RTM work.

Okay, so just before we start, we have version A, version B, and this one that you handed that it would be C.

There is um a board member approached me about uh possible third version, which we drafted that um was Peter and um we drafted that version also for your consideration is not in the backup.

There are copies that Seth has over on the table, and there is a copy at each of your desks.

So should I start with that motion and then we can uh begin to drill into it?

So um I'm gonna motion that we accept uh version A of this, and then I want to speak to this.

Um I'm gonna motion that we we accept A and strike Article 6 from the articles, and that gives us this, right?

And that gives us that that new place now.

That that is my motion.

Um I will now speak to that motion.

Please so the the idea of of sort of what happened last year um in the process was we failed the budget, um, and then added a half a million dollars back into a failed budget.

And then added a half a million dollars back into a failed budget.

To me, that feels sideways.

That feels upside down.

That doesn't feel right.

So what I am hoping to do is to have this conversation about the human services budget from the floor during the budget process so that we can restore funding to the human services based on the will of RTM or OTM or whatever we end up with.

Um about budgeting responsibly.

That mechanism here, that mechanism here allows us to put a number back into the budget that is workable that that the town can survive on, that the town can say sustain.

The five of us here or who whatever body sits up here are the people who is who are responsible directly for putting this budget out to RTM.

Um and if we don't have that control over that number or some say or influence over that number, it really I'm discovering after my third going on my fourth go-around with with getting budgets approved, um finding and seeing that as being sort of really being handicapped a little bit.

So my proposal, my my motion tonight wouldn't strike the conversation, it would move it into the budgeting line item for conversation and consideration, but I would want that to happen, and I would want RTM or OTM, whatever we end up with, to make that distinction with the understanding of what the final consequences are, and not failing a budget because of one reason only to add this massive amount back into the other end.

So that is my reasoning behind this.

Great.

Uh do any of my colleagues want to speak to Peter's motion?

Thinking.

Well, I think Peter's motion has a lot of merit.

I think that um the idea of consolidating um the discussion into the general budget would allow for an open forum to the for the same purpose versus one version of approving the general fund budget by the body, the the town meeting, and then having human services budget afterwards, which would change the amount of everyone's tax bill.

That was one version, or the opposite, doing human services first and then the general budget.

I think combining them, it makes a lot of sense.

And it it after hearing the public hearings about what the body's deciding, it consolidates it into one uh process, which I think is understandable, and I think it's clear, and I think it's kind of brings people together better to have that discussion.

So that that's my perspective.

Yeah, I mean uh I would agree because you know, um right now it's a a disjointed and um you know people have said to me that that this issue is just tearing the town apart, you know, the the goodwill versus you know the the fiscal responsibility is um we need to have that conversation at one time and and discuss it together so that the people who are are advocating for human services are directly engaged in the entire budget discussion, and and that the consequences are directly related um to what whatever decisions are being made and um and not in this um I mean you know we had so many daggers over our head last year when the budget was voted down, but one thing was clear that whatever it is that we did, there was another half a million dollars that needed to be tacked on to it, and um this way, Peter's way is a way to have.

And not in this I mean, you know, we had so many daggers over our head last year when the budget was voted down.

But one thing was clear that whatever it is that we did, there was another half a million dollars that needed to be tacked on to it.

And this way, Peter's way, is a way to have a discussion that's that's of a whole cloth.

I see.

Yeah, I I understand the sentiment and the the concerns that this proposal attempts to address.

Um I have two concerns about it.

One is that we already basically decided this last whenever we had our last meeting.

Um that's why version A is what we discussed and decided on.

And so I think it it after the board voted to in a very close vote devoted to move that human service funding to zero.

Um we said, okay, well we'll we'll keep this article on here to allow for that separate discussion.

This I believe is going to prompt two town meetings this spring.

Because it's hard for me to imagine that town meeting, whether it's representative or open, is going to accept zero dollars for human services after having advised us as a select board to have two percent of the budget, which would be over half a million dollars.

Half a million dollars to zero dollars is a huge jump.

So I would suspect that town meeting would say, no, we're gonna put in we're gonna um um amend this budget and say we want more money and advise for that human service spending to be greater.

And then what would happen is I believe the next select board would then have to take this budget and would have to redo the budget, could take that advice and do what they like with that advice, and then there'd have to be another town meeting to approve that.

So we'd be repeating what we just did last year.

And we just heard a bunch of people say they don't want to have town meeting anymore.

And now we're talking about essentially guaranteeing two town meetings this spring.

So I think the wise thing to do if we want to have an efficient process is to leave version A.

If you want to do version B at switch the order of the articles, that's fine.

But we need to be able to have this discussion and and I hope that we can work at what the charter revision committee has come together, or the commission has come come up with and think about how we make these decisions.

But to completely wipe out the human service funding from the budget and then take out this article that we've just added in.

Um I don't think that's headed in the right direction.

I think you want to clarify I well, I yeah, I'm I'm I'm a little confused.

I'm not my I'm I'm not avoiding the conversation around the human budget, around the human services budgeting.

I'm basically saying I want it moved up to where we actually discuss the budget.

And and if town meeting chooses to put money back in, then that's where we do it.

It's not I'm I'm not I gotcha, but then we have to come back again to the 1010 town meeting then has to come back and approve that budget, doesn't it?

No.

They can vote on it from the.

Oh, because last year they just outright rejected it.

Yeah, they outright rejected it, then tacked in on a half a million dollars after rejecting a budget.

And I mean, would when you so you can have propose an amendment to the budget.

Mr.

Landry could propose to cut the solid waste.

I still think it's I think it's we risk then getting the whole budget rejected more by having um by not by changing this process.

Oh, so no, no, no, I I interrupted you, I apologize.

Um, I I mean I see it differently.

I see um uh somebody Jem, I'm just gonna use you because you've been vocal about it.

Uh Gemma stands up and says, I we're gonna add two percent back into the budget, but we're having that conversation.

We're looking at whatever the the number is, and we're saying, so we're the proposal is to add what uh X number, 500,000 into the budget.

We're doing that during the budget.

We we get the human services down to the original proposed 250,000, and um, and and that's what we have in.

But now we've done that collectively, and that's the number that everybody has the buy-in to.

And then we can take that and say, okay, we're all comfortable with this.

This is going to be the final number, this is the impact on the municipal tax.

