Good evening, everyone.

I just want to say before we begin that we had an executive session and we adjourned that executive session at 6.16.

And now I will bring the Brattleboro Select Board meeting of Tuesday, February 17th, 2026.

I will commence.

And this is a regular meeting.

We had an executive session at 5.15.

And John, was the meeting properly warned?

Yes, it was.

Very nice.

All right.

So does anyone have on the board have any adjustments to the agenda?

Or John?

I'm aware of one.

We had a request to move item C on your regular business up to either item A or B, and the board was asked to consider doing that so that one of our staff members can get back home sooner.

Great.

Does someone want to make a motion to move C to B.

So moved.

Thank you.

All select board members in favor of this adjustment in the agenda from item C, switching places with item B.

Please raise your hand.

Very good.

Thank you all.

Now Chair's remarks.

Well, it was a very busy weekend here in Brattleboro.

I think.

Oscar, were you at the ski jump?

No.

Four out of five select board members were at the ski jump and all had a wonderful time.

But of course, the champion of this ski jump goes to Peter for his announcing on who is exactly on the hill.

Never heard of him.

Saw a sold-out show of Casablanca at the latches and a photography exhibit.

They were all wonderful things happening in town this weekend.

And I thank everyone for all the fine work that they do.

Are there managers' comments?

Yes, there are.

And so also many of the unsung heroes that uh helped the Harris Hill ski jump event come off are on our police, fire, and public works departments.

So I wanted to thank the those personnel for their efforts to support another really successful uh ski jump event.

Um also grateful to DPW maintenance coordinator Russ Brown for getting us through a really long stretch of cold weather in this building, which is not easy to do.

Uh he tells me that he's finally found parts for the heaters in this room, which is a system that's over 40 years old.

And uh unfortunately those 70 dollar parts which he finally found uh ended up costing us more like 600, so that is not great news, but I'm really grateful for him to uh figure figuring this out.

So it's been a challenge.

Um development.

I wanted to mention that I've been working on uh pulling people together in Brattleboro on this topic.

I've updated select board members individually on these efforts.

I've been uh convening a number of meetings to start roughing out a strategy or an approach, and I'd like to bring bring back a full update to the board in March or April and um go through that with you.

So um I wanted to thank Alice Sharks for spearheading an evaluation of Brattleboro of our town by the League of American Bicyclists who has awarded the town a bronze level recognition for being bicycle friendly.

We're one of five towns in Vermont with that designation.

Uh bronze level bike-friendly community is a testament to the progress and the town's early efforts and commitment to creating a more welcoming, safe, and sustainable environment for bicyclists.

Last time Brattleboro was evaluated for this was in 2020, and we were an honorable mention at that time.

So this shows our progress in our efforts to improve active transportation in our town.

I'd like to credit and give a shout out to BCAT, the Brattleboro Coalition for Active Transportation, uh who are known for their tremendous work that they've been doing to make Brattleboro even more bicycle-friendly.

So last couple of announcements.

Or uh in the town clerk's office.

And all renewals for dog licenses are due by April 1st.

All dog owners should have received an email or a notice in the mail with instructions for how to renew their license.

Absentee ballots for the March 3rd town meeting day and Wyndham Southeast School District elections are being mailed to those who have requested them.

Voters may request their ballots, uh get mailed out to them by logging into their voter portal at vote.vermont.gov, or by emailing the town clerk's office at town clerk at Brattleboro.gov or by calling them there at 80251 815 7.

Ballots must be received by the town clerk's office no later than 7 p.m.

on March 3rd in order for that ballot to be counted.

In-person early voting has begun already in the town clerk's office as of today.

And any time they are open to the public and have at least two election workers in the office that will be available.

It's uh available that service is available until 5 p.m.

on March 2nd, election day.

It's Tuesday, March 3rd from 7 a.m.

to 7 p.m.

at the American Legion.

That's all I have.

Thank you, John.

Did you say that they were closed for lunch?

Yes, there are yes.

Okay, great.

Are there select board members who wish to comment?

Sorry, I'll chime in.

Um I think Oscar sadly wasn't at the ski jump because he was sick.

Sorry, um, but yeah, I want to shout out the board of the ski jump.

Um I want to shout out Peter Case for his amazing um announcing for all the athletes.

But that truly is a Brattleboro event where you see the community working together.

Um, many of the people sitting here in the audience I saw working at the ski jump, so myself included.

Um I also want to recognize um the death of um the Reverend Um Jesse Jackson.

Um keep hope alive.

Keep hope alive.

Oscar.

No, no, thank you.

How about this side of the aisle?

None here.

Yes.

Um, so I've been uh asked uh to make a couple of uh a clarification um based on I've been having a lot of the um articles two, three, and four on this year's uh ballots, uh which have to deal with representative town meeting uh versus Australian ballad versus open town meeting.

Um and uh some of the concern that has been at least um related to me was that people are not understanding that there will, regardless of what option we end up with, if we end up with all three, if we end up with one, uh there will always be that informative meeting beforehand.

And I think people are thinking that they're gonna lose their right to sort of weigh in in a fashion before people get into a voters' booth or get into a town meeting.

So I just wanted to make it clear that the informational meetings will always be there regardless of of how you vote.

So I've been asked to make that clarification.

I I felt it was an important clarification, so that's really that that's the only thing I really wanted to add in and just be able to let you all know that your option to kind of learn about the uh the things that we'll be deliberating or voting on, we'll have an option for discussion.

Thank you.

Um so let's uh open up the meeting to public participation, and this is the opportunity uh for the public to weigh in on issues that are not on tonight's agenda.

Uh so far I see uh Tom, uh Kate, and Ivan.

Tom?

You'll pass.

Madam Tudid, should we approve the minutes?

Why do I don't see that on here?

It's way up.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Thank you.

Good work by our clerk.

Uh can I have a motion?

Yeah, I move to approve the minutes from January 13th, January 15th, January 20th, and January 22nd, 2026.

Great.

Thank you.

Isaac has made a motion to approve the minutes from January 13th, January 15th, January 20th, and January 22nd.

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

Aye.

Very good.

Thank you.

That's five-zero.

Yeah, back to public participation.

Uh Tom has demured.

Kate.

Hi, everybody, Kate O'Connor Brattleboro.

I just want to get on the ski jump.

And I want to make it really clear to everybody that you might not know this, but it's an actually all volunteer committee that spends an entire year putting that event on.

And it's an amazing thing to go to and realize it's a bunch of volunteers that live in our community that spend a year doing that.

So I want to give them a huge shout out for the work that they do.

I work at the Chamber of Commerce, and I can't tell you how many people called from somewhere else to ask about coming to the ski job.

So we owe that committee a huge celebratory confetti up in the air.

I don't think we can thank them enough.

So I just want everyone out there to know it's a literally a group of volunteers that do that wonderful event.

Thank you, Kate.

Uh Ivan.

Ivan Hennessey, thank you.

Um I understand that um assistant chief Evans will become the Chief Brattboro police this spring.

Um and last year, perhaps the year before, there was a freedom of information act request which revealed an extensive and friendly.

Is this a personal attack against uh Mr.

Evans?

No.

So I understand that there was an extensive and friendly correspondence with the proprietor of Planet Wank, and I would like some clarification for people who might have a restraining order or a no trespass order.

If they don't feel that the police department is appropriately responsive, what is their course of action?

You want me to answer that?

Um, if anyone's concerned, they can certainly come to me.

They can also go to the state police and file complaint there.

All right.

Uh anyone else has a comment from this in person.

I'll move to the computer.

Elizabeth, I just wanted to also give a uh shout out and uh accommodation and recommendation and salutations to BCTV streaming it live, the event.

Um for the Harris Hill jump out there to many people who couldn't go in person.

I think um they deserve as much recognition as everyone else.

Uh the setup and everything, um, because this is a big event.

I don't know if it's bigger than the Super Bowl, but it is a huge event for a lot of people traditionally to to come out to that, and I think they deserve a lot of credit for this as well.

Thank you.

All right.

Uh we're ready to move on.

We can talk about the consent agenda.

John, will you give us a thumbnail set sketch of that?

Yep, you have seven items on the consent agenda tonight.

If you approve this agenda, you'll be approving staff to apply for an AARP grant that would pay for a flashing beacon and improvements to the crosswalks at the intersection of Green Leaf and Western Ave.

You'll be approving a first and third class liquor license renewal for the Brattleboro co-op.

You'll be approving a $60,000 contract to secure the auditing services of Telling and Hillman of Middlebury.

You'll be approving the capital replacement of police cruiser number two for 89,000 from McMulkin Chevrolet of Nashua, consistent with the FY26 capital plan.

You'll be reappointing Eric Lineback to the DV Fiber Board for a one-year term with planning director Sue Villian serving as an alternate, and you'll be approving four special event permits in support of the Brattleboro luck crawl that will be on March 12th.

Great.

Uh anyone from the select board have an item that they'd like to remove from the consent agenda.

Um I would, please.

Yes, I'd like to pull the um police cruiser replacement from the consent agenda.

I talked with John about it.

All right.

Umanda has made a motion to remove the police cruiser replacement from uh the consent agenda.

All select board members in favor of that movement, please.

Point of order.

I I thought we had it in our rules that if one board member wanted to pull something, we would just do it.

Do it, yeah.

Is that not sure about that?

Let's check with John.

Okay.

I believe that's true.

Yes.

Okay, very good.

So there you go.

It is hereby pulled.

Thank you.

And it will be uh the last item on the agenda, um, which would be ABCDEFG.

And would someone like to make an amended uh motion for the consent?

Sure.

I move to approve the consent agenda as amended.

Great.

Oscars made a motion to approve the consent agenda as amended.

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

Aye.

All right.

Uh anyone, any select board members not in favor, please say no.

Didn't you keep your hand up?

Oh no, I should have got to Oh, very good.

Okay, so it's five zero.

Thank you.

Now, regular business.

All right.

Umcampment policy.

Um we had a lengthy discussion on uh January 6th uh regarding the encampment policy uh set forth by the health officer, and we had commentary by members of the public.

Uh we also had commentary by an ACLU attorney who is with us here tonight.

And um the majority of the board members uh chose to uh continue that discussion, and so that's why we're here tonight.

Uh John, do you want to introduce it any further?

Um not really, but I would urge the board to invite uh Jessica Radboard, the ACLU attorney to uh to the table.

And um she has a presentation for you tonight.

And um Seth, I think has that loaded, so all right, Jessica, welcome.

Thank you so much.

Yeah.

Okay, great.

Can everyone hear me?

Okay, great.

All righty.

Uh hi everyone, my name is Jessica Radboard.

I'm a senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Vermont.

And before we get started, I do just want to thank you very much for the opportunity to come and speak to you today about our alternative vision uh for responding to unsheltered homelessness in Brattleboro.

Um at the ACLU of Vermont, in addition to litigating, we also advocate for policy changes.

Next slide.

Uh and so the reason why I'm here today is to advocate for policy change, provide information.

Uh this is not legal advice.

Next slide.

Uh quickly on our agenda, there's a little change.

Um, just for the sake of time, I'm gonna talk about some pending legislation and the pilot policy and proposal that we put together that you'll find in your packets.

And you've got the slides for uh the state of Vermont's duty to people experiencing homelessness, in case you want to look at them later.

Next slide all right.

So um for pending legislation, first up, H885.

Uh that is life sustaining activities on public lands.

I've given you the link to the bill on the PowerPoint.

Um the bill school is to make sure that when shelter isn't available and accessible, people have a place in each municipality where they can engage in life sustaining activities like sleeping, camping.

And so when I drafted our proposed policy, I did it with this bill in mind.

Um next up is committee bill 26-0766, which came out on Tuesday of last week and House Human Services Committee.

Uh the bill presents it's basically a full overhaul of the homelessness response system in Vermont as we know it.

Uh the legislative intent, and this is just the language of the bill that I'm I'm sharing with you, is to reduce homelessness and eliminate unsheltered homelessness.

As of Friday, it was still being drafted.

I didn't get a chance to check today, so things might have changed uh as of today.

But um the things that I wanted to highlight for you are two uh significant new obligations for municipalities, and they're included on the slide.

The first is partnership to help the Department for Children and Families expand alternative emergency housing models.

That's all that the bill says.

So I wasn't sure if that meant something like what exists in Burlington, which are emergency shelter pods or if it was something else.

Uh the other new municipal obligation in the committee bill is to uh ensure equitable access to shelter, shelter that doesn't have eligibility requirements when the National Weather Service declares a cold weather advisory.

So the policy proposal, the reason why I wanted to cover this first is because the policy proposal that I'll be talking about today was something that was put together before this bill language was released, and I was trying to balance the rights and needs of people experiencing homelessness with town resources.

But obviously, if there were legislation that passed uh in the state that required something more robust, then uh you know, I would want to retract this proposal in favor of that more robust thing.

All right.

Um in the materials that you got, I presented a positive vision of all the possibilities that I thought uh could be in a policy proposal.

Um, but uh today I'll I'll share a little bit more about why I thought it was worth doing that, not just because I have this positive vision, but because I did have some concerns about um the things that were in the town's policy.

Okay.

Uh I did put this together as a pilot because at the ACLU of Vermont, we don't think anyone should be unsheltered.

We believe the state owes a duty of care to people experiencing homelessness, and that we're not adequately protecting people if they're left outside.

So I framed it as a pilot because I very much hope, hope Springs Eternal, that things are going to change within a few years.

Um I do want to highlight that the policy proposal that I put together, I was trying to get certain concepts in there, but it's not an all or nothing thing.

I see it as an opportunity to start a conversation about these different items.

Um, location, notice, opportunity to be heard, storage of personal property, keeping records of what's happening, and equity issues.

So Brattleboro could opt to make changes to its approach to a greater or lesser degree on any number of the concepts that are uh outlined here.

It's a menu.

It's a menu.

Uh and uh when I was reviewing the policy, I I tend to look at things in terms of you know, like legal themes.