Can we approve to approve this?

Yes.

It all happens in that conversation.

That's all.

I'm not, you know, again, I know there's been uh, you know, I've I've I've I've heard from a few people about um about my proposal.

Um my proposal was not this callous, harsh thing to make sure that nobody got funded.

Uh it was a way to help us sort of streamline the process, get the buy-in that we need, um, and and get people to understand that budgeting process a little better.

So if we separate these two conversations, then it it becomes this thing that's unwieldy.

Now, during the next year, we do need to come up with a better mechanism, I do believe, and I and I would like to see us sort of settle on a flat number that we know going into the next budgeting season.

I think that that's a little bit more responsible.

So I does that clear anything up for you.

Does that make you feel any different about it?

It's helpful to understand that reminder of the process.

I I didn't see this this wasn't part of the factor that I got ahead of time, so I'm just kind of digesting this thing that I thought we had decided last week.

Yes, we all are.

Yes.

Oscar, do you have a comment?

Sure.

Um I don't know.

I I the more I think about this, the I just I don't think it's a life or death decision town meeting.

There's a lot of institutional knowledge there, people are pretty savvy.

We already know people who know are gonna make an amendment about this if it's in the general um budget question.

The conversation's gonna happen.

Um my two reservations and they're small are this does feel like another little way in which we're just kind of tugging something else out of RTM's hands, which we've doesn't feel great.

I actually Oscar, we're tugging what I didn't catch.

Oh, just so in the spring, RTM voted on a number, and now in this year we're saying actually we think it should be different, even though you directed us, and now we're saying this was its separate article with the where people could have the separate conversation, but now we're gonna put it in with it just it feels like another case, a small case where we're saying actually RTM we know best.

Um people made comments last time about the select board needs sort of more control over that process and taking control.

I don't really want to do things that go that direction.

I don't think that's your goal.

Um so that's one reservation, it's a small one.

The other small reservation is just we know this fight is coming, we know it's gonna be uh protracted.

It seems kind of nice to have it in a separate place.

Nobody's gonna be confused and think it doesn't go into the budget.

Instead, we're gonna do it as part of it's gonna be one of probably several amendments in the main budget article, and we're gonna have somebody, probably John, with a pad of paper saying, okay, we put this much back in here, so the tax rate was this, and now this new amendment wants to do this other thing, and now we have a third amendment.

I kind of feel like we're making our lives more difficult.

So yeah, I don't know.

I don't feel strongly slightly leaning against, but not in an upset way.

Yeah, again, I to me, if it's it's right in on the budget line, it's more inclusive.

It involves everybody.

Uh if we separate it out, it is just going to involve the people who are interested in funding human services.

This will include everybody, those who maybe want to fund human services at a lower level, maybe want to fund human services at a higher level.

So the idea is that we come collectively, regardless of what body meets, discuss this thing, and honestly, just feel good about it and know what the consequences is and the impact is instead of just going, okay, we we've failed the budget, let's add money back in.

Or we've passed the budget, let's add money back in.

It just feels upside down to me to not know what that final number is when we are finished with the budgeting conversation.

And we can sure do do the math on the fly and say it's two percent and then work it back in.

But I think that's sort of like deep breath, we got it.

You know, exhale, we don't have it because we have to add this back in, and that's going to have this impact.

So I'm just trying to make it a little bit more of a cohesive process that has everybody who shows up having buy-in and and some piece of making the decision, and that's been a lot of what's been discussed uh tonight, um, making a decision on our town budget and our future town budget.

So that that is my that that is my proposal.

I think that's a uh reasonable.

And we're gonna feel good about it, Peter.

I'm sorry.

You said we were gonna feel good about it?

We're gonna feel great about it.

Okay.

I I agree with Peter in that the time is now, and I think all of us at this table agree that we have to minimize the amount of inherent conflict that we are experiencing within our community, the way we govern the way we sit at this table.

Um, and that if this is a step towards integrating people of many different opinions and interests to sit at the same table to be able to have a conversation about what they want to see in this budget rather than a structure that's bringing um bringing arguments.

Um arguments are fine, but bringing discord.

Uh we we just got to come together.

Um this conversation could be followed by a motion out of the select board to appropriate funds to human services just here at this table, even that would come into the budget.

You know, it doesn't have to be the zero that we ended the last budget with.

So I'm just throwing that out there that that that's a possibility that we could even do at this table.

You mean for FY27 or for next year?

Like next year.

No, for FY27, we could we one of us could make a motion to appropriate to appropriate.

Okay, well, let's make it.

So those are so these are all options that for us as a select board, but I think that Peter brings a really great idea.

Okay, so let's just just keep with the motion at hand for the time being.

And and the the thing that I like about it the most is is that it it takes people out of their silos and and has this unified discussion, which I think there's tremendous amount of merit and goodwill towards.

But um, shall we hear the myriad opinions that there are in the community about this matter?

I'm gonna start with the people, yes?

I'd like to hear from the Charter Review Commission folks, if they I know this is a surprise, um, but if they are interested in speaking to this, I would be interested to hear because they mentioned they have been working on the process.

Yes, they have, and I think some of us who are familiar with the charter changes know what they have been draft, but again, you know, uh they're on hold right now, and I I'm sure if Kate has something to say, she will say it.

So let's uh open it up to the public and for a change of pace, let's start with the people online.

David Lovembach, District 9.

Uh I'm in the unhappy position of agreeing with some people that I generally disagree with.

Uh, but I think it only makes sense to talk about the human services as part of the entire budget.

I'm not particularly sympathetic to the argument that charity brings at home.

But I will say when I make my charitable contributions, I make them in the context of my overall finances.

And I think it's only appropriate that the town do the same thing.

The other thing I just want to uh get down on the record is the select boards in the past have honored the decisions of RTM on this and related matters, so that if RTM comes in with whatever amount they propose should be spent for human services, I think the expectation is the select board will honor that.

Thank you very much.

Good night.

Thank you.

Andy.

Thank you.

Yeah, thanks for revisiting this.

This is this is definitely a tough one, but I I I sort of like the dynamism of reopening this as a uh as an issue.

I have spoken for putting the human services budget in the overall budget, and I've even sent some materials out in support of that.

You all had a specific goal for the overall budget increase.

I believe it was trying to keep it under 6%.

Do I remember that correctly?

Correct, Andy.

So what concerns me, and maybe it's similar to what Peter is saying, that if you put this 0% out at a town meeting and say, what do you all think about it?

You could get a half a million dollars out of that body, kind of on ideological grounds, certainly not on budgetary grounds.

Um I really do think you have to look at the whole budget and use I use the phrase take a stand.

What do you think could be supported in relation to your overall goal of trying to control the budget increase, which is what's disturbing so many people in town?

Could 200,000 dollars fit into that as a kind of compromise?

250, 180.

Pick a number.

That's why I was a tad shocked and disappointed at the zero.

I guess the purpose was to open up this conversation.

And I hear what you're saying, Peter.

I think that that's well intended.

But when you look at the goal that you struggled to meet, it seems like you're just behind door number three is God knows what's behind there.

Um the context of this whole decision is the struggle to control the increase of the town budget.

Don't forget that the second article last year, the wording, I rechecked it.

It was to spend up to percent.

It's not a requirement.

It was an advisory article.

And if we you know inherited a fortune in the meantime, we could do the up to two percent.

I after watching your budget process, yeah yeah.

So I say, why zero?

Why not take a stand on what you all believe we can do it and then defend it at town meeting?

And I think there's a lot of reasonable people at town meeting you would find that would support you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh Robin.

I wouldn't go away.

Sure.

Oh, no, there she is.

Um, yeah, I think I'm understanding that you guys are talking about taking out the separate article for people to vote on human services funding altogether.

And that you're gonna allow the representative or or town meeting body to vote on the budget that you decide whatever number that you put in there, uh at the which right now is at zero.

Is that right?

No, I think I think we at least my intention is that we would walk into the floor with that starting at zero, um, and then sort of accept the proposals from the floor, but do it during the budget, the budgeting process, so that we're not um so that we have a better, I feel we would have a better chance and having more people uh buy in uh to what Amanda said is you know, there's been a lot of contention uh around this um and just sort of come together as a town to make this decision collectively.

So, whatever that means, if if the larger portion body accepts it, that's what we go with.

During the budgeting process, you mean like the budgeting process that's happening right now?

Or are you talking about the discussion at the meeting?

Discussion at the meeting.

I'm just this is confusing to me why you're taking it off of being a separate article, because it seems to me that the only reason to do that and not have it be a separate article, is because then you don't have to follow the will of the vote.

It's at your discretion.

If you put it as a separate article, then the select board has to fund whatever amount is voted on by the people.

But if you have it as just a discussion within the budget article, then it's advisory.

So you're relying on the people's trust to follow through with that you're gonna follow through with their will, but you already aren't doing that by the fact that you're trying to propose this as a zero dollar item when people told you how much they wanted to spend on it.

All right.

Well, no, I mean I'm I'm happy to I'm happy to address that.

And it sounds like um to me, like we've we've got a little bit of of mistrust.

Now I will I will tell you, Robin, that if even as an advisory, if if town meeting told us to restore the human services budget to its previous form, um that is what the body said, that is what this board should do, and and I I would defend that.

So um I'm not my proposal is honest and true, and that I want this discussion to be part of the budget process so that we all understand how a how it impacts the budget.

Um I said last year that we failed the budget and then added in a half a million to a f already failed budget.

Um so understanding where we are fiscally is is important.

This is a big line item in in our fiscal budget, so I want to make sure that everybody understands what it is, what impact it has, um, and what good it can do.

So I'm I'm I'm not sure that I've convinced you of anything, but that is that is my sincere belief.

Okay.

Uh I wonder if it would be helpful to interrogate um Bob and Hannah about the Robin's question at this time.

Would that be helpful?

I think we already uh clarified that last year was advisory.

Uh is there more to discuss than that?

The um recommendation regarding this year's fiscal budget was advisory.

And it is correct that if it is voted on separately, that is binding.

Um in terms of for that year.

But the the recommendation for the future year is not that that was an advisory vote.

Thank you.

All right.

Oh, sorry.

Well, just there were two things there.

If it's a separate article on the human service funding, and whatever amount is voted there, that's binding.

If it's part of the budget, then that's just a number that you're there's a motion to amend the budget.

Let's say it's increased by X number of dollars to add in back in human service funding, that's part of the of the overall budget.

It's up to you as a select board as to how you are then appropriating.

So theoretically, at the risk of yourself not getting re-elected the following year, you could say, well, despite the vote by the majority to put it back in, we're not gonna do that.

You run, you know, the check and balance on that is the electoral process.

But Peter, what you're saying is that you would abide by what the voters would be recommending.

I mean that's I'm assuming that that that's what they want, that's what we should deliver.

Is there a precedent where an advisory amount has been uh assigned and then so the the advisory amount is separate from so the advisory amount is what RTM says last year what you should put in the budget for this year?

Right.

That that was an advisory vote of last year's RTM regarding this year's budget.

But what we're talking about is the difference between including it as a separate article or including it in the overall budget, because the overall budget is just a an amount and then the select board decides how to appropriate it.

So it there is that Risley Bob saying that if even if this board were saying they were going to abide by that choice to appropriate those funds, there's no mandate that you do so unless it's voted on separately.

And Fish, I sounded like your question was is there a history that anyone knows of in Brattleboro of town meeting amending the budget, saying what it was for in the select were not doing that.

Right.

And I don't, but I memory doesn't seem I mean that would have been something I uh me personally sitting sitting in the peanut gallery would have raised holy hell about if but that's just me and and you know I mean that won't happen on my watch.

But I'm only one vote.

I can't think of one myself.

No.

I just wanted to point out the distinction that if it's a separate article on human services, then that's binding.

Right.

And then if but that gets into the whole thing that you're gonna do.

But it's not part of the budget.

Right.

Can I ask a quick question?

Of course.

Maybe I it might save some heartache and some questions for the public if we were just clear now.

If we put this all in one article, is this board comfortable committing that if RTM amends that budget and they advise us on what it's for, like Peter is saying that we will honor that.

I think if we can make that commitment as a board, a lot of worries go away.

I'm certainly comfortable saying that.

Presupposing that there's RTM.

Either either form of town meeting.

Right.

So is that something that we can just say and be comfortable with?

I'm happy to say that.

I my my concern is that the this the makeup of RTM members and the makeup of open town meeting members would be different.