And so the the themes that I was looking at in your policy and when I was when I was writing the one that was presented uh in your materials is first breadth.

So I don't I you know we don't want a policy that's so broad that restricts people from an area so so large that basically by necessity uh people who are unsheltered will end up violating it by simply just having to be somewhere.

Second, a policy has to be clear enough that people can understand what conduct is prohibited or what actions are required to take.

Third, we want to see clear rules because that means that it's more likely to be uh everyone gets treated the same.

Um fourth, a policy has to incorporate reasonable due process protections and protections for people's personal property.

And finally, I I look at record keeping and transparency.

All right.

So uh people under our Vermont constitution, uh, we have a right to our life and liberty.

We have a right to exist.

And if you exist, you have to exist in a place.

Um that's an unalienable right under the Vermont Constitution, captured in Article One.

And so uh when I was listening to the encampment approach that Brattleboro has right now, uh I couldn't, you know, when I look at a map, I couldn't figure out where someone's supposed to go, where they'll be okay.

Uh and when shelter isn't available, um, people who don't have a place to stay shouldn't be in the position of being pretty much bound to violate a rule by necessity.

I I like taking the guessing out of things.

Um recognizing that people experiencing homelessness exists and they they have to exist in a place.

Our proposal includes permissible encampment spaces.

Uh in 2018, the ACLU of Vermont resolved a case against a city of Burlington on behalf of people experiencing homelessness.

That's the Croto case that I've linked to here.

Uh and in the policy resulting from that settlement, you'll see that there's still certain areas where people experiencing homelessness uh aren't allowed to camp, and then there are other areas where they're able to go so long as they follow certain rules.

So there's a place to be.

That's the critical thing there.

Um since people are existing somewhere in a place to protect public health, I think investing in in making that place safer is just good policy.

And that was something that I noticed that you had talked about at the January meeting.

And so in the policy proposal that we put together, we included toilet facilities and waste receptacles to be able to keep the place cleaner.

There have actually been a couple of cases in other states where this sort of thing has come up.

So in that LA case that I linked here, the settlement was safe places to be able to shelter outside and also the development of more emergency and permanent housing.

Next one.

Okay.

And looking at town manager Potter's memo responding to the proposal that I put together, I noticed that he said that we didn't designate a space for an encampment.

And I definitely don't think that it would be my role to suggest a space for an encampment.

I think that that's you know something that the local community would know way more about than I would, and it would take a lot of public input.

I live in Burlington, and Burlington's moving forward with an overdose prevention center, and did not just say this is where it's gonna be, because they would have gotten a ton of pushback.

So there's a lot of public comment, a lot of public input into that.

And I think when you do that, when you have public input into where can we do this thing, that um it takes out because people are invested in it, because people have been involved in it, uh, that I think you'll have a lot more buy-in and hopefully not as many complaints.

Um I did also just want to take this time to note um in the town manager's memo, uh, he was providing some estimates of what something like this would cost.

And I think his range was between 1.05 million and three million.

Um, but that seemed way bigger than anything that uh we had been contemplating.

So for instance, in in Burlington, they have those pod uh shelter homes that I'd mentioned before, and that's um 30 uh, you know, tiny shelters that have full electricity and heating, and you know, they've got a toilet facilities, and that was 1.6 million.

So this is just a safe place for people to be able to be on public lands, um, and I don't see it as being uh anywhere near that costly.

Um I also did want to note that um it doesn't include although I do talk about supportive services in the proposal, my thinking was that there are people in the community already doing the work who get state and federal funding to do outreach to people experiencing homelessness, and so it's not the town hiring a new person to fill that role that someone is already filling and and really well, and uh I think Libby from Groundworks is here, and I'm sure she'd be happy to answer questions about that later.

And and you know, I know that the people in the community, the nonprofits in the community are already doing this work and really are able to work very well collaboratively with the town.

Uh if there were any costs, again, there's legislative action happening in the state house, and although uh, you know, it sounds like they aren't moving in the direction of providing support for this sort of thing.

I I think there are definitely opportunities there.

All right.

Um moving on, next up, right to due process.

Uh so I've got our Vermont constitutional protections for due process up here, like notice and the right to be heard and uh providing process for the protection of personal property.

That's Articles 4 and 11 of our Vermont Constitution.

Um these constitutional protections, both in Vermont, they're similar ones in other states too.

They've they're generally interpreted to mean that for people experiencing homelessness, they have a right to some notice of an intent to remove their property from a place, a right to be heard to you know, have some sort of appeal process, and a right to have their possessions stored for a reasonable period of time.

Um I provided you with some links to court cases from a variety of places that talked about that.

But in our Kuro case, um the one that was in Burlington in 2018, the negotiated policy that resulted uh provided seven days notice before a person's personal property would be removed, uh right to object to the removal, and a right to have possessions stored for 30 days, um, which is pretty similar to what I I put in the proposal uh that was presented to you.

Um so according to the approach that um was presented at the January select board meeting, uh when and looking at the materials that were provided, it looks like sometimes there's no notice that's provided in advance, and um other times it's around 24 to 48 hours.

So that's really, really short.

I also, assuming that the notice that was in the PowerPoint from January is the one that's being used, it provides so little information.

You know, there isn't, for instance, um, you know, two on one on there or groundworks or some of the other great community resources listed in the notice.

Uh and I think when it comes to having a more detailed notice, it isn't actually a time-consuming thing.

You just have a template, right?

And then it's still just filling in a few items on a template that just has more information in it.

So in the proposal that I provided, you'll see that I bulleted out some things that I think you would want to see in a notice, you know, some core elements to inform the recipient of what's going to happen, why it's happening, when it's happening, and how they can test what's going to happen.

Um what I was trying to do was strike a balance between uh public safety and the need uh to provide a reasonable amount of notice.

So in some situations that are, you know, really clearly defined, like if there's a particular location, sensitive location where it just isn't safe for anyone to camp, you know, that's that's posted, people know because it's in the policy.

Here are the zones where you just can't be, or if someone's in the middle of a roadway, notice and removal is happening at the same time.

There is no advanced notice, that's a public safety issue.

Um people were already on notice because the policy told them these are the exact areas where you really can't be, otherwise your stuff is because it's just not safe.

Uh whereas for other areas, uh it would be seven days.

Uh that's the same length of time as uh what was in the uh policy that resulted from the proto case.

Uh and I think it's it's not only better for the person who's experiencing homelessness to get more time to be able to figure out their next steps, you know, if the person actually does successfully figure out their next steps, it saves the town time and money because the person has moved themselves, and so you don't have to move their stuff for them.

Um I did want to flank too is uh I I'm a big fan of you know putting a note in a notice that for people with disabilities, if they need a reasonable accommodation that they can request that from the town.

Um I did suggest just because I think it's generally good practice.

This is not legal advice, just information.

Uh it's generally good practice to have, you know, someone like who, as part of their job is an ADA coordinator who just knows how to answer those sorts of questions around reasonable accommodations, and so um letting a person know how they can get in touch with that person.

Right.

Okay.

Um next due process topic is the right to be heard.

And from what I heard at the January meeting and reviewing those uh materials, uh it doesn't, I didn't, it didn't seem like people have an opportunity to appeal, but do correct me if I'm I'm wrong.

Next one.

All right.

And we see the opportunity to be heard is a critical element of due process.

Uh and how that happens can vary depending upon the circumstances.

So in our proposed policy, uh appeals could be heard as an informal conference.

Um I probably should have included a definition of informal conference in the definition section, uh, but I don't see that as you know, a full-blown hearing in front of five people.

It could be something like, you know, a designated person to reach out to who wasn't the decision, wasn't the original decision maker who couldn't, you know, who knows the facts of the situation and who can just hear the person out and be able to say, here's why we're making this decision because you're in this area, you know, we already gave you the notice, etc.

Um, and I think in addition to helping people feel like the process is more fair and giving them the chance to say, oh, but hey, wait, I think uh, you know, I am in the authorized area.

Um, it also, you know, it just generates more public trust.

And for the person whose boots on the ground, potentially having to remove an encampment, for them to be able to say, oh hey, I'm not, I'm not actually the one who made this decision.

You know, you you got to do that appeal, that already happened, you had your informal conference.

It can help keep them safer because they can say, oh no, I I'm just doing my job.

I'm just here to uh to remove these items.

Um so far as how long things get stored and and what actually gets stored, um, we tried to provide a little bit more clarity and a little bit more time than what was in the Brattleboro approach.

Um so the the language that I saw in the town's policy was to make a reasonable effort to distinguish between personal property and trash, but I didn't think that provided a lot of clarity.

And we were also concerned that 14 days doesn't provide a lot of uh storage time for folks.

So in our proposal, like the town, there's no requirement to store um garbage or hazardous materials, but we tried to bring a little bit more specificity to that.

So for instance, by centering the perspective of an unhoused person, um you can imagine uh so I don't like blankets that are not soft or if they have pills on them.

And so I might toss that, whereas it still serves a purpose, it can keep someone warm.

And so it's when I talk about um you know seeing things from the perspective of an unhoused person, something that some someone else might throw out if it's still serving a useful purpose, you know, that we don't want to consider that to be trash.

It's just providing a little bit more clarity.

Uh and for storage, I also tried to strike a uh a balance.

Um one of the big issues that I've heard from my unhoused neighbors is that when they lose their ID, uh it's you know just really burdensome for them to replace it.

It costs money and it slows down the process of you know applying for benefits or getting housing.

And so um what I did in the proposal was I sort of pulled the you know these small items like IDs out and gave them a longer storage period and potentially you know just to like stored it in a tote at town hall for those tiny items, uh whereas for other items um during 60 days all right.

Uh another component of our policy involves keeping records.

Um and if you look at the language of the Vermont Public Records Act, I think it provides a great way of thinking about why do we keep all these records?

So uh the policy purpose behind the Public Records Act is uh to create a record so that you can keep the procedural flow moving, uh documenting that proper protocols were followed and making it easier to show how programs are working.

And the town's proposed policy didn't seem to have any documentation requirements or maintain a log of activities.

I can't help but think that that is happening in some way, shape, or form, but I didn't see it really built in there.

Uh but I do think that documenting things well uh actually can protect you from liability.

Um so our proposal includes you know quick and easy ways to document what's happening.

Uh like in the Croteau policy uh in Burlington, you take pictures to just document yes, this notice was left at this campsite.

Um a log uh make sure that people have access to important information like where stored items were found and a short description of the items so that uh the wrong person doesn't get somebody else's personal property, you know, when you've got that little description in there, you can say, oh yeah, you know, these were the things in the red tent.

Um it also helps you to evaluate the policy by giving you the ability to run reports, you know.

Is it the case that people are picking their stuff up within 14 days?

And so maybe we can rethink our policy.

Okay.

And that's actually we can skip all the rest because I don't want to take up too much of your time.

But you've got it in the materials so you can look at it later.

I I wanted to uh leave plenty of time for questions.

Again, it's a menu of options.

Great.

Well, thank you very much.

Um why don't we um have this discussion this way?

You stay put.

Oh and then I'll ask the health officer uh Charles Keir to join you at the table.

And then um Jessica um Chuck can be talking about your points and how they relate to his policy that he developed.

That seems normal.

And then we'll have select board discussion, a public discussion back to the side.

Okay.

Please.

Hi.

Welcome.

Thanks.

Is he cure?

So uh Chuck, uh do you have um anything to say in in relation to Jessica's presentation and how it relates to town policy?

There are a lot of elements that she discussed that we cover within our policy.

I think there's a lot of elements that she discussed that are outside of our policy, probably outside of our purview and more of a decision that needs to be made by the select board and town manager.

And then I think you were saying that that the policy that exists now was made with the understanding of ACLU elements.

Would you like to expand on that?

Yep.

So when we developed a policy about three years ago, we referenced ACLU a great deal when we developed this policy.

So along with other agencies and organizations within the state and for the country.

And so those elements are many of the things that Jessica spoke about, like due process and mostly was uh reference to those items that would be necessitate the removal of encampment and the priority for removing those um encampments along with the need to integrate um non-for-profits such or agencies such as groundworks, HCRS, age project, those those type of and so that is occurring now, and that was something that uh that Jessica presented this evening to expand upon that.

Do you like me to expand upon that?

No.

I guess I didn't understand.

Um I'm I'm just saying that we have a policy now that has those basic elements about working with groundworks.

A hundred percent.

Yep.

Okay.

Yes, we do, and that was the policy that I presented um a few weeks ago or back in the past.

January 6th.

Yeah, great.

All right.

So um do we have um John?

Is there something that you wanted to present about your memo?

No, um I I just tried to look at the proposal and uh identify risks that the board should consider before they adopt it.

And um so I spelled those out in in pretty much all the categories as it was presented in in Jessica's proposal.

I'm happy to answer any questions about that if the board has any.

So let's uh begin with the board and then we'll go to the public and then come back to the board.

Uh are there members of the select board who have have questions for uh Jessica or Chuck?

Isaac?

Yeah, thank you so much for this presentation and for preparing this um possible policy.

Could you speak, Jessica, to what um what the you would anticipate being the cost of implementation of this policy and if there are things here that could be implemented that would not have a cost implication for the town.

Sure.

So the thing that I think would have a cost would be if there isn't an area of town that has uh accessible, for instance, public bathrooms, because I do think um that people do need bathrooms, and so whether it's in uh uh you know a designated space or somewhere else, that is just a beneficial thing to have, but that could potentially have a cost if you don't have spaces with accessible public bathrooms.

Um the next one, no changing the notice to make it have more details in it that is free.

Um so I would anticipate, you know, you've got the it's not called a COC anymore.

There's a special name.

Where's Libby?

Help me.

Can we do that?

Thank you.

Would you repeat that, please?

It's the local housing coalition.

Uh so I would guess that the local housing coalition that um works with people experiencing homelessness, uh would be really helpful and in helping to put together that notice, tapping partners to help, always beneficial.