Well, but we're redrafting this whole thing anyway, if there's open town meeting, right?

Yeah.

I'm just saying it's a different question.

Yes.

So to answer Oscar's question, yes.

I mean, if if the body put uh put this number together, I I would assume again, in in the spirit of uh of collective decision making, that we could settle on a number that we would all live with and and then we would put that number into action.

All right.

Let's hear from the public, shall we?

Oh gosh, everybody raised their hand.

Let's hear from David first, because he's got skin in the game.

Don't have any more skin, I think, than a lot of organizations have.

Um Oscar, I think asked a very a very sincere question.

What would each of you do if in fact it was raised, you know, one percent, two percent?

What whatever?

Yeah.

I I don't know.

Well, I've heard one answer.

What's that?

I've heard one answer.

I think Oscar said y yes.

I think Peter said yes.

Yeah, uh uh I I'll certainly abide by the terms of of RTM.

Okay.

But I the point is that uh the discussion would be within the context of the budget as a whole rather than be a separate number.

I think the concern is that exactly as as Bob was describing, is is that it becomes advisory.

And if in fact it becomes advisory, then we sit around and wait for what, the new board to come up and say yes, it's a go or it's a no-go.

I have a question as to uh human services has gone through and has um reviewed all the applications, and we're just waiting sitting and waiting for um a decision to to to go move forward, or I guess not to move forward if it's zero.

So I ask you um you know what would be the next step?

What would be the final step?

And does does any decision as to the amount of individual grants does that need to come back before any uh body for approval when you say the individual grants, you mean how your committee allocates things uh the way that we've done that through vote at RTM was to establish your committee and have your committee do the allocation.

So uh to to play this out, if if it's part of the overall budget, okay, and somebody comes in and they move to amend the budget upwards of some dollar amount, which includes well, let's just for argument's sake say 200,000 dollars, all right.

So the budget's increased by 200,000, and that's your overall budget.

If that passes, then you're going to have a new select board, okay.

The select board then can say, okay, we've heard what happened at town meeting, now we want to allocate that amount.

That sort of that new select board can tell your committee, go ahead and do the allocation.

Okay?

And that should be done prior to July 1st, so that as far as I don't know when the funding actually gets distributed out, but you know, when it's obviously after July 1st.

Yeah, it would be after July 1st, and the board could say, look, now uh town meeting has told you 200,000 to human services, give that to uh you know, allocate that to the human services committee to distribute how they see fit.

All right.

But but again, though, it becomes advisory for the next board, and the next board need not necessarily accept what that advisory was.

And they can just kind of lump it into the into the budget.

Theoretically, yes, but you're all chasing our and this board can't bind the next board with regard, but each member here is giving his or her intent as if if that member is on the number.

The numbers may be different.

So anyway, we continue to chase our tail.

Okay.

Ivan, Gemma.

Nell.

Kate.

Randy, too.

Ivan Hennessy, uh Braille Borough Vermont.

There was some discussion, who knows when, um, about having the human services article before the general budget article.

My understanding is that it would then be voted on before the full budget and and would be settled.

Is there any reason that the conversation around a human services article before the general budget article can't include a discussion of its impact on the general budget?

So that people going into that vote would understand exactly how it affects the final budget.

Or is that something that there's a procedural rule of some sort against the I don't know about a process?

I don't know, yeah.

I mean, there's procedure rules, but I've been to, you know, used a decade at town meetings, and the each budget discussion, both the human services and the general budget are um wild and variable.

And having those two discussions co-joined just makes a lot of sense because really I think the human service budget is in its own silo and not given uh the greater understanding of the budget as a whole.

Oscar.

I think Ivan that makes a reasonable point, which is what I think would happen in whatever Article 6 to discuss human services, is that either as part of the T the T up or someone would ask the question, okay, I want to amend it to 250 K, and then somebody else would say, what does that do to the tax rate?

So we would absolutely have the conversation in the context of what it does to the budget.

We do not need to combine these items to understand how it works.

Um again, yeah.

So I think it's a perfectly reasonable question.

I think we will get to the end either way, and uh yeah, I'm feeling more and more like we're just making something advisory that has always been binding uh why.

Uh it it feels like, yeah, that feeling of tugging away to a body that I we're already a little bit antagonizing and we are answerable to.

So are we antagonizing them by trying to get rid of them?

I have a point of order.

I have a point of order question.

I just found the proposed articles that we discussed.

And I have to understand that we voted on these at our last meeting on the 22nd.

You did not.

I think we did head nods.

No vote.

It would be brought back tonight, which here they are.

All right.

I have a list of people who wish to speak.

Before the uh do may I say uh something from the select board?

Pardon me?

Uh uh a select board comment.

I'd love to select make a select.

Yeah.

So first of all, I just want to say that this process is incredibly helpful and valuable for what Ivan just brought up.

I think that's a very, very valid point.

Um in terms of in the context of the budget, we talk about what could be added to the budget.

So what we're talking about right now is everyone getting along better, everyone working together, everyone listening to each other, right?

It might not go this way that Peter suggested.

Our vote might not go that way.

But that doesn't mean that this discussion wasn't critically important to put context into our budget, how we allocate human services funding, how we allocate our dollars.

So I really like what I don't want to happen is that this devolve into the like the bitter arguments that sometimes our um select board gatherings and comments can bring.

Like let's not go there.

Let's stay high and keep working on this general idea.

Okay.

Yes?

Okay, great.

That's all.

I think if if I can just put it, I think all the versions of everybody who has spoken tonight is really what I'm trying to do, but I'm just trying to make it part of the budget process.

So that's where I would like to see it discussed.

Great.

Shall we continue?

Let's see.

Uh David, Ivan Gemma.

Then Nell Caint and Randy.

I don't know why we are reopening this discussion.

I am not in favor of this motion for the very simple reason that I would be in favor of discussing it as part of the general budget.

If there were any possibility at all that the general budget were going to change as part of that discussion, this budget has been combed and groomed to death.

There is no room in it for anything else.

Everything that has been that needed to be funded has been funded.

Everything that could be cut has been cut.

There's no more room to move around in this.

And the whole reason why we put the human services budget in a separate item is not because we don't trust you, it's because that way we don't have to trust you.

Government works best not when we trust our governors, but when we don't have to trust our governors because it's written into the law as a binding agreement, what that number is going to be.