Um let me think storage, I would imagine could have a slight increase in cost if you were storing things for longer.

Um having someone available in case someone you know needs a reasonable accommodation or um wants to, you know, uh have an informal conference to see if they can have a little bit more time for uh removing their their belongings, I think would be pretty minor.

Even in you know, big public housing authorities where they do more formal um hearings, it's you know just a small part of someone's job.

So I saw that as just being a very small part of a person's job.

Would there be anything else that I don't think so?

Um I know there I was doing a little bit of research uh yesterday to try to figure out were there other uh municipalities where they were doing more designated encampment areas, and the ones that I found were much bigger than what we're talking about here, but even there um there's one that I saw that was I think four encampments for several hundred people, and it was around 350,000 dollars.

I'm sorry, where was this?

That was in Grants Pass Oregon, believe it or not.

It was a little hard to tell what the final cost was because there were a lot of debates around what was gonna be there, like fencing and so forth.

Not right now, thank you.

Other board members.

Yes.

Yes, thank you.

Thank you for the presentation.

And Chuck, thank you again for being up here and talking to us about this.

Um I guess uh a couple different questions and thoughts on the um on the campground side.

There I think there's sort of two big components to this.

One is the idea of tweaks and adjustments to our policies that maybe move things more or less in a different in in different directions.

The other is the bigger idea of a place where people can actually camp.

Um so separating those two out a little bit, when you picture, could you just help me picture what a lower cost version of a camping area would look like?

Would that just be an a an open area where people don't get their tents removed?

That that seems like it wouldn't be enough in terms of infrastructure and sort of uh staff engagement.

But as soon as you start to add those things in, I feel like the costs go up very quickly.

So I'm wondering if there's a mental picture you have of successful versions of this, something like that.

And as always, to be clear, I would much rather that no one were unsheltered.

That is the that is a dream.

Uh we can do this, uh, but where we are right now.

I I have the understanding that there are some municipalities in Vermont that um have a bit of a we turn a blind eye in certain areas approach.

And um then what's available in those areas can be a range of different things.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um Chuck, on the just rattling off a couple of the things that were discussed in the presentation, there was longer notice, there was an appeal process, there was longer storage, um there was sort of more differentiated storage.

Let's take the example of pulling out IDs and maybe we keep those forever in a drawer or something, or for a year.

Um and then documentation maybe in the form of we take a picture of every notice we put up, or we take a picture of every I know we do take a bunch of pictures during the process, but are there things on that list that to you sound that are more on the burdensome end of the scale and things that are more on the that would be a change, but relatively lighter lift?

Sure.

I mean I I don't like to use the term burdensome.

Sure.

And so I do think there's a lot of the things that has been discussed that will be costly and or require additional staffing to do.

Um I think that's a really important part as we talk about some of these things.

Um documentation of the photos and you know, that's already happening now.

Um altering that in some manner to making it completely transparent to the public.

That's that's not a that's not a concern or a burden.

Um you know, some of the things that are concerning are the risk that we put our current employees to.

Um, for example, filtering through um even a uh a knapsack or a backpack or some sort of thing to look specifically for specific documentation, um puts our employees at an inherent risk for uh needle sticks, exposure, a number of different other things.

So getting that additional training for those people, getting the additional staff to do that, um, and that would be a very time-consuming thing as well.

So if this board were to make that decision to go to the encampment level at that level, um, I would encourage you to consider the staff time that would be part of that.

Um some of the other things that you you talked about were um the the notification time.

I think it's really important to look at the the public health aspect of that.

Um when we're notifying for an encampment for removal, um we oftentimes if that encampment has no inherent risk to public health, then that we give a lot of opportunity for that encampment to take place and for them to remove those belongings.

But as we deal with encampments that are that are on town property or in a public space, those those and we're dealing with large amounts of hypodermic needles and or um other associated things that we commonly find, whether it be human feces or um rotting material, food waste, um rodent attractance, stuff like that, those are the ones that we try to post for 28 to 48 hours.

That's not for any other reason that it is an inherent public health risk that we need to deal with.

Um I think the the level of um posting and the appeal process.

I think that's something that we can look to incorporate a little bit more.

I mean, we have our posting now, it gets posted.

Um I would encourage dialogue about how we can better do that.

We we we typically try to communicate with those people that are in that state as soon as we can, if we can at all.

Um lot of times if we're not able to make that level of communication.

Um we then work with agencies such as Groundworks or some of those other agencies to hey, have you seen or do you know this person that's living here?

Can we begin some level of conversation at your organization to do that so that we can remove this encampment and then don't lose their belongings, they don't um quite feel violated in the nature that some do.

Um so I think there's some of that that could take place that maybe is better in terms of an appeal.

I think while we're out there doing these things, I think the appeal process could take part as well, but I think that would be another conversation about staff and time.

Um while I'm out there currently doing that, um, I answer to you guys as I explain on the town health officer, I answer to the board of health.

So the appeal in this nature would be to you guys as the select board.

It could be somebody sh different, sure.

Um I think that could be developed in the policy, but as a town health officer, it is of the right of my decision to make an appeal to the board of health.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you both.

Can I correct?

Sure.

Just to be clear, we would not ask for you to go through someone's bag.

Leave the bag can be left alone.

It's more if you find an ID that it that's an easy thing to keep for a longer period of time.

That's all I have.

Amanda, sure, thank you.

Yeah, I'll be brief.

Um I want to clarify one thing.

Um, we do have a public bathroom that's in the new substation.

Am I right, John?

Yes.

And the hours of that public bathroom, the inside public bathrooms are I'm not sure.

We may have somebody may have a staff person in the back who knows the hours currently on that.

Assistant chief Evans, do you know the hours of the restroom?

It's uh 8:30 to 4:30.

8:30 to 4:30.

8 30 to 4 30.

Enter the yeah, and it's an inside bathroom that's open to the public in our new substation.

Uh I want to say thanks, Jessica, for taking the time to provide your feedback.

Um I want to thank you, Chief Kerr, for your careful policy.

Um I think that we're headed in the right direction to support uh people in our community without roofs over their head.

Um I think that we actually have a clear and compassionate response to um homelessness in our community that is guidance for our staff.

Um the current policy we have in Brattleboro, I believe, is a clear direction for our staff, is has good structure and is compassionate.

Um it is also legally permissible as reported by our town legal staff there.

We do it is not in any violation of constitutional or legal.

Um it does not have any constitutional or legal defects.

Um it's also open to be amended at any time.

So though I thank you for your um feedback, and I hear that our assistant chief has certainly taken note of it and could future make future changes.

And I also am impressed by how our town of Brattleboro has stepped up to support people in our community in need, whether it's the beloved shelter, the 69A, Groundworks Collaborative, HCRS, and I firmly firmly appreciate our human services for the work that they do and the work that our town does, our Brattleboro Police Department, our fire department, our department of public works.

I haven't gone yet, so did you want to say something?

I yeah, I just realized I forgot to say what I actually think.

If which is briefly that like last time, I same as at the last meeting, I'm comfortable with our current policy.

I would be comfortable with some of the these changes that we've discussed, or as is, I think we should keep working to improve it and look for opportunities to make it better, and then on the bigger question of uh camping accommodations on public land, I'm still very interested in it.

I'm still very I'm still overwhelmed by the challenges I see with it, but I also want us to keep working on that.

So okay.

So Jessica and Chuck, thank you both very much.

I have some um really kind of basic questions that um your presentation prompted, and again, I thank you for both of you.

Um so state law, as far as I understand, I mean you you talked about the Constitution, Jessica, but from my understanding is that the state of Vermont does not allow camping on state land, and the state of Vermont does not allow camping on public lands, but it does allow camping on private lands.

And so your um discussion is focused on town land.

It's not focused on state land.

Why is that?

Because I'm here today.

I thank you for having me because you were looking at the town encampment policy.

I do have uh the part of the presentation that we skipped uh is on why I think the state of Vermont does have a much larger burden and to respond to homelessness and uh why municipalities might want to be wary of having any of that responsibility or having a lot of that responsibility shift to them.

Right.

Thank you.

And so um my concern is that you know there may be um people who own property in Brattleboro who wish to um allow camping on their property, and if they were to do so, I would imagine they would go to Mr.

Keir and find out what public health requirements are requires need to be established in order to provide that.

Is that correct, Chuck?

That's correct.

They could go to myself andor Brian Bannon zoning um to make sure that they were meeting those camping requirements.

Great, and so the question of you know, where am I to go could be answered in that regard?

And and of course, you know, Amanda talked about how people step up and our our town is amazingly uh generous and compassionate, so that could be done.

Yes.

Um I also wanted to talk about um the bill that Jessica you mentioned.

I never remember the name of them, but I'm sure you do.

Um wouldn't that create yet again another unfunded mandate for the town of Brattleboro to provide for uh encampments on town land and not state land?

Like is this bill discussing state encampments or is it imposing uh a mandate on on town property?

Are you you're are you talking about H885?

Yes.

Um on H 885, it's just municipal lands.

It's municipal, yes.

And I noticed that the legislature has a charming little quirk where they're always proposing things on municipal property and never on state property.

So let's discuss um.

I I believe I'm the only select board member who's actually been to the cleanup of an encampment.

Um it was uh uh abandoned encampment, but it was a lovely Thursday morning as I recall.

And um it was eye-opening to me, the amount of opioid use that had taken place on that encampment.

And Chuck, would you say that the majority of the encampments do have a propensity to opioid use?

We have a significant opioid use problem in our in our community.

Yeah.

And it's it's very commonly seen in the encampments.

Right.

And so I'm concerned when because Chuck, you said we do wellness checks, and there's um associated services from our community who join you, mostly groundworks, perhaps others.

Um many uh people will or is there a percentage or some other number that you would say actually um take the social service provider up on their offer for treatment?

Um while we're out doing our checks and while we're doing either encampments, it's a very small percentage.

Oftentimes they've had some level of interaction with uh social service interaction.

Um maybe it wasn't positive, maybe it was positive, but for whatever reason the number of return, I guess there's a lot of interaction.

I shouldn't the social services are out there a lot, but the engagement from uh the population or from folks out there do not typically engage back.

So um lastly, and I brought this up in January, but I think we need to reiterate you know what this town does for people experiencing homelessness.

Um first of all, um our planning commission, our our town plan has a very um inclusive zoning ordinance with the goal, which is heralded among the state, that it's expansive and it allows for housing and we and um allows for housing of all kinds and and on all needs, and so um the other uh element is in that is that we also have these housing housing providers, like we have the Wyndham Windsor Housing Trust and the Bratterboro Housing Partnerships Partnership, and so there is a lot of low-income housing in our town, so we have housing for a broad range of people and their needs.

Um I'm concerned on top of that, then we also have shelters, we have groundworks, and I see Libby here, and we have um the Winston Pratty shelter, and we have the new beloved shelter, and then we have um the new morning side shelter that's being built, I assume.

So I would say that that's a tremendous effort on the part of the people of our town to provide shelter for people, probably um more than many, many other towns in the state.

Chuck, do you know um whether any town in Vermont provides more uh diverse shelters?

I can't speak on that, but what I do hear is that Brattleboro is one of the most proactive communities looking after our folks.

Thank you, Chuck.

And so then on top of that, we have the GA Motro voucher program.

And so right now there's 221 people living in our town motels, and um uh there's you know, children and families and people of all sorts.

So this encampment uh issue is really so many types of housing being provided.

And my concern is that encampments isn't really housing.

Like the legislators don't even consider encampment in their discussion about providing housing because it's a lower standard of housing.

And my concern is that when we reduce the standards for housing, uh whether it's it's um you know, the state of a shelter or the encampment policy, we are essentially um lowering standards for people experiencing homelessness that we don't accept for anybody else in the community, and I don't like that.

I want to have the same standards.

So I reject um a more robust encampment policy because I don't think it's the direction that anyone in the state of Vermont wants to go.

And and that's why I prefer uh the existing um policy that we have because it it's it's humane and it's dignified and it affects the public health, but it doesn't um legitimize something that's not really legitimate.

And so those are my feelings.

Um should we open it up to the public?

I'd like to share something.

Oh I first maybe Jessica.

Is it okay if I provide a little bit more information?

Um I think I provided some charts in my presentation.

Uh so if you look at, and this is true statewide.

If you look at the number of what are called extremely low-income households, less than 30 percent of AMI.

I think we've got um a bit over 20,000 of those.

And then if uh you subtract off of that number, uh the number of subsidized housing properties where people are, you know, typically paying around 30 percent of their income towards their rent.

Um that's 9,999.

Uh and then if you subtract vouchers, you know, that folks have heard about, um, so that helps you rent in the private market and you only pay 30% of your income towards rent.

Uh I think we have something like 4,720 of those.

Maybe it's 4,200.

In any case, the reality is there isn't enough affordable housing yet.

If you go to State House, you will hear lots of people talking about how we really need more affordable housing.

Uh, and we end up with this gap of around 6,000 people.

It's it's pretty gosh darn close to the number of people who are experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness when you compare those two.

And then when it comes to the shelter providers who are doing amazing work with very little, um, we don't have enough shelter beds right now.

If you look at the rate of homelessness in Vermont, especially since 2019, since the pandemic, it's gone way up, but the uh shelter beds have increased a bit, but just not as much as they need to.

And so I completely agree with you.

We shouldn't have anyone who's unsheltered and outside.

But um this is just uh band-aid.

That's why I made it uh pilot, because uh if people are outside, because we don't have enough shelter beds and we don't have any housing that they can afford, someone's gonna lose the the race to get into shelter and to get into that affordable housing, and so where are they gonna go and are they gonna have a bathroom and are they gonna have somewhere to throw at their garbage and are they gonna have somewhere to put their sharps?

And I would hope that you know the the things that you've seen in the camps that caused you so much concern.

If people had a bathroom, they would use a bathroom instead.

And so the the public health issues wouldn't be so severe.

Yeah.

So we've heard a little bit about what will maybe this policy that we have is legal, but I think there's a difference between what's a legal minimum and what's needed.