Now, I have not made a secret of it.

I've said explicitly, I am going to get up on the floor, assuming that I have the opportunity, and I'm going to request that the budget be amended to add 2% as human services funding.

And I am comfortable to allow that discussion to take place on the floor and to have it voted down to possibly zero dollars, if that's what this town wants.

If that's what representative town meeting wants, if that's what open town meeting wants, so be it.

But there's no other room in the budget for this to move around.

We're going up from here.

We all know that.

We all understand the impact that this is going to have on the budget.

We all have our own ideas about what the town can afford and what the town should afford.

And we've already litigated this.

We're done.

Let's move on.

Thank you.

No.

Um so it's a little frustrating to me because I throw my hands up in the air and I say, if anyone here is saying this is a crucial conversation to be able to understand how this is going to work, I'm just like, were you not listening on Thursday when we had the exact same conversation to death, right?

Um I also think there's a fallacy in the logic to say that people are going to be coming if coming into the meeting, because what we talked about Thursday was an article that would be binding that would be for the human services before the general budget.

And so to me, it is completely a fallacy to say people are gonna come into that meeting and not already have their opinions on the budget.

Like are we are we suggesting that people are gonna come in only vote for human services and then leave and not vote on the budget?

Because if if that's the argument, it's gonna be people in favor of high spending, and you can be sure that the people in favor of low spending are going to be getting up during the article on human services and saying, hey, this is how it's gonna affect the budget, and they're going to be doing the back of the napkin math either way.

And I also think that we can really count on the fact that people are gonna try to make other amendments during the general budget article.

It's gonna make it more confusing when you have things going in both ways.

I think because of the way you have formatted the human services to have it allotted for a dollar.

I think it's going to be talked about in real dollars.

It's not going to be talked about in percentages.

I think you're all ignoring the actual numbered allocations because you put it in at a dollar.

So the article, I have the article from last March.

It talks about the allocations in real dollars.

You're not gonna have the allocations, but people from the human services committee are gonna get up and try to speak to the allocations to justify it.

They're gonna try to speak to say we actually need this full amount because if you cut it into a quarter, then there's no point in giving them that money because it doesn't fund their mandate.

We saw all of this last year.

I'm speed talking to get it into two minutes, but you're gonna have the come up, you're gonna have them fight.

And they don't if people don't trust you, it's because they made an advisory vote and then it was disregarded.

And they put in up to 2% because they didn't want to have to spend the full two percent and they didn't.

Is it 30,000?

You know, it's it's slightly under, right?

I'm not saying I'm in favor of 469, but I really think that this argument falls flat.

Kate.

Pardon me?

You're all set.

Uh Randy, then Dick.

Hi, Randy Black of District 7.

I just want to make a point while our attorneys are here.

So can you go through the process?

RTM is voted down.

We have open town meeting.

My understanding is then there anything that's an RTM is not an OTM, and there would have to be some portion at it back in to address everything we just talked about.

It would have to come back to the select board uh for a rewarning of articles.

Um do you want to continue?

Well, I meant there's no committees.

Does the select board do that?

Like how does that happen?

I'm happy to speak to so you have to warn a beating, no what's it no more than 40 and no less than 30 days ahead of time.

So you would have to rewarn an open town meeting if we get there.

And um is correct that the human services committee as it exists now is a committee created by RTM.

Um but there are ways that you could you know appoint a human services committee yourselves.

Um if we were to switch to an open town meeting, um, because you have the power to appoint committees in the charter.

Like any other committee.

There could be other solutions.

Uh that's something we could discuss when we get there, but it's just the the base legal.

Yeah, that's great.

Uh Randy, Dick.

Someone asked if a budget had ever been amended upward, and then the body didn't do what the uh uh the board didn't do what the body did.

I was part of the high school board when the board when the body amended the budget upward and the board did not spend the money where the body wanted to the following year, nobody even brought it up.

Uh was certainly a little bit smaller amount, but it did happen.

But that was the school.

That was a school, yes, not the town that I can recall.

Thank you.

Um Peter brought up something about getting to a flat rate.

I think if the moderator, I um let Bobby answer this.

The moders the moderator is not gonna let the discussion go about getting something to a flat rate under other business.

I think it could be discussed, but under the article of the budget, they're not somebody can say, well, we would like to get it to a flat rate.

I I don't think the moderator is gonna let that happen.

Um the issue is is that this number is up around a half a million dollars.

And if the body decides to put a half a million dollars into the budget, and they go, well, we're up to eight and a half percent.

It would take and and I would say that you're all committing to saying, okay, they did that, but the reality is to get it under control.

It would take courage to go, you know what, we're only gonna spend 200,000 on human services, and we're just gonna let the the other sit in the pot and then it'll go to unassigned fund balance.

That's where the courage comes in.

If you're so concerned about this amount of money escalating higher and higher, then I think you as a board, if this goes up to a half a million dollars or higher, have to rethink what you just said here 15 minutes ago.

Interesting.

Okay.

Could I speak to that for a second?

Is that sure?

Yeah.

So um, yeah.

That's that's a chance we're taking, right?

Um it would be um I would I would have to live with with that half a million dollars.

But again, I'm just gonna go back to what I want to consider a collaborative effort in hoping that the people who have entrusted me with this position would trust me to do as they wish.

Um I would also hope that whoever is proposing numbers would recognize that this town maybe can't afford a half a million dollars and and would come down to a level that we could afford.

And if we have that discussion during the budget process, I believe that's where it fleshes out.

And does it become advisory?

Sure.

This whole thing is pretty advisory right now.

We know where we want to spend it, but you know, we we've seen it happen before where the board has had to make some decisions um because a fire truck failed and we had to fix it, and and you know, so that that is those are the decisions that we make as a board.

But if if whatever body of government tells me we have to spend X, that is I'm going I'm going to honor those wishes.

All right, but I hear what you're saying, and I'm hoping by my proposal bringing that conversation into the budget piece of this makes it more collaborative, and we can settle on something that gets everybody where they need to be.

That's my hope.

All right.

Is there Timothy?

And is there anyone else who hasn't spoken and wishes to otherwise I'm gonna give Robin a minute rebuttal and so you get a minute to Timothy?

I just wanted to say that this makes a lot of sense what you guys are talking about here, what you've brought up.