Um there with an absence of places to go and absence of private land that people have found to camp on.

Um it does make the question of, well, where are people to go?

People have told me, okay, I've you know, I was told not to camp there, but not I've told where I can't camp, but where can I camp?

And you know, it would be great if we had a house for that person or an apartment, but if there isn't that night, you know, where is that person to go?

And I understand that right now the sheltering brattle shelter capacity in Brattler is 56 households, not counting when when it's below 10 to 10 degrees below zero, then there's some more beds available.

But um, I I think that there is a way for us to I would hope that there'll be a way to take the policy that we have that you've created and been using that approach and take elements from this proposal that might feel like the lowest hanging fruit that feel like they're feasible to incorporate, like you know, if you see identification or other valuables like that that are small that you know, keeping storing them for six months seems like a reasonable low-cost thing that we could do.

Um you mentioned the um assistant chief uh Kira about the uh record keeping wouldn't add wouldn't wouldn't add um significant amount of time or making that more um publicly available about removals of encampments, you know, some of these things about notice.

You know, I think we could we could include a little some of those elements to make it just a little bit easier on people who are having already struggling and then being asked to move along.

Neighbors, the impact um on the community, um uh clear expectations about what behaviors wouldn't be tolerated and the requirements for being able to stay there, but uh you know I I think there could be some compromise or some maybe some um but I I don't think the I would want to see what the the town staff could come up with in terms of what what would be what feel feasible with the resources that you have uh Sean would you consider yourself interrogated to find out what you've put together about what something like Isaac is suggesting would entail?

Yeah, um I mean we'd be happy to come back um to you at a future meeting with um trying to incorporate uh what Isaac is suggesting um uh with a budget we'd be happy to do that um it it definitely would take I think more capacity than we have either in terms of new new personnel or uh not doing other things that we're currently doing to provide services and shifting that uh that time into those sorts of efforts that you described Isaac so I'd be happy to come back and um visit with you again about those types of things if that's what the board wants us to do well let's not decide until we've heard from the public so are there members of the public who would like to speak on this issue oh there's a lot as has anyone signed up my name is C T Trumble and a couple things I would like to ask you guys okay people ask a cop where to go they come the people they don't care now everybody writing you up then to go to I'm sorry sir could you direct your comments to me please me thank you then they give a person a uh thing to go to court okay people have asked the cops where to go where to stay the thing with the needles my group and used to pick up needles now the cop arrest her and me but have the needles on us now I see a needle I won't pick it up because people make it so people don't want to clean up taking those now I'm gonna let you know but this can't like people to go I heard about that where is it so the people know I'm sorry I didn't even discuss I was asking right and and that's what we're discussing right now we don't have an answer for you okay a couple of months and drop in would go up here and uh what the code place for the up here they were subtent for a couple of days okay but people can't bear but when drop in say by a couple of days okay if they're fair for one what can't be fair for everyone I'm sorry sorry I I don't have any answers for you um no you caught Phil I stayed down Kapinski Park many days under the thing when it was raining now I can't go there because you get no trust when it even with this cold weather or rainy weather people got to get under where do they go uh have you um discussed these issues with uh Grantworks and the other ships oh you have nothing to do with groundwork and why I went to the hospital and the hospital called them and I took a paper I had their bed there that called me a liar I got arrested down at the fire station too caught called them told them I was going to Gale and I go Gail I lost my bed people called them and they called me a liar and you don't call me a lawyer I won't call your lawyer and I got through that people call you all right have nothing to do with it.

Ivan Ivan Hennessey, Brattleboro.

Um, despite what you've all heard here, I just want to reassure everyone that it's perfectly normal to need to use the bathroom after 4 30 p.m.

and before 8 30 a.m.

Thank you.

Uh yes, Lisa Marie.

Hi, Lisa Marie.

Um, so a couple of things.

One, I want to thank Sam from uh the Brat team, aka Paw Patrol, as a lot of people call.

Um, he's been doing absolutely amazing.

Um helping everyone get to and from shelters, like it's just awesome.

So thank you guys for letting him help us or whatever.

Also, um there's a few things.

One, um, I tried to use the bathroom uh not too long ago down at the substation or whatever, and there was no button to push, and if there is, I can't find it, and the door was locked.

Um, and a lot of people cannot actually access that toilet.

So if we can figure out how to, that would be amazing.

Also, um, even if just to start one plot of land and up and a porter john or a box with a hole in the ground, so someone can take a crap in private, that would be amazing as well.

So as long as somebody has a place to go and they're not sleeping in front of a doorway on a sidewalk in the middle of the street, or wherever the heck they're going to drown, um, and where everyone's like, okay, you can go there, that would be amazing.

So, because getting no trespassed and getting you know kicked out of each and every place, and then just recycling and recycling, going back to the same spots because they know, okay, well, they haven't been there for a week, so I'm gonna go there, or whatever.

Like having a place to go, it doesn't matter where it is as long as somebody can go there.

So but I could talk about this stuff for hours, and you guys know that.

So love you.

Uh hands.

Libby.

Hi there.

Um, I'm Libby Bennett.

I'm resident of Rattlebro, and I'm the director at Groundworks Collaborative.

Um Chair McLaughlin, I wanted to point out you were listing a sort of continuum of a number of shelters that we have in the community, but I wanted to just bring a little bit of data to that conversation to say, despite all of the uh affordable housing that we do have in the community and all of the shelter provision that is here and available to people.

Um, our outreach team at Groundworks since January 1st has come into contact with 112 unduplicated individuals in the town of Brattleboro who are living without shelter.

And so what we have is not enough.

And I, you know, it is a wonderful thing that we have so many resources, but what we have is not enough.

Um, and I'm so sorry.

Uh Mr.

SET, we used to have this fundraiser on the common that we called Camp for a Common Cause.

Um Peter Case was part of that that fundraiser also, and we would obtain a permit, a parade permit from the town to camp there for one night, and you're right, it was not available to people at other times, but it was available to us for that one night of the year, and we it's been a good like five years or so since we've done that, probably more.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Um, Mr.

Smith.

Aaron Smith, um, you know, I I I feel for the people who are homeless and don't have a place to go.

Um, I do have concerns um of my own about affordability, and I think everybody in the town of Bratterboro has pretty much brought that up.

I mean, when we're looking at a 27 million dollar budget, it's one thing to set aside land, maybe even create bathroom facilities, but then there's the maintenance, and in these bills at the state level, have they taken into account like the people that utilize that space be responsible for cleaning it instead of leaving it on the towns?

Because a lot of towns, I imagine we're not alone.

We're pretty strapped as it is.

And I think you know Mr.

Smith, direct your questions to me, please.

I guess you know that that that's the gist of it, you know.

To me, you know, I think people do need a place to go.

I do wish I had an answer on how to fix it.

I don't, but I have concerns about my ability to stay in my home, you know, and I I don't think it's fair to keep dumping the responsibility financially on the town.

Uh thank you.

A hands, please.

Yes, sir.

Brandon O'Donnell.

And um, I just want to say that, like I was just recently kicked out of groundworks.

Um they were actually dishonest in their discharge reason.

They did not give me any notice.

They they told me, hey, you're out of here.

I don't know if anybody saw the the baggage I was carrying coming in here.

But I also had two sleeping bags, a sleeping mat, another bag of clothes, and an extra pair of shoes.

They actually had Officer Evans chase me down the road, throw those bags onto the sidewalk, and then told me I was littering that they were gonna go in the trash if I didn't take them with me.

There's absolutely no dignity in the way I was treated by groundworks were Officer Evans.

When I'm carrying all that stuff, I have no notice, I have nowhere to put that stuff, and I was expected to carry three extra trash bags about that big with all this stuff that I'm carrying now.

Okay.

How long now?

2023, 2024, how long?

Ever since that horrible accident happened?

It's been a while, right?

Uh how much money has been dumped into that.

I'm curious to know.

Um as far as I know, I'm pretty sure Groundworks makes money off of the homeless people here.

You know.

So when you're talking about the cost of encampments, and and and every time I've gone to the transit, that bathroom has been locked.

It's been locked.

So thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Uh who else would like to speak?

Yes, Gemma.

Gemma Seymour Pratapor.

I'm very disappointed and troubled by the fact that discussions concerning unhoused people in our town are conducted with the implicit assumption that those experiencing homelessness in our community don't actually qualify as members of this community or constituents of our municipal government.

That is wrong, and it is simply not how residency and constituency works in a free society, which the last time I checked, we consider ourselves to be.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, uh Liz, for pointing out what I was going to point out, which is that our town already does an awful lot.

The policies that we have in place are very, very um supportive.

I also want to um take notice of the fact that our uh the police department, the fire department, and the uh the public works department all play a very important role in um keeping both our downtown safe, but also the people who are suffering um from not having any place to live.

I know that uh Washburn is particularly welcome by the people who are downtown, and he is um he goes around and asks them on the just before the coldest days of the of the year were starting.

From what I understand, he went around for two days asking everybody if they had some place if they knew where they were gonna go.

We're a very compassionate town, and so then I have some questions.

Um, it was cited uh Burlington, Burlington in 2018.

Thank you.

2018.

It's now 2026.

How's that going?

Sorry to direct that to you.

But how is that going?

From what I understand, the um there are a lot of complaints, and these and the and the town is now reassessing uh their policy.

I understand that there are difficulties with these pods, with these shelter pods, and I understand that they're now beginning to take a more vigorous enforcement of the laws.

The last thing that I just want to say is that the very same people who are here who have been arguing about uh funding the police.

I'd like to know where they think they're gonna get people who will now police or look over or take care of these encampments.

I mean, the the urban ranges, their salary goes somewhere between 40 and 70,000, 50 and 70,000 a year.

All right, thank you.

Uh I saw a hand in the back of the room.

Mr.

Ozer.

You can hear it.

Bob Ozard, Rattleboro.

Um I think some of the two of these questions are already been asked, I believe, but I just wanted to see if we can get answers.

Do you know what the cost of the current policy is?

Including the time that's devoted uh by staff from other departments that are assigned to that policy enforcement.

And then I did have, I did encounter an officer on the street one day, and I said, So, where can you go?

So we really can't tell you where you can go.

We can tell you where you can't go.

So that's sort of the reality.

Um I'm dealing with in terms of all the housing opportunities that we have.

I was encountering a person last couple weeks who has gone through the system and gotten a case manager, a housing case manager.

But the voucher amount, not too sure I'm explaining this right.

The voucher amount does not meet the percentage of the rent.

And the landlords that they've been talking to had bad experiences with people with those vouchers, so there's no housing available.

So thank you.

Dinah and answer.

No, of course.

Hi, Dina Chadwick, uh District 9.

This um, you know, it's a huge issue.

We uh are there's a lot of different variables, and I don't have an easy solution, but I don't know if anyone's ever heard of um treatment courts on this board.

Yes.

Um that is something that I think if any of you all can do is contact our legislator and try to get that going.

Pennsylvania is doing that and they're having a lot of success with it because it guides people to treatment and mental well-being, so they can get them off the street.

So that's what we should be doing.

Um we shouldn't be a and we should be putting people in the right place.

As a matter of fact, Dina, um we we have a sort of acknowledgement from the judicial system that uh we can participate, but that court is in Woodstock, and so the problem is getting our people up to there, and it's very frustrating um for our judicial system that that court in Woodstock isn't more accommodating.

And I know I've talked to the legislators about um that issue and and hopefully work something out to be actually here in our town where it's needed, probably more than one stop.

Probably more than one stack.

Yes, ma'am.

Um I did just want to point, I mean, as everyone knows, I think, because we've had both state and local permission to do so.

69A has been acting as an overflow shelter for the past three weeks while it's this cold.

Um we don't have any of those things.

We have no budget.

You're talking about having to hire 1.5 to two employees.

Lisa Marie and I both work 70 plus hours a week for free doing the things that you're talking about having to do to have this kind of place and all of the things, including meeting material needs, the emotional stuff that you talk about.

Um we've been working with the Brat team with groundworks with the beloved shelter.

We've been collaborating in a way that has worked every night to triage the people in our community into the appropriate spaces for them as far as possible.

Um that is an example of what we can do as a community with imagination and collaboration.

It doesn't have to be a three million dollar budget, it doesn't have to be um run like a business, it's not a business, it's a place where people can be safe.

At the bare minimum, there can be a place in town where people know that they won't be no trespassed, given further um judicial barriers towards getting employment and housing um have to experience that every night.

And then it will like 69A has been.

Again, we don't have paid staff, we don't have everybody's been cleaning, everybody's been taking care of it.

Um we haven't had like we haven't had to any real we haven't had to call in services for anything really other than people self-requesting to go to the hospital for injuries or something or another.

Like it's been very beautiful, and again, it's been a collaboration between everyone who's experiencing homelessness, um, neighbors and other nonprofits and like the police and fire department and state.

And so I just don't think it's I don't know, it doesn't make sense to me to I totally agree with you, Liz.

Obviously, like I don't think that focusing on encampments and spending money on encampments like is the solution.

I do think that identifying places where people can at least be safe from where people can feel some kind of stability day to day.

It just it goes such a long way to solving the issues that we all like, yeah.

And people are also geniuses at coming up with collective solutions, and I do think we should prioritize home landowners and homeowners, and there's a lot of grant money available in the state to do so.

And people are like Bob was saying, people are scared to take advantage of a lot of the grants that are available, for example, for helping people you can get money to build an ADU, etc.

As long as you promise to help someone exit homelessness, people are scared of that.

And as a community, we can do a lot to mitigate that fear and make it more accessible to people and just try to find real long-term housing solutions for each other.

All right, thank you.

Um okay, so we'll go to the three people online and then uh the select board will uh decide what action to take.

Hi, thank you.

Um I appreciated Chair McLaughlin's um remarks on campsites not being the answer, and I also appreciated the uh responses that in this moment they I know your name, but the community needs to be Oh, I'm sorry, Laura Chapman.