Um if we're talking about the actual taxpayers here, and we decide, okay, you're gonna get this amount out of my pocket, and all of a sudden we're laying on an additional amount on top of that, as a surprise, and I just want to correct one assertion earlier.

Because we had roll call votes, we actually have on record that there were 14 people that abstained from passing the budget, and those same 14 people voted to put in that 2%.

So I just wanted to correct uh.

Thank you.

All right, then uh let's give Robin another minute for her second dip.

Hi, I I just want to say if your goal is to I I agree with Nell that I don't think that people have such a shallow understanding of what they're voting on that when they vote on this as a separate article, they don't understand how it's impacting the budget.

We all understand that, okay.

And if your goal is to have a more collaborative, productive and less contentious discussion, this is the opposite of that.

I guarantee you, if you put this as something that people have to debate within the budget article and all the other things that people want to be less or more within that, it's gonna be very ugly and messy and confusing.

I do not look forward to having this be a part of our town meeting.

I think it would be much simpler, faster, and less divisive if you would let it remain as a binding separate article, because the whole reason for this article is that people didn't want to have to debate for 40 minutes about which agency should get how much against which.

That's why they put it all as one thing.

And so if you're gonna put that, dump that without any of the allocations back into the budget, then we're gonna advise argue about all of those individual organizations plus all of the other budget lines.

This this is not gonna be good for our community, and I really caution you to please not do this.

Thank you, Gemma.

One minute.

I just want uh as my last comment to uh sort of maybe try to clear up some of the confusion that seems to be reigning about last year's vote.

Um I voted against the budget last year because I felt that too much money was being allocated to the police department, and I voted for the human services budget at 2% because I felt that that was appropriate.

Um actually I moved that we raise it to 2.2 percent, and there were no takers on the floor for that.

I was fine with that.

Um, but then when the overall budget came around again, I voted the budget down again, despite the fact that the 2% had been you know voted on.

Uh, because I still felt that the overall budget was too high.

Um, I don't feel that this year.

I feel that the budget as it has been constructed is the appropriate budget for this year.

We should pass it, have a separate discussion about human services, and what happens happens.

Thanks.

All right.

Um let's hear from Mr.

Agave.

And then we'll vote.

Ready?

Yes, uh audible here.

We can hear you.

Okay, good.

Thank you.

Um, well, I uh couple of things.

One of the things I take exception uh the presentation of the whole thing, that somehow the procedure that happened last year was wrong.

It was a perfectly legitimate procedure.

And and so it just I can't understand.

I think I'm echoing what a lot of people are saying.

The town body, the governing body of this town, the representative town meeting, the people of this town said we want two percent of the budget dedicated to human services.

That should be in the budget.

If there are people in the town who don't want that, they should do what's done everywhere in a democracy is run for a seat and vote differently.

I feel like this whole mess going on right now has created the very divisiveness that you were trying to that you said you were trying to avoid.

And is uh it's just feels like an end run around a perfectly good democratic procedure that uh uh a way of finding a loophole to sabotage the will of the people.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

One more select board comment.

Wait, let's hear for one more side.

Okay.

I just have a quick um reminder, Janet.

Um uh Therese, I live in West Brattleboro.

Um you're asking more than just voters their opinion.

You're asking people who in the RTM, a significant portion actually work for those agencies.

Um, and that's really complicated.

If you asked me if I was going to vote, I've worked for lots of human service agencies in my career, right?

If you asked me about like, you know, funding my own agency or funding the agency I'm like, you know, deeply embedded with, I'm gonna have a really strong opinion.

Like I'd want my salary to continue.

I'd want my raise or whatever, or I'd my services.

Anyway, I just wanted to remind her that you're asking more than just citizens.

There's a significant number of people on the RTM who are also employed um were deeply involved with these agencies.

That's complicated.

Anyway.

Thank you.

Uh Amanda, you wanted to speak.

Yeah, sorry to rush that.

There was just after um uh Spoons call in.

Um I disagree.

I think that this discussion we're having here is very important.

I'm grateful to Peter for bringing it up.

Um we will, you know, Chair will have us do a vote soon.

Um, but I want to validate this discussion.

And and I don't like the fact that um there are in the conversation, there are accusations.

That's not appropriate.

It's not appropriate for our community to start pointing fingers at each other and accusing one another of nefarious acts.

We are having a discussion in public, we are listening, we are um it's not a done deal, right?

So I I just urge everyone to continue have like try having an open mind.

See what happens here.

That's all.

Well, thank you, Amanda.

Heidi, I'm sorry, the the case is closed.

Um, all select board members in the case.

I'd like to meet it.

I'd like to make a comment.

Go right ahead.

Yeah.

So if you vote for this proposal, you will be based on what we heard from the town attorneys, you will be voting for more power for the next select board around this um issue of human service budget uh uh spending and and less power for the people who show up at whatever town meeting we have this spring.

I heard multiple people at this table say that if they're at this table after our town meeting, that they would take the advice of representative of town meeting, um, whatever they land on in terms of human services uh spending.

But this body just voted against taking that advice from last year.

This body voted last spring, it was two percent that they landed on.

Before that, there was that.

Remember, it was put on the ballot um on March 4th, this question of how much should go and a plurality, meaning the option that got the most votes was more than 2%.

A majority of voters said they wanted between one and two percent or more.

And this body voted against that.

This body just voted last week to bring it down to zero.

So if I have you've just said you will follow the will of the voters at town meeting, but you just didn't do that.

You just voted otherwise.

So I am passionate about this because it's a matter of democracy, and at this moment when there is so much reason for people to be skeptical of government, and there is so much fear, and there is so much of our democratic norms being eroded.

And yes, we need open discussion.

I I appreciate the opportunity to for us to be able to discuss this.

But I I and I do have concerns about spending half a million dollars on these organizations when we said no to star when she came um to ask for a few more hours to be able to keep the library open when someone's out sick.

And we said we've had um difficult conversation, you know.

We're we're really um our our department directors have been working so hard with what they have.

So I really appreciate the the concerns and I appreciate for the I like the idea of moving towards looking at this all together, but for right now, this it at the 11th hour to get this.

I'm not gonna be able to support this.

No, I've heard some conflicting numbers.

I've heard up to two percent.

I just want to make sure that hang on right that we're talking about which number.

Um what what we're what we've had a motion for and and what we're I'm asking for final select board comments on it before we vote is to um remove article which one is it?

We've article six in version A.

Basically, my C my understanding of my understanding of the motion was so my motion was to accept version A striking article six.

So, yeah.

Right.

And so the there would there is no specific number that we're talking about, right?

We were we have not talked about a number.

Um was there a maybe there may have been a question about some something that I said, and I'm happy to clarify if we're I do I don't think so.

Pretty clear.

Okay.

So anyone else, any other select board member want to discuss this item before we vote?

No.

Okay.

All select board members in favor of Peter's motion to adopt the warnings for the March 3 2026 town meeting and the March 21st 2026 representative town meeting version A as amended.

Please uh raise your hand and say aye.

Oh, you're gonna say aye.

I and uh all those uh not in favor of this motion, please raise your hand and say no.

No, no.

Okay, the nays have it.

And um I don't know where we can we need a uh warning.

We need to walk out of this room with a warning.

So uh I would look for another motion from a board member.

I yeah, I move to accept version A for the annual representative town meeting um warning for are the articles.

A we have A, B, and uh was C not as amended, but as presented as presented.

All right.

Um and uh do you want to speak to it, Amanda?

This version has the appropriation for human services funding happening after the budget discussion.

After after the budget vote.

So Article 5 is uh to see how much money the town will raise appropriate blah blah blah, and articles uh six is to see if the town will raise appropriate sum of blank.

Um my hypothesis there is that after hearing the discussion um coming from the floor saying uh but of course we're talking about human services funding in um relation to our total budget, and with that consciousness in mind that that would be um an appropriate place to have it, versus in advance of the general fund budget vote.

That's my take.

I'd love to hear what other select board members think about.

I have no I am completely content with version A and will happily vote for it and have no further opinion.

I agree with Amanda because I see it as our first we need to approve this budget or you know discuss this budget, which is these includes these GORT town services that we provide.

All right.

Peter, do you have anything to say?

Oh, I got a lot to say.

Yeah.

Um so once again, what we're doing is we're back to square one where we could fail a budget and add money back in to a failed budget, or we could pass a budget and add money back in to and increase that budget.

Is that my understanding of this amendment?

Yes.

Well, motion.

Yes.

Yes.

Motion.

That that is my understanding.

Yeah, in full faith that the body will be reasonable and have in their consciousness that we can't spend another half million dollars.

What made them unreasonable before.

Is that necessary to relitigate at this point?

I mean we we do it all the time.

So yeah.

What made them unreasonable before?

I I wasn't making an association that there was unreasonable in this before, but more that in the context of the testimony that we've heard from the floor, that um that is in our consciousness moving towards this town meeting.

We're choosing between A and B.

They're exactly the same in a slightly different order.

If someone feels strongly about B, I'm happy to vote for B.

But also A.

So Peter.

Otherwise.

Oh, I'm not voting on this.

Okay.

All right.

Um I I will say that I still think that your idea is good, Peter.

But I also heard the testimony from the room and on Zoom.

And I couldn't go with it.

And I yeah.

And I I yeah, I there wasn't really a time to say this.

I I didn't think I didn't vote no because I thought it was bad.

I thought it was a completely honorable, reasonable idea.

I I think they were both both versions are reasonable, and I like this one slightly better.

But it was not a Peter, I can't believe you said this moment.

So I don't know if you're I I I really don't think this conversation we we just need to vote.

And it's actually helpful.

Go ahead, Kate.

The town attorney can either tell me I'm wrong or not.

The way you're talking is you're gonna do the human services vote after you vote the budget.

When you do the budget, you're appropriating a certain amount of money.

So if you say we're gonna spend 27 million dollars, and then you come and you say, well, we want to add another 500,000 or whatever for human services, doesn't that impact the bottom line?

So shouldn't it be flipped and you do the human services first and then you appropriate the full amount?

It doesn't matter.

No matter what either you vote.

But what I'm saying is there's the bottom line that we have voted on, so that don't they have to lower something to make it so they're gonna be able to do that.

If you want the rate to stay the same, but because if if you're voting separately on human services, whatever that number is, you're gonna add to whatever.

Okay, but let me just say that was the entire point of Peter's motion.

I know.

I know but I'm just trying to say that that it's it just seems it would be better to know what you're adding to the well the concept is in in this case as opposed to Peter's motion earlier, is that the overall budget is known and voted on.

And so they the tax implications are known and voted on, and then therefore that may or may not inform RTM's vote on the human service budget.

And so that's what we're voting on.

And uh I'm are my colleagues ready to vote.

No, you want to speak to it.

Yes, please.

So responding directly to what Kate's saying, I believe last year we did it essentially this way, right?

We had the big budget appropriation and then a separate human services appropriation.

We did not service was first.

Yeah, that um but we did not change the budget number based on the vote on the human services number.

They were two separate appropriations.

They both affected the tax rate, but if they had just been voted up straight with no amendments, no math would have needed to have been done, and the big but big budget item does not include last year did not include the human services money, right?

So correct.

The two are going to be added to together, whatever you vote.

The the the issue when somebody's voting on one or the other, depending on which one you put first and which one second, is well, if I vote yes or or no on this, how's that going to affect the next vote and vice versa?

But it only affects the vote in terms of people's tolerances for what they want the budget to be.

It's not like we put the budget, and then there's the allocation for human services funding, and that comes up with your total tax bill.

Right.

But that's not actually changing the budget, the operating budget of the town.

Correct.

Okay.

What you allocate in a separate article for human services is going to be binding and that's allocated.

Boom.

That number could be.

Sorry, but was kind of running over what happened last year.

And I I think we know and you know, big tip of the hat to the school board for delivering a low budget, which which brought us to 2.8 of the overall uh tax impact.

Um I think if uh we had a no such thing as a human services budget, we would have been at roughly about one percent of an increase overall.

That was that was the impact.

That was also one of the reasons I made my motion.

But that motion is that motion has been killed.

It's not on the and we need to vote on A or B.

Okay, is that A is on the motion for A has been made by Amanda?

Are we ready to vote?

Yes.

All right.

All select board members in favor of Amanda's motion to adopt the warning for the March 3rd, 2026 town meeting and March 21st, 2026 representative town meeting, version A as presented.

Please raise your hand and say aye.

All right.

Okay.

All uh voting nay, please raise your hand and say no.