Well, um I I also appreciate the remarks on the fact that um for some people that is the only answer right now.

And in thinking of terms of answers, I had asked at one of your meetings several weeks ago about the um apparent limitation caps that are being set on motel rooms by the town of Brattleboro, the request from the town of Brattleboro to the state to limit the amount of motel rooms that are being used at certain motels.

Um and I'm wondering again, I'm gonna ask the question if that can be reconsidered.

Um, because that is uh a solution that's right in your midst that's not outside for some folks.

And what's happening right now, to my understanding from uh uh an impacted person um and several stories I've heard over the past, and from looking at the September motel list, um people are being sent out of community far away from their supports when they're willing to go.

So they're being sent to St.

Johnsbury, where they don't have case management, where they don't have their usual support systems and access to um the things that they need and into a strange community.

I mean, it's it's basically um uh like we're we're sending them away from home.

Um that's one of the by uh the side effects of limiting these rooms.

So if that's continuing to happen, not only is it um removing shelter from the community, but it's also removing people from the community or asking them to make a really hard choice between going far away from everything they know or staying outside.

And some of them are choosing to stay outside.

Uh Laura, let me just interrogate you for a moment if if you are willing.

Rather you ask me questions, not interrogate me.

So that's the way we talk about it in I appreciate that.

I think that we can talk in kinder terms, we're community, but okay.

Live in Putney.

I do.

Are the there's motels in Putney?

Do they house a homeless?

I'm not sure, to be honest, and that's a great question for our town, and that's a great question for that hotel.

My understanding is that hotel at halves at times has done that.

But hotels have to be willing.

And so I don't know that that hotel management is always willing, always willing.

What we're talking about in Brattleboro is hotels that are already willing, and it literally says on this list that the town is requesting, the municipality is requesting that they not be used.

So I don't know the whole story in Putney, but I do know from looking at this paperwork that the town of Brattleboro is requesting hotel rooms not be used.

And and it's interesting too, because what Brattleboro has found is that many, many people in our motels are from out of the area or out of state.

So uh taking, as you said, taking people far away from their homes um and bringing them to another town where they don't have the support systems, that's happening now.

And and that's how people from all over the state who are brought to Brattleboro.

Well, maybe if we stop sending people to St.

Johnsbury, they'd stop sending people to us.

I don't know.

Like um, but the legislation that we're all very focused on.

So um but you have a thing that you could do right now, and so what I hear you doing is deflecting.

Okay.

So um I'm gonna say thank you.

Isaac, do you Yeah, a question for clarification?

Um when did the town of Brattleboro um request a limit on the motel's um capacity and of this for the state and um who made that decision?

We could put this on an agenda and I could uh address it uh in the future.

It's not really germane to this.

Because it's already eight o'clock.

So um who else there's two more speakers?

Uh Alyssa was first.

Hi, um, thanks for having me.

Um this is a super oh, I'm sorry, Alyssa Arroyo RTM District 9.

Um, super tough topic, a lot of tough choices to make.

If they're not easy, um, we don't have a clear solution in sight.

Um, I guess my concern would be, or my question is, um if there were to be any um litigation arising from any negligence in supervision on these um the proposed encampments, would that litigation fall on the town?

Um the town is already stretched super thin, and I would want to know um, heaven forbid there was a wrongful death death suit.

How do how does the town protect itself from something like that?

Um maybe this sounds crazy or unethical or something, but would um campers be required to sign uh a waiver or anything like that, and um any type of document that would protect the town from any litigation that could arise from um actions that unfortunately happen uh on these sites.

Um my concern is for the safety of the of the campers and um negligence does happen.

And if that would fall on the town, that wouldn't I don't I can't support that at all.

Um possibly maybe any organizations that are affiliated with working on these encampments, maybe that could fall on them.

But um what would that look like?

Thank you.

Uh thank you, Alyssa.

Good question.

Hannah, do you want to opine on that?

Not really, no.

I I don't really want to to speculate about a hypothetical, but generally speaking, there would likely be some sovereign immunity issues there.

Um tort liability for government actors is limited.

Thank you.

All right.

Last question, and then the board will make some sort of decision.

Good evening.

Please state your name.

Hi.

Um, this is Lisa Weinman.

And I just had a quick question after listening.

Um have there been any discussions with the retreat hospital about the use of some of their extensive properties for such an encampment?

And I ask this because if it feels like in these discussions, the retreat is often sort of it's always there, but it's never really part of the discussions that I've heard.

And it seems to me and others I've spoken to that a lot of people come to Brattleboro before the retreat and then get released and kind of hang around here, and there hasn't been, as far as I understand, a lot of responsibility that the retreat has taken for its role in some of the issues the town faces.

So I was just wondering if that has ever been discussed.

Uh thank you.

Uh Sean, do you want to be interrogated?

Um I'm happy to answer your questions, Liz.

Um Yeah, we have had conversations with the retreat about shelter, and uh they have not seen that as part of their mission.

Um so they have declined that um that sort of uh possibility.

So um I'll let uh Steve uh be the last questioner.

Um this is G.

Peterson District 7.

I I just again wanted to point out I think um that in considering in it these encampments, I know that they encampments inevitably turn into hot spots for drugs distribution, etc.

Uh I think that's pretty broadly documented in the United States.

Um would this be seen to be a low barrier or a high barrier encampment?

Are they gonna are they gonna l let opioid use and distribution happen there?

Or or are they gonna actually ask for more kind of a kind of um uh a cleaner setup?

That would be my one question.

And then the other question I would have is again, Brattleboro carries way more of its uh more water per capita than anywhere else in Vermont, and certainly in our region as well.

Um and I think is there any discussion about how to make sure if we're being said I mean told you've got to provide we've already doing so much to provide uh housing shelters and services and low-income housing and housing subsidies, we're doing way more than anybody else.

And so is there any discussion about per capita help that we're already engaging in when being told you've got to do more?

Is there you know, to the other person's point about sending people to St.

Johnsbury?

Um How can we make sure this is equitable for all Vermont towns?

So those are just two comments.

The the drug use in an encampment and how to make things equitable across Vermont.

Great, thank you, Steve.

And those are two questions that um you know would enter into any discussion about there's a lot of complex details that are being being discussed or need to be discussed if we were to go further.

Um but before the select board deliberates, um does anyone want to put a motion on the table?

I would like, but I see Isaac's hand up.

Do you have another comment?

No, I had a motion I'd like to make.

Mr.

Hugh, were you gonna say something?

If I could have two minutes, Madam Chair.

Sure.

I there's a number of different things that were said tonight, and I I heard a lot of them.

And I just want to take a moment.

One of the things is the professionalism that our staff have, whether it's the fire department, the police department, a department of public works.

It is unacceptable in any nature for us not to be compassionate, whether that person's in the wrong law, or um breaching one of these many issues that we find inherently dangerous, and it's um not uncommon for somebody to jump out of a dump truck to offer some water to somebody that they just um removed an encampment to have a law enforcement officer take the time to explain hours later when cooler heads can prevail um the things that happened and and what resources are needed.

Uh a fire department member to explain uh discharge papers that they received from BMH or from another thing.

So things things that a public servant would do, and I just want to take a note that the level of professionalism in each one of these organizations is is relative of a public servant, and that's what we took the job to do, and that's to do anything but to serve the public.

Thank you, Chuck.

Isaac, you have a motion?

Yeah, I you know, I appreciate the professionalism of the town.

The you're taking the time to share about the process that you did on the that that January 6th meeting.

Um assistant chief Keir along with colleagues from the the town.

Um and also it's great to hear on January 6th about the plans to continue improving the process for the encampment removal and for people to be able to retrieve their belongings.

That was great to hear about some um initiatives that are underway on that.

There is some there are some really great ideas in this pilot policy from that's been proposed this evening.

Um some things that would uh just make it a clearer, uh clearer process, a more consistent process that would have include those elements of due process and that would uh build trust for in our community and make sure that we're looking out for all members of the community.

So I moved to direct this town staff to amend the approach to include elements from the ACLU pilot policy and to come back to us with an amended version of what what the current approach has been Isaac has proposed a motion that I didn't write down.

So but I think he said that he proposes to ask the town to amend come back to us with an amended policy for encampment uh care.

With is that consistent that includes elements from the ACLU pilot policy.

From the ACLU pilot policy.

All right.

Isaac.

All those select board members in favor of that motion.

Did you want to speak to it?

Yeah, can we discuss?

Please, of course.

Uh any elements in particular?

Do we want to there are things on here?

I guess I'll say there are things on here that make some common sense to me that sounded like they wouldn't be super huge lift that I would happily see the town incorporate.

I also continue to become comfortable with the policy as written.

But I think if we want to if we want to ask for something, I'd like to give a little clearer direction.

I'd I'd love to speak.

Um I am opposed to this motion.

I would like to see us adopt our current policy, and um because we learned from our town council that it can be amended, it's clear direction for our staff.

It's um you know, time, care, compassion has gone into this plan.

I've heard about this plan on Vermont Public Radio.

I've heard about this plan here in our select board room.

Um I would vote against your motion.

I think what we need to do is accept our town policy for now, you know.

And um, so that our staff has clear direction and guidance.

Um I also think that um everyone has been here for a very long time already tonight, and we have a long agenda.

And um, so I'm going to vote no on your motion.

All right.

So um uh Isaac has moved to amend the town encampment policy to include elements of the ACLU's pilot policy.

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

All right.

There you go.

All select board members not in favor of that amendment, please raise your hand and say no.

All right, so that's four one to four.

Um does someone have another motion.

You want me to say the okay I'll say the motion.

We already did it.

It's easy.

I move to formally adopt the town's encampment response approach as presented at our January 6th select board meeting.

All right, plain and simple.

Amanda has made a motion to formally approve or adopt the town encampment response approach as official town policy as presented by the town health officer at the select board's January 6th, 2026 meeting.

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

Aye.

All select select board members not in favor of that motion, please raise your hand and say nay.

Nay.

There you go.

So that's um board to one, and I thank everyone, especially yes.

I have one other item under this topic.

A question for John and then possibly a motion.

But um if you can just refresh my memory, we at some point.

Did we look at the cost of just uh hiring a company to put up a port-a potty and maintain it?

Is that something it was 250,000 a year?

Or a unit.

Okay, I so I remember the bathroom proposal, which was 500-ish for a new construction, but just like music festival, port-a-potty, they clean it once every X days.

Is that something we've looked at?

As a matter of fact, we had it, excuse me.

Before John's time, we had a policy.

There were several port-a potties buses around town, and the problem is the maintenance.

We couldn't find a reliable uh maintenance team.

And I know that uh, for example, the church has one.

I don't know, they still have to.

I think they do not anymore.

Yeah, it's it's a very problematic, and that's why we tried for years to have a uh proposal for a standard uh and and it actually there was in the uh substation proposal that it was removed.

Yes.

Um so I guess uh I don't know if this requires a motion or nods from the board.

I would love to have town staff spend an hour on just cost.

What would that look like?

What would it cost?

I mean, there are companies that do this, they are presumably not super squeamish about cleaning and maintaining port-a potties.

It feels doable, and the problems that would happen at the port-a potty are otherwise just gonna happen in public or somewhere else.

So I'd like to at least take a look.

I I'd love to weigh in.

I mean, uh I think that I think the outcome would be better served, Oscar, if we collaborated with one of our community agencies, um, and not necessarily the burden of the town.

I think that we have a lot of creative uh engaged service agencies in our community.

Groundworks is here right now.

Like let's have a conversation.

We have one Brattleboro.

Um, let's have a conversation about it.

It also with our health officer, you know.

But I don't think financially the town I I just think it's worth having collaborative partners if you're gonna engage in a solution like that.

I agree, and I I'm not talking about say about directing the town to go do it, but I would love a little sort of cost information just to have in that conversation.

Um, you know, if it's 150,000 a year, probably not gonna do it.

And why don't we just why don't you discuss um with John and then we'll talk about putting it on the agenda in the agenda setting committee at another time.

Sure, okay.

And anyone who wants to if I think the idea of pursuing it with community organizations is is good if there's energy on this board to do that, and people can uh privately do that before our next meeting or two.

That would be a great addition to the conversation.

So, yes, I will pursue that privately with John between now and the next meeting.

And we can talk about agenda.

Yeah.

And so let me just uh thank you very much for your presentation and for your presence here and coming down here from Burlington and it's all very much appreciated and and your insights and Chuck, as always.

I appreciate your professionalism and your wisdom.

Right, so let's take a break for five minutes, and that would be uh eight twenty-one.

That's wise.

Okay.

Bonnie Batchilder, can I can I call you to the presentation table, please?

Hello.

Good evening.

How are you?

I'm good.

How are you?

Thank you.

Fine, thank you.

Thanks for coming.

No problem.

So tell us about our finances.

Okay.

Well, first of all, I just want to tell you that things are in good shape and on target.

There's no issues, no major problems, and so things are where they should be.

So let me just give you a few highlights.

So we're these are your December financials.

We're 50% uh through the year uh at December 31st.

If we annualize the revenue and expenses and revenue, we've uh earned 58%, and we've spent 47% of our budget.

We have a surplus of 10 million eight hundred thousand, we have a cash balance of sixteen point eight million, and included in the surplus of 10.8 million, it's approximately nine and a half million of receivables, um, which leaves straight revenue on a cash basis, as most people are used to thinking of of 1.3.

So we're in in good shape there.

The EMS revenue through the end of December is 651,000.

And if we annualize that, we're we will be looking at approximately 1.3 million, uh, which already exceeds the 420,000 that we have budgeted.

So as you know, we've discussed before that I take the receivables that are on the books, and I only capture 38% of those.

If I take an average of the EMS billings that we have done, and then what we've collected, we've actually collected 42 percent.

So um again, we're only capturing on a conservative level.

Benefits are holding at 48 percent.

Um of the costs that we pay uh up front, basically prepaid our our workers' comp, our risk management, our general liability, but those are all factored when I do the uh annualization of the expenses.