Okay.

Anyone abstaining, please raise your hand and say abstain.

Abstain.

Okay.

So we have a three, one, one vote.

Thank you all very much.

Uh we have one more matter to discuss.

Should we take a break or should we discuss it now?

Let's discuss it now.

John?

Yeah.

Um we have the November uh report uh November 2025 finance report, which was carried over from your last meeting.

And these are the financial reports for the five months ended November 2025.

And in your packet, you will see line item details for activity from the town's general fund and the town's two enterprise funds, utilities and parking.

And with 42 percent of the fiscal year completed in the general fund, revenues when annualized for that five-month period would calculate at uh 44 percent of the budget are running slightly higher than um the the amount of the fiscal year.

Expenditures, however, prorated um actually are running at 39 percent of the annual budget or so or slightly lower than um how far we are in the fiscal year.

We have uh a surplus in the general fund of 10 million eight hundred and forty-two thousand, and cash balances as of November 30th within the general fund total 21,211,000.

Uh finance team notes several areas worth uh worth uh taking notice of for the board.

One is that EMS revenue, which is at 536,700 536,768 dollars through the end of November when annualized, uh could be expected to come in at 1.3 million, one 1,288,000, uh which is exceeding our approved budget currently by four over 400,000, which is good.

Um we are seeing that uh that likely uh benefits are running a little bit high in Social Security Vermont, child care contribution and retirement due to um overtime and comp time expenses, but our health insurance is expected to be under budget by a similar amount.

So that's kind of a w benefits are kind of a wash through November.

We uh while this report calls out workers' comp and general liability as being tracked.

We now know we now have received our bill on those as I reported at your last meeting, and that is going to go over budget.

We're gonna have to figure that one out.

Um another item that the finance team noted is that uh utility costs are rising, and those will exceed the budget for FY26.

Um that I'll mention is overtime budgets, which you've focused on um in other months.

These are uh expected to uh overrun the budget for fire, police, and dispatch.

Fire overtime is currently over budget by almost 120,000 um for the year, but this is offset by underspending of staff salaries, and the underspending is nearly 300,000, so we're in pretty good shape uh with managing uh overtime, which is great.

Um police similarly have current they're currently overspent on overtime by about 7,600, but uh they're underspent on staff salaries by 238,687.

So they're managing their overtime very well in that department as well.

Could I do you mind if I ask a quick question there?

Um you said police is over by 7,000-ish?

Yes, 7,600.

And they're at 78 percent of their budget throughout the year.

That was a mistake, that's why I wanted to correct that.

Got it.

Thank you.

Um at least when I went and looked at the numbers, that was what it was.

So utilities funds, so at 42 percent of the year completed rev revenues raised are running at 41 percent of the annual budget, so utilities is in good shape on the revenue side.

Expenditures are uh at 26 percent when prorated, so uh doing very well on expenditures and utilities.

We have a surplus running at 834,345.

Um parking fund also doing pretty well.

Revenues are at 37 percent of the annual budget, but um expenditures when prorated are at 33 percent.

So we are currently running uh in the black in the parking fund at almost sixteen thousand dollars.

Uh list of other reports are included, um, including loan report, grant report, transfer report, and as requested by I think one of the board members, um uh the reserve fund balances for the fire truck and the ambulance.

Happy to try to answer any questions that the board has.

And if I don't know the answer, I will get it for you.

Uh well, uh thank you, John.

I think um it's a really positive report, especially in some of our key areas of EMS revenue um fire and police overtime, and my favorite, which is the parking fund being back in the black.

Um anyone else have any other comments?

No.

Thanks so much for this work at so and your overview, and it yeah, it's great to see all these areas where we're on target, and so appreciate that.

Anyone else?

Anyone from the public?

Randy Kate.

Um I'm I'm glad we're seemingly on target.

With the open positions in fire EMS and in dispatch, um, looking out from you know, the December numbers will be coming shortly in a couple weeks.

Where are we at for the rest of the year with that balancing act of salaries not being paid to overtime being paid to benefits being over because we're over on overtime and it costs more?

Do we reach a balancing point of getting people hired and having less overtime by June?

Or where do you think?

And I know it's a crystal ball you're reading, but um, you know, where do you think we're gonna end up?

John, yeah, great question, Randy.

Um that's really hard to say.

I mean, we're we're definitely struggling with recruitment in in the fire department.

Um we hope to improve that in the next fiscal year.

Um, but if we could get some folks on board, we um we it that will help out tremendously.

Police, I'm really not worried at all.

I mean, we're we're very uh flush on the salary state savings, and I think uh that that will um only be improved if we can fill those dispatch positions.

So has there been any look at combining dispatch with Wyndham County Sheriff, and if there's a cost savings and having a combined dispatch for the whole area.

Norma's not here.

Oh Norman.

I'm um not aware of uh any serious look at that.

I'm uh don't know if the department has been looking at that at all, but uh we are here really focused on um on providing Brattleboro a good service and and uh not not trying to expand our services to other towns.

That is potentially something we could look at in the future, but I I'm not aware of any um serious efforts in that.

And you know, I think I think we had uh there was discussion of that, you know, with the with the fire and ambulance, and I think we had the case that that the New Hampshire company has a stop ceased operations or planning on.

Never mind.

Uh when I have am better informed of my facts, I'll I'll get in touch.

Kate.

I just have a quick question about the EMS revenue.

The EMS revenue that we heard about back in November was actually sixty thousand dollars more than the annualized number we're hearing now.

So it's like the annualized number now is sixty thousand dollars less than what we heard in November.

And I understand that because it's gonna go like this.

Yep.

So my question is we heard, and I have it somewhere, but that in November the fire department was gonna come and give us all an update on the FY25 EMS numbers.

And I'm wondering where that stands because unless I slept through it, we did not hear the actuals in November from the fire department.

I'm just wondering if that could help us all understand what's really happening.

Um so the fire department will be coming next month for their quarterly report, and perhaps they could address that at that time.

Okay, all right.

Uh anyone else?

Is there a motion for that?

No.

All right.

Then um that should conclude our business for the evening.

I would entertain a final motion.

I move to adjourn.

Oscar has moved to adjourn.

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

Good night, everyone.

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you, Seth.

Thank you, DC TV.

Thank you for all sticking it in.

I think we've got something.

I agree that we're