Some people will look at the budget and look at the overtime for police fire dispatch, but I do a calculation and it which ensures and shows that the salary lines are less than what we budgeted, and if you take those together, we're still in line uh with where we should be in the budget.

The utilities fund uh is represents 49% of its annual budget, so it's where it should be.

Expenditures represent 32 percent revenues currently are at 3.5 million, expenses 2.3 million with a surplus of 1.1 million.

The parking fund, uh, we've collected 40% of our annual budget.

We've spent 40% of our annual budget.

We have revenues of a little over 400,000, expenses of 429,000, and currently have a deficit of 24,000.

So overall uh in and the rest of the report shows the transfers, which I know that people have been interested in in the past, and our reserve balances for the fire truck and the ambulance.

So overall, um, the town is really where it should be, and um you know, a good representation of the voted budget.

Well, that's an excellent report.

Yes, come back more often.

Okay.

Um I just had a question.

Um just to reiterate this fire overtime budget has been offset by underspending of the staff salary line.

Correct.

Yep.

And so um that means really that that there is no actual overtime expenditure, is that correct?

Is it entirely offset?

Yes, it's entirely offset.

If you're if you're looking at the entire salary uh picture picture, then yes, it they one washes the other.

Great.

So in other words, the understaffing is being covered over.

Which is the problem that we're trying to remedy.

Correct.

So thank you.

Um let's let my colleagues uh comment.

Oscar.

Sure, thank you.

Um thanks, Moni.

Just two, well, a comment, which is just to uh hammer home this overtime versus salary things for people following along because I I really like how you've ended up doing it in this one.

This is my favorite one.

So that 50% of the way through the year when you total up overtime and salaries and the other stuff, we're we've only spent 49%, so we're essentially right on budget.

I think it is a great representation of the fact that though we are over financially, it is worth it is balancing out.

So I I think that that one percentage is a good visualization, and I'll look forward to seeing that in future ones because I think it's really helpful.

Other area.

I I'm sure I'll be wrong, but I want to look at EMS revenue just to see if I am understanding the presentation.

So at the moment we have we six hundred and fifty K in revenue so far for the fiscal year.

Correct.

I'm assuming that that is a combination of cash receipts and receivables.

Is that so we have right now 330K in receivable revenue, which is actually only 38% of our actual outstanding claims, and then this is the amount we assume we're gonna collect.

And then we're adding that to something like 320K in actual received claims to get to 650K.

Is that broadly right?

It's broadly right if you're isolating into 26, but don't forget at the end of 25, we had 400,000 worth of receivables.

So we have received those the money that we've received in 26.

So you gotta you're you're trying to take an accrual-based calculation and back it into a cash basis.

So you've just got to think of it in that perspective.

So the the 650K number here includes FY26 claims that have been paid.

FY26 claims that are still outstanding, and some FY25 claims that are incredibly old or okay no, you know.

I told you, I told you I was gonna be able to do that.

No, it's fine.

You use the term money that we have received.

Yes, that was a mistake.

Okay, so this 650,000 is purely FY26 revenue.

Okay, it is money that we have received that is pertains to FY26 and receivables that we have for FY26.

When you're talking about cash receipts, you have to remember that we had cash uh accounts receivable on the books at the end of June of 25, of which we've received.

And those were accounted for in 25.

Right.

Okay.

So cash receipts is we've received the 25 receivables, which is a balance sheet item and not in this figure.

Okay.

Okay.

Is it accurate to say that the 650K is only related to claim uh EMS claims that were made during FY26?

Yes.

Okay.

So any FY25 claims that came in late or are still outstanding are not part of that 650k number.

For discussion purposes, yes, we can go into old things, but yes.

That that is perfect.

Okay, great.

Um perfect.

Well, thank you.

Those are my two questions, and I'm sure I'll have that last one again next time, but we can just keep doing it.

That's fine.

Thank you.

Who's next?

Peter.

Oh no, I'm um just looking things over and everything has all there.

Great.

Thank you for that.

You've stumped the stars.

Oh are there are there questions from the audience?

Kate.

Ben Randy.

Hi, everybody, Kate O'Connor Broadovoro.

Um I am wondering when are we going to get the report on the FY25 EMS revenues?

Because I'm not, I thought I was a crazy person.

I went back through all of my stuff, and I have I have a memo from the town manager and people at the fire department on October 29th that talks about the EMS billing policy, outlines a whole bunch of stuff, and it says, as this is our first cycle of aged billing, a detailed review report is being prepared for November.

So we have never ever, ever, ever seen the FY25 actuals.

What the last thing we saw was a memo that the fire department thankfully did at the end of June or July.

I know there's a lot that goes into it.

I would love to just not be told you're gonna get it next month.

So it's like, is there ever that we're going to be given this detailed report on aging and what the F and F with the FY25 actual billing numbers are?

If you tell me it's six months, that's fine.

I won't ask for another six months.

But I'm just we keep getting this, you'll get it next month.

So I'm getting super frustrated.

Thank you.

Well, is it is it in some partial state?

Well, why don't we wait until the fire department speaks in the two items from now and we can find out?

Yes.

I'm asking this now because the fire department's report says if you want to know about EMS, it's in the finance report.

So their fire department report has nothing about EMS, and they say if you read your report that's in front of you, it's the finance report that's going to have the EMS stuff.

So that's why I'm asking it now.

But we can ask the chief during that agenda item about the report.

Is that item right now?

It would be helpful if we could interrogate the fire chief uh at the same time that our our fine our treasurer finance director is here.

And so um Hi Bonnie.

Hi, Jay.

Okay.

So as a team, can you can you answer that question?

I need clarification on the question.

So uh are we looking for an aging report for FY25, or are we looking for a total cash in hand for 2025?

Kate.

Sorry, Kate.

I just need clarity.

Yeah.

Basically, what we've been asking for for two years now.

Two things.

What is the aging report and what is the FY25 revenue?

Because we've never ever seen what the EMS revenue is for FY25.

An actual number, not uh 38% of what we build.

But then on October, it sounds like you folks were doing some kind of aging report that was going to say here's what we're taking to collection, here's what we don't think.

So I think there's two things going on that we've never ever gotten.

And I'm not I don't expect the fire department.

I've always thought it was weird that you guys are doing the numbers, so I'm not have anything.

I'm not like trying to be mean to you or anything.

Um I'm gonna take a crack at this.

Um it's complicated, right?

We've we've been saying that the whole time.

Uh I can we can give you where we stand right now for FY25, I think, pretty easily, what was billed and what we received in FY25.

The struggle with an aging report is the the depth of digging you have to do to put all that together.

That we have not done, and and we've kind of stood by that that's like a whole bunch of staff time to put that accurately together.

Um we are still bringing in FY25 funds uh because we just uh took on or were taking on uh a collection agency to start turning those those bills over to to start collections.

That's all FY25 monies.

So it's still it's a lengthy ongoing process because from uh date of billing, they essentially have an entire year before it can go to collections.

So we're still in that process.

So this moving target, I mean, Bonnie was talking about funds that had had been collected in the previous year as well.

So it it's a shape shifter really because money's trickling in.

And so that's a problem.

So what about Kate's question?

Can we have a aging report for 2025?

And then I think she asked for something else.

Yes.

And or uh an estimate of what it would cost to pull that together.

Is that something that we have capacity and budget to do?

So uh Bonnie is saying yes.

Okay.

Um I think uh give us the opportunity for Bonnie, myself, and and Billy to sit down and see exactly what that looks like and see what we can put together in a reasonable amount of time.

That sounds like a lovely answer.

Thank you very much.

And so it sounds like aging report, maybe you guys are gonna get together, and then some sort of at least point in time, like yes, there's still outstanding claims, but a closed books actual cash revenue for FY25, which I'm sure we have in some spreadsheet somewhere.

Um something else that I forgot.

Great.

All right.

Uh don't go away because Heidi's raising our hand.

And the oh, I'm sorry, Randy.

And I will Heidi Fisher District 7.

And I will once again make my plea for what are the expenses in comparison to the revenues.

We still have not seen that either.

And the problem with that, Jay, is that um the expenses are commingled with the fire department.

So I did provide that in one of the memos.

I don't remember which I thought it was the end of FY25.

Uh maybe not towards I don't know.

I know I provided it.

Um and again, this is you know, this this question keeps coming up, and we're we're providing to the best of our ability, but we're a multi-service provider.

So all of our people provide multiple service, hazmat, fire, EMS, you know, we all provide these these dual roles.

So I can once again use that number of personnel that I used prior, but you know, it's it's of people's opinions of what EMS cost and how there's no there's no formula, there's no nationally accepted formula that says if you're a fire department providing EMS, X amount percentage of your cost all goes to EMS.

It just doesn't work that way.

Uh but I can provide the data similar to what I provided before, which I did provide when asked.

And and um from I recall from the AP Triton report, one of the benefits of having the EMS system was that it would provide additional firefighting personnel.

So they are co-mingled.

Correct, because we were understaffed prior to taking over EMS.

Yes.

Okay, Randy, did you have a comment?

Uh yes, just two things.

Randy Blossom District 7.

Um let's go out like a different way to look at this.

I I think it still can be done what Heidi was asking others have asked and I've asked.

If we were to look at the three ambulances, and they have an eight-year life, is my understanding from previous meetings, and we know it's X miles in in eight years.

Where are we at currently on mileage in year two almost being done?

And were we on target where they're gonna wear out in eight years, or are they gonna wear out in five or six years?

I'll make it very simple simplistic, I know.

But I just want to make sure that we're you know, when people are talking about our expenses are too high, what they're trying to understand is okay, revenue we know.

It's being explained great in my opinion.

Like I get where we're doing that at full basis.

But long-term expenses, are they going to eat up where we're at on revenue between overtime and the cost of these large materials?

And I realize we're waiting to get this fourth platoon on, but overtime still costs a lot more than salaries.

And I know on on you know what money's left, what money spent where we're at, but I want the public to understand we're still paying a lot more per hour than we planned.

So I don't know if we can answer those questions.

That should be look at the mileage.

Here's a number, this is where we're at, and that gives us some explanation.

Are we on track for what we're saving?

And do we need to buy it sooner or are we okay?

And I think that's what everybody's trying to find out.

So as of right now, for the capital expenditure for the ambulance replacement, it is still scheduled for eight years.

That is barring things happening, like all of a sudden we have an engine, a catastrophic failure of an ambulance that was unanticipated.

Uh currently we anticipate that they will last eight years.

We do not have, I don't I don't have the exact mileage in front of me of what's on them.

Uh but we rotate the ambulance through so that uh mileage is dispersed across the three vehicles to extend their life for as long as possible.

Uh we continue to do in uh annual maintenance every quarter.

Um they get maintained oil changes and such because that's the frequency that they're needed.

Uh so we're providing that maintenance to make them go those those eight years.

Um they do ride on some rough roads, you know, we got a lot of back rows, we got gravel roads, we've got salt, we've got you know all the road conditions that Vermont provides us that do eat away at these frames and suspensions.

But again, you know, we're our projection right now is an eight-year replacement plan.

What was the other question?

Well, well, it was more about not what the replacement plan is.

Okay.

If if it's 300,000 miles an eight year, I don't know what the mileage was estimated, but on a vehicle or a piece of if it's either an hourly or mileage, I would think you'd have an estimated.

I'm sorry, Brandy.

You need just come to the microphone.

Sorry.

I I I just would encourage you, at least from my work in past stuff, that on something that's gonna wear out, um, you know, mileage is a good way to do that, unless we're budgeting in for engine transmission shock and steering replacement.

Um I'm just trying to, since we can't separate out everything's intermingled, I'm looking to take pieces of it and say, oh, we're on target, great.

Then we we don't need to worry about this anymore.

And that's all I'm trying to do is a way to gauge a way to plan and say if we have mileage for eight years, using that as a percentage, like we're doing with where are we at in the budget, that would let us know, hey, maybe we need to five or six years, not eight years, maybe seven years.

I I don't know.

So I'm just trying to gauge where we're at based on what we plan for.

It sounds like we didn't plan for mileage, we just planned for years.

So I guess that answers that part of it.

So the plan wasn't the plan was based on uh municipal usage as an average on how long an ambulance lasts for, and that's that's a period of eight years.

So if you have a district, say the outer ondeck mountains where your transports are an hour or you know, 65, 70 miles, that's a lot different than a one-mile transport to BMH.

So I think you know, those ambulance services are looking at like a five or six-year replacement.

We extended ours to eight years uh based on the mileage that we put on the vehicle.

So that is based on the usage.

All right, let's um keep our discussion to Bonnie's financial presentation.

Are there any comments on that report?

And we can let her go home and move into the next.

Anyone?

All right.

Thank you.

Yeah, Bonnie, thank you very much.

Always nice to see you.

Thank you.

Thank you both stick around, Jay.

Okay.

Well, actually, you skipped over.

Yeah, so now we're we're um we're doing one.

Um we're the thing, right?

Blue letters.

John's report.

I'm sorry.

Item B.

Item B.

Is that you?

Benchmarking?

All right.

Now we'll have you we don't need directly.

But we're gonna have John present.

And then I'll come back right now.

Don't go away.

Yes, later too.

If you're not doing that, I don't want to see it seems we already have certain things.

Okay, so the next item is uh I don't see what the name of it is.

Oh, benchmarking and paying for general fund services in a hub community.

Uh it's a subject near and dear to my heart, and I'm really happy that uh John Potter has put something together.

And um ask Seth to pull up uh very nice little infographic that he uh digested everything I had in this memo into this uh one visual image, which uh have given a copy to each of the select board members, and I think there's some extra copies up on the um beside.

Can you make it bigger, Seth?

Can you make it bigger?

Look at that.

And um, so what this is bored is um I I've been struggling with this sense in the community that we have uh some sort of um excessive spending in uh in our budget, and that always perplexed me that we've gotten so deep into this conversation, and it has just not been my experience that uh other hub towns in other places experience quite this pressure, and so I wanted to try to understand that.

And um, so I I knew of I knew of hub communities very similar to ours uh from other parts of the country where I've worked in the past, and um and I went into this totally like open-minded.

I want to try to understand what is it that makes Brattleboro seem like it's um like uh like it it seems so expensive here, and I went and I looked at uh bunch of other different regional hub towns that support a population that's bigger than just their um their population, their uh sort of their uh town, and that had uh downtown were kind of like um hub communities, they would have a courthouse, a hospital, um you know, sort of those more regional services like Brattleboro provides in southeastern Vermont.

And then what I did was I tried to take all of the services that we provide in Brattleboro, and then look at the budgets in all these other towns and compare what it costs in those towns to Brattleboro.

And so that meant going through and seeing, you know, that they have a town manager, they have uh HR department, they have a finance department, they have uh town clerk, they have uh fire department, EMS, they have um police, they have library and um planning and wreck and parks and all the things that Brattleboro provides in our budget.

And so then I analyzed all those uh budgets for fiscal year 25.

So I was comparing apples to apples, and then if they had things in those budgets that we don't provide, and the biggest example that I could find of something that we don't have in Brattleboro that others do, well, two things really.

One was uh a municipal court, we don't have that here, but many of these towns do.

So I like subtracted that out of the costs, and then another big one, like several of these communities have like an airport, they manage an airport, or maybe they manage a landfill.

So those are like some other things.

Again, since Brattleboro doesn't provide those services, I backed those out of those budgets.

And in your backup materials, I have all the assumptions and figures as well as the links to all of those budgets so that anyone else can try to replicate this or recreate it based on the assumptions that I had.

So, anyways, I lined up the budgets on all these towns, and I found one one thing that was very interesting was that um there's a table.

I think I might have done it a couple times, but on page 98, there's a table that indicates which of these towns has a full versus a partial municipal platform.

And half of these towns that I selected have a full municipal platform just like Brattleboro's.

What do you mean by platform?

Yep, and I'm gonna about to explain that.

And the others have a partial, and so uh full municipal service platform means that all of the services are the same as what is in Brattleboro essentially.

So they have fire EMS, the EMS is not um, it's part of the municipal government.

Um they have a library that's paid for by the municipal government, they have uh solid waste uh collection, curbside collection that's paid for by the municipal government.

Um what else am I missing there?

Um, oh uh dispatch.

So the other the other one, some of these that are partial, they don't they have a countywide dispatch, for example, but the ones that are a full municipal platform pay for their communication system within the municipal budget.

The partial ones are those that uh they provide services like a library, they may have a library in town, but it's paid for through a library district, it's not in the municipal budget.

So those towns uh do not have those costs in the totals and the calculations that I um did when I normalize these budgets.

Same for like communications, where there's a county EMS and fire and police communication response, that would be one of these partial uh municipal platforms, and um that that uh I couldn't um I couldn't normalize.

And then finally, um you know, the other big I mentioned solid waste, library, yeah.

Uh the EMS, the solid waste, and the library were the three kind of big ones that were oftentimes not in the municipal budget in those partial towns.

But anyways, I um essentially tried to compare apples to apples as well as I could.

I couldn't do it for the partial towns, but really that only favors Brattleboro.

So it's saying there are these six towns in this list that do not provide all of the services that Brattleboro does, and yet when I look at the costs, with the exception of Ashland, Oregon, um they all cost more the the municipal services cost more in these comparable towns across the country than they do in Brattleboro.

In fact, um as you can see on this this chart that among all these peer communities, Brattleboro's municipal services are on the the low end.

Whereas almost all these other communities which have similar populations, similar services, and the their costing between two and four thousand dollars per capita.

So my conclusion was that Brattleboro compares well as a low cost and full service regional regional hub.

Then I had the question of well, every everyone calls us a poor town, and you know, we um we are taking up a large portion of the people's incomes by uh how what they have to pay for municipal services.

Well, I find that found out that that's not entirely the story.

Um in fact, in many of these towns with a lower per capita in annual income, they are actually spending more of that per capita income on municipal services than we are.

So for example, we're at 4.4%.

You take the if you take all of the income in Brattleboro, all the income that is earned in Brattleboro, and you divide that by the population, we are um I believe it's 43,000 per person is earned in income across the whole town.

And um that uh the cost to provide municipal services is 4.4 percent of that um per capita income.

Now there's other towns like Montrose, Colorado, which is the high one here, there the per capita income is $39,000 a year.

So if you take all of the income that's earned in Montrose, Colorado and divide it by the population there, they have a lower per capita income than Brattleboro.

And yet their municipal services cost 9.1% of that annual per capita income.

So they are spending, not only are they spending quite a bit more per capita, $3,500 per person to provide municipal services, but it's a higher much, it's a double the um the the um low the burden I would say on the uh and on each person, each resident.

Uh a closer to home example is uh Greenfield.

Again, the the average per capita income in Greenfield is $35,000, so uh about $8,000 per person less than us.

So you take all the income in Greenfield that's earned in Greenfield and you divide it by their population, it's $35,000 per person.

They are um their municipal cost is 20 $2,500 per person, that's 7% of that um per capita income.

Whereas Brattleboro at $43,000 per person and $1,900 of municipal cost is 4.4%.

Um when you when you look at it and compare these, and I'd I'd love to have other suggested communities.

I I'd be happy to spend some time to go through other examples or other budgets, but generally what I found, and I I believe that the um that it's it's in the ballpark based on the analysis that I did that we're very low cost when you compare it to other regional hub towns.

So my next question was well, but how come it feels expensive?

What is it that is driving the fact that people feel like it's not um like it seems like we have a high burden?

And um the what I found out, the other thing that I did on all these peer communities is I looked at well, how are they paying for things?

And what I found out was that most of them, many of them are they have very low property taxes.

In fact, um, like several of the towns in this peer group have no property taxes, zero.

Um they are paying for their services completely differently than Brattleboro is.

Brattleboro is paying for municipal services.

77% of the cost of our municipal services are paid for by the property tax.

And that means that as a regional hub community that is um supporting, you know, probably like 15 to 20,000 people who are coming here to work, who are coming here to shop, who are visiting or tourists or staying overnight here, um the cost of the services for roads and for EMS response and for police response for all those people is being completely shouldered by a resident base of of 12,000 people.

So then I asked the question, you know, of all these other communities, like, well, how are they paying for this?

I mean, that's crazy.

We we they have zero property taxes.

How the heck do they do that?

And what I realize what in the case um primarily of like um, well, um almost in all of them, the consumption taxes cover a much higher percentage of the municipal the the cost of municipal services.

And um so like in many of these towns, the town gets like three percent of the sales tax, whereas we get 0.75% of the sales tax, or they have um they have a fuel tax, a local fuel tax that uh helps uh pay for the roads, or um, or they have more authority to uh charge different fees for services that are not allowed in Vermont or through our charter.

Uh it kind of led me.

The next question that that led me to was well, I I know that there's a lot of sales tax in um in Brattleboro, and so I if if you scroll down there to the bottom one, what what I found out was that while consumers are paying lots of sales tax in Brattleboro, so every time someone goes into Hannaford's or um uh a restaurant or uh uh any shops downtown or any farms, they're they're putting out boroughs wrong.

That people are paying a fair amount of um sales tax and uh rooms and meals tax on uh their their what they're purchasing in our town.

However, very little of that goes to support municipal services.

So what shocked me was when I um calculated that out, I realized that close to 25 million dollars is being charged in Brattleboro every year, but it's going to the state for state programs.

It's not helping us, our municipality.

So for every dollar that we get to keep, which is that 0.75% local option tax, for every dollar of that that we get to keep, $12 is going to the state.

And I know this has been a priority of the select board to increase the town's authority for expanding revenue streams, uh, also doing some sort of sales tax rebalancing.

That was a uh a legislative effort that you all supported last uh that the select board supported last uh um session.

Molly Burke has introduced this uh fuel tax idea uh this session uh following conversations with you.

Um then the whole idea of revenue sharing.

So when the conversation around the motels came up last year uh with uh we when we looked at the cost of what those the GA program is costing us in the motels, and it was on the order of five or six hundred thousand dollars a year, uh I I think that led some select board members to think about well, how can we get some revenue sharing to help offset that?

And that is actually what happens in a lot of the other towns, Astoria, um Le Grand, though those towns, they get a lot more uh revenue sharing to offset that burden that is um the services provided in a regional hub that the re so that the residents don't have to pay for all of it through the property taxes.

And so I guess the final point I'll make is and it's on this chart is that you know, if if that um if that consumption tax was leveled out more and it was more like 50-50, like if 50% of what gets charged in Brattleboro stayed in Brattleboro, that would actually you would see a reduction in the property tax to pay for the same service, the same low-cost services that we're providing on the median home of over $1,500 a year.

So I know it's um it's it's difficult once uh taxing uh uh authority has is sitted seated with the state, and that money has been worked into their budgets, but I think that what this does is sort of at least it opened my eyes, I don't know about the rest of you, but it opened my eyes to well this is why things feel so um tough for Brattleboro and why we're fighting over you know what ser what essential service to cut that is gonna hurt somebody in town.

It's really more about the fact that we have limited revenue tools to cover the costs that we're providing services as a regional hub, and I'd be happy to answer any questions or dig down into any of the details on how I I did this and and um what the implications of this are.

But that's that's what I I uh had for you tonight.

Well, this is lovely.

Thank you.

I appreciate it very much, and I can certainly see a tremendous amount of work that went into it.

Peter, Peter had his hand up for yeah.

Um so you know, when uh when I'm constantly beating that revenue drum, um, you know, and and with all the ideas that that I've thrown out, uh yes to all of those.

Um but this is also the stuff like that I I like drilling into and advocating for um, you know, and from our at least from our delegation, I think you know, we have to continue to have that that open conversation with them to advocate more on our behalf because when I looked at at the sales tax leaving this town after I met with John this morning and and uh took this and reviewed it, um, I went back to my little shop and I took some notes and I and I went through what I paid out in sales tax from all the people who thank you shopped locally and came into my store and and you know kept those dollars local, completely appreciate that.

Um, but was really a little disheartened um in my 25,000 dollar bill that that I cut to the state of Vermont.

Um and you know, I kind of I have a list of of what I paid in sales tax uh every month, and and the number that matches close to what we keep locally is one month, and that's in April of what of what comes back to our town.

So 11 months of kicking stuff up, one month we get, right?

I mean it's not that simple, but that's just a way another way of framing it.

So I that is something that that we have to that we have to change.

12% is not an acceptable number, and and and I know the state has to run the state as well, right?

And and you know, and I and I appreciate that.

So, but something has to give when the state, you know, mandates things for us that we have to then so it I feel like this can we can push back and just say, look, you know, we're here providing these services, we need more of this money to help provide those services to alleviate um the load on the on the residential residential taxpayer and the and the people who are paying property tax in our town.

So I I think this is a really great way of kind of framing this and helping us to understand it.

Um, you know, I'm I was if it's my wife tell her I'll be home, probably not tonight.

Um so um so I I appreciate I I was gonna uh start to look into some of these communities to kind of compare and to uh do uh delve in deeper.

It's giving me this whole new sort of angle in which to right kind of recoup and and create revenue for our town that lowers the burden for our taxpayers.

So thank you so much for kind of thinking outside the box and presenting this.

Other people have comments on the select board.

Sure.

Oh, and um John and I spoke today, and we noted that these communities that you highlighted also have county government working for them as opposed to Vermont, where we do not.

We're exclusively municipal, and so the the municipal burdens on hub community are hub communities are especially pronounced in Vermont.

Um you asked for feedback on this and drilling down more.

I'd like to see this chart also compared to other Vermont hub towns, see a chart of that, which um I know those numbers are out there, and I asked a community member to provide some of those, and it was um it was informative and it just speaks.

So I think um more Vermont towns would be helpful too.

Um I also hope that you bring um this report when our legislators visit, um, which will be uh what next month for them to take a look at um or look at it ahead of time to have some um thoughtful responses.

Um because I think it's well prepared and I it just would be helpful, yeah.

In your advocacy appreciate it at the State House.

Yeah, and um I I didn't really spend time on other Vermont towns because they face the same the other Vermont hub towns face the same challenges that we do.

Um but yeah, that would be a good idea.

But it's notable that per capita spending, even in some hub towns is very different from ours.

Yeah, um, we're not the highest, but we're certainly not the lowest.

Um for a hub towns I that would be a good question to look into, Amanda.

I think we should I'm not sure I know the answer to that.

But it was surprising that you know, 25 million leaves our town, that's almost our entire town budget.

Yes.

Yes, thank you.

Um it's a really interesting piece of work and very uh complicated and almost subjective to do in the in the filtering you have to do between budgets of different towns structured in different ways.

I did a much simpler version of this for myself six months ago, and it even just comparing the budgets of two towns is really challenging.

Um so I think this must have taken a great deal of work.

It's very interesting, and I think it's a good basis for starting this conversation.

And so though I have questions and and quibbles and things like that, I'm I don't feel inclined to pick holes in it.

I there are two comments I want to make.

One is that we talked about this briefly, but in using per capita income, you ended up with well, that resulted in numbers that were very surprising to me.

That doesn't mean that's not reality, but they popped to me as things where I thought, oh, I I should check this.

This seems odd.

For example, Keene in this report is presented as a poorer town than Brattleboro, with the per capita income of about 41k versus 43k, which could be true.

I mean, it's uh I looked at the same primary sources.

It it certainly what they say, but Keene also has almost uh something like a 50% higher median income, almost double the rate of poverty.

So I'm trying to square those numbers in my head.

It's very hard for me to read a report that says Keene is is poorer than Brattleboro.

So that's one of that's something in particular I wanted to highlight that I uh will be digging into more.

Um and the other thing is that just you know, in writing this report, what I think is particularly admirable is John is that you've done all this work and you put it down on paper.

So if there are people like me who see something and think, oh, that doesn't seem right to me, uh this it you've shown all your work.

People can go look at it and try and find mistakes if they want.

Um and certainly an interesting place for people to start is looking for other pumps, right?

Um and seeing if there are towns, oh, there's this other town that's really similar to us that's two-thirds the cost of municipal services.

Like this is something that can be a foundation for a longer conversation.

Um just before we get to you, John.

Uh we have 20% poverty.

We have twice the poverty rate of the state of Vermont.

I can't believe that Keene must has double the amount of poverty.

No, no, we have almost double the poverty rate.

So by median income and poverty rate, they seem much wealthier.

But by per capita income, they come across as slightly less wealthy.

So I'm trying to just check on that.

Yep.

John.

Yeah, and um, so I think there's a couple things going on in that.

And so the whole challenge here was trying to do apples to apples, not only town to town, but also costs um versus uh income.

And so the only way you can really do that is put it on a per resident basis.

Now the thing the thing I think that's going on in Keene is that they have some college call, a lot more college students who aren't earning probably a lot of revenue.

So that income across the whole city uh gets spread across that base as well.

Of course, we have a similar thing going on in Brattleboro, but it's more low-income people, um, people in poverty, um, doing the same thing.

So there's some offsetting there.

But definitely there are there's different distribution of wealth between the two communities, so that's why one might seem wealthier than another.

Um, whereas the the data shows that when you look at the whole income and you divide it across the whole population, one um is lower than the other.

Right.

And uh yes, um and I don't have uh uh a hard answer for this, but I I guess the point I'm making is that well, uh just that I need to think more about it, and there may be towns where, for example, they uh have a lower per capita income, but in all practical terms are much wealthier.

Like it could be true that the burden of expenses are higher on residents of Brattleboro or town X versus town Y, even though the per capita incomes are different.

So I don't want to be too stuck to my preconceived notions and come up with some reason why actually Keene is wealthier even if they're not.

But that was certainly a strong preconceived notion going in, so that's the kind of thing that I'm looking forward to thinking about more.

I think it's something involved with that live free or die thing that they have.

Well, so that is it's the revenue side of things, I think gets so murky in terms of how much sales tax we retain and property tax because states pay for things so completely differently that the revenue side I almost I don't have a ton of uh interest in in going deep on that because it's so impossible to do the apples to apples comparisons, but the expense stuff I'm really interested in.

So thank you.

And also it's clear if you look at a chart of towns in Vermont, the largest population towns, Burlington, South Burlington, because of their grand list, their per capita tax rate is lower by you know, close to well, compared to us, um like we're at you know, we're municipal spending per person is what according to your chart 1,920 per person.

Um they're down to I mean the chart I'm looking at is like 1,078 per capita.

Just the mere like growing the grand list.

So Peter talks about revenue, bringing more people, bringing more people to live here, more people to partake in our services, more, you know.

Rattle's a great place to live.

Um if we could bring more people here, we could probably ease our per capita tax burden.

Right.

So um, you know, John, I again I appreciate this, and and I wanted to talk a little bit about um, you know, the reliance on property tax.

Um actually uh the year I joined the select board was the year that we passed the one percent tax, and uh that in those seven years, our um reliance on property tax has been reduced by six and a half percent.

So this 76.7 percent is really quite an achievement, but we should see we should resolve to do better, and I'm perfectly um willing to continue.

Now we were thrilled when Molly Burke said that her um she said at the chamber breakfast actually that um her committee and even her her committee chair really liked this idea, and that towns were like clamoring to be one of the top five.

But at the library the other day, um some of the other legislators kind of poo-pooed the whole thing, and that's a disappointment.

And so we have to uh stay in that game and uh lobby for for what we need because there are a lot of different options being thrown out, and now is actually a critical time in the legislature.

So we need to uh really all uh continue to uh support the things that Brattleboro needs.

But the other thing um is you know, regarding the hub towns, you know, I've done some work on revenue sharing uh with John over the years, and in addition to the fact that we have this unfunded mandate on um the Motel programs and other things that the state dreams have for us to do.

Um other town other towns and other states that have revenue sharing talk about the poverty rate, and all the hub towns have poverty rate of about 20 percent, which is twice the poverty rate of the state of Vermont as a whole at about 10.

Um but also there's other factors, which is um the amount of low-income housing, which as we just said, we score very high on, and also um the tax rate um of a hub town versus the surrounding tax rate of the towns around it, and and that's very important because there's quite a differential, and um and our town suffers for it.

So those same indices work through for all the hub towns, and and that's where we're we need to organize, and I think we started that conversation with the Rutlands and the Barries and the Benningtons of this world.

Um they all have um the unfunded mandate of the motel program.

They all have about 20% poverty, and they all have low-income housing.

I haven't checked yet, but we can certainly check to see whether in comparison to the surrounding towns in the region, um their tax burden is way off.

But I I know that there are I'm familiar with revenue sharing in other states, and they have the state gives them money in solely for the purpose of reducing the tax burden on the taxpayers in that town.

It's not and that's you know, a little something up talk to the legislatures.

They're not familiar with this, and we need to continue that conversation so that they understand the sole purpose of this is to offset the taxi rate.

We're not going to use it for this or that, which is how they're used to thinking about it.

It's just tax burden.

Yeah.

And I really like this, and I like your um your three bullet points for where to go from happy to join the fight.

Good.

Isaac, did you have any comments to make it?

Yeah, could could you just clarify the difference between sales tax rebalancing and the revenue sharing?

Yeah, so um I would see the sales tax rebalancing as things like adding a few a local option fuel tax, like that starts to rebalance.

Right right now, 100% of all the fuel taxes that are charged are going to the state.

If we were able to add a percentage there that's going to the town, that would start to rebalance this one um one to one dollar stays here versus twelve dollars goes to Montpelier.

So that would be rebalancing that.

If if we were able to say, you know, um what do I have here?

One of these tables shows the sales tax rate.

So the sales tax rate is seven percent.

We uh we keep 0.75% of that, so the state share is six point two five percent.

So 0.75% to the town, 6.25% to the state.

If we were able to make that, you know, 1.5% to the town, and um and you know five point seven five percent to the state, that would be a rebalancing.

That's like can we shift some of that 25 million to stay in Brattleboro and help us with the roads and the police response and the fire response and all that.

Um that's rebalancing and then revenue sharing, I see more as it could be like that that's like the money goes up to the state and then gets redistributed for equity across towns that are shouldering more of a regional burden than a a local burden.

So um, for example, uh it it's sort of done with the education taxes, there's an offsetting um to different towns, but um but this would be more like uh what's it uh uh trying to think of an example, but so so fa say for example we have um uh uh disproportionate amount of people having vouchers in the GA program if it's if this town were paid for some of that disproportionate um distribution of people in the motel rooms, then maybe uh some revenue gets shifted from the state to the municipality in the same way that they're shifting that revenues in some cases to the nonprofits and other um other organizations in the town.

That that to me is the revenue revenue sharing approach.

Thanks.

So um do members of the public wish to comment on this come on up uh Jenna, you first gem it.

I just want to thank you for uh putting together this report first because this is a real eye-opener.

Uh I know I'm not familiar with your background, John.

So I'm not sure exactly why you chose the specific cities that you did or towns, but you mentioned that you had some familiarity with I guess some of these towns in Oregon.

Were you from there originally?

Yes, uh I worked in Oregon and Colorado.

Oh, okay, great.

Um so the first thing I wanted to say is is I sort of question the wisdom of including any cities in New Hampshire because their tax structure is so very different to Vermont's.

Um if you look at, for instance, the data from the Tax Foundation uh New Hampshire ranks sixth best in in the nation according to to their overall tax burden, whereas Vermont is like 43rd uh out of 50.

Um but one of the things that um has really struck me, speaking from my own familiarity is that having uh my family lives in Egg Harbor Township in Atlanta County, New Jersey.

And in 1970, when my family moved from New York City to South Jersey, EHT had a population of about 10,000 people.

Today it has a population of about 48,000, four times the size of Brattleboro.

It has a median household income double of Brattleboro.

It has a poverty rate of half of Brattleboro.

It has a municipal budget of 142 million dollars.

They have lower property tax rates than we do here.

And they have an amazing array of services available to people.

But one of the big differences is that they also have total retail sales of $2.3 billion a year, whereas here we have like $380 million.

They have eight times the retail sales.

Keene has three three to four times the retail sales that we have here in Brattleboro.

But I want to suggest that some data points that would be useful to add to this would be actual property tax rates and uh median uh house values.

Um because a lot of these towns, especially the ones in in in Oregon and Colorado have much, much higher uh median home values to draw from.

That's why I keep banging that drum of growth that we have to increase the value of the grand list if we want to afford town services now and in the future and to make this a better town and to see all the wonderful things that I want this town to have for for my own benefit as well as everyone else's benefit.

So I guess I'll stop there.

Uh thank you very much.

Yep.

Thank you.

Ivan.

Uh Ivan Hennessy.

I was really pleased to hear the discussion of this turn so quickly to housing, and I want to encourage the select board when or if they ever consider um any sort of policy to encourage new housing that it be shaped so that it does not focus on people in companies that currently own housing.

Those are people in companies that are operating as the sole providers of a very limited resource, and they simply don't have the incentive to participate in increasing that market.

Um it has to be something that brings new people into providing housing.

Um we already know what the people in companies that own housing in Brattleboro do, and it's not build and provide new housing.

They profit off of the housing that's already here.

Others, Bob and then Kate.

Bob was a nice nice presentation.

Just a quick question, hopefully not too stupid.

Uh, on the um the amount of the sales tax that goes to the state is the entire amount going into the pilot program.

And of that, what percentage comes back to Brattleboro.

Yeah.

Um my understanding is that that uh 20 that quarter point on the local option tax goes to uh both the pilot program and some goes to the surplus and other things, and that there's been a conversation around could more of that could could we go from uh 7525 split on the 1% to 80-20 or 85-15.

Um part of that also goes to the administration of the taxing.

So, but not very much of that quarter percent.

The the bigger eye-opener for me was how much revenue is leaving the town outside of that local option tax, which in all these other communities, much more of that is staying right locally to deal with the the costs locally instead of being put putting it on the property taxpayer.

And that gets to that whole Dillon's rule issue that has.

Because we can only do certain things, uh we can only tax certain entities.

Uh but I remember when the legislators were here and we asked that question, that very question, Bob, that you had, and they said that they used that money, distributed it to towns that had uh floods.

So they have they have seized upon that amount of money uh to use for various purposes.

And we would like to educate them that we're needy too.

And we would like to educate them that we're needy to Kate.

Thanks for the overload of information.

Keeps us all up at night.

Um I just want to caution everybody about getting really excited that the state is going to help us.

I watched Molly Burke talk to the House Transportation Committee about the local option, local option gas tax.

It hit like a lead balloon.

I will be super surprised if it gets out of committee.

God knows what's going to happen, but it hit like a total lead balloon in house transportation.

That's not what Molly said.

I can show you the video.

I actually watched it, and you can watch the YouTube video when she had to explain the bill to the committee.

It was like it was a it was a lead balloon.

Maybe something exciting happened after that, but um I also want to just point out what Oscar was saying.

There's a huge difference between per capita income and median household income.

These towns have a median household income.

There's like 20, 30, 40, 50 double what we have in Brattleboro.

And that's a big thing, because we're not paying the property taxes per capita, we're paying it a different way.

I would also hope that I'm going to come back in April and say this that the next thing we hear about is getting the what we're spending here, our our town budget, what we're spending, what our tax increases have been, um, what we're spending on personnel, what we're spending on roads and bridges, a 10-year look at that, because we didn't get that when you folks put the FY27 budget together.

A lot of that, because we're not going to be saved by the state, we need to understand how our spending is going and in our town.

So I'm going to come back and say that in April to the new board, but I think that what we're doing here in Brattleboro is equally important as what's happening in all these other places.

Dinah, and then did you want to do that?

Well, I just I just to mention I I mean I did give you a five-year outlook.

Um I don't I don't know when you start to get when you start to get out past five years, it's really gets hard to see um what's gonna be happening.

But um, and Kate Clete is trying to tell us that she wants to look back.

Yeah.

Oh, oh, okay.

Retrospective, not okay.

Gotcha.

Hi, Dina Chadwick.

Um I did speak to uh Molly on Saturday, and she implied that that was dead in the water to me with the uh so I urge everybody to write to her and all the to get it going again.

And she had also suggested that they were gonna try to do another percentage on the uh rooms of sales.

Yes, sales, yeah.

And and so I heard that at the library the other day.

Um, Molly proposed it, there was a certain amount of interest.

Emily actually, Emily Kornheiser was the one who had some issues with it about the difficulties and so forth, and she suggested the rooms and meals tax, but I pointed out to her that with the motel program, we're not getting the rooms and meals tax.

So I would wish that she would she would focus on something that was actually good for Brattaborough.

Yeah, I just urge everybody to write as much as possible.

Absolutely.

Maybe directed towards Emily then.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

I think the bulls in her court now.

Thank you, Dina.

All right.

Uh now, yes.

Uh no, mayo district eight, so I won't say what everyone else has said, but I I had heard a similar thing about the fuels tax.

Um I was mostly a little it's more of a question that maybe can't be answered by this board, but the the concept of how realistic it is to suggest that what our sales tax like myself coming here, when I look at the receipt, I see the six percent sales tax.

I assume that's going to the state because it's a state sales tax, and because they're collectively funded by all the towns that are here.

And uh like it's not accurate to say that all the money is going to Montpelier because it comes back into all the communities in various ways.

And so I understand the argument for revenue sharing.

I understand exactly what you said, Liz of well, if town if funding's getting diverted to towns that were more drastically affected by flooding, you know, some of which are hub towns like Barrie.

Why could that a different argument not be made for that here?

So I understand that argument.

I don't know if I'm missing something, or if I just don't agree with the argument that it would be there would be much of a chance that the state would say, you know what, we're gonna give you a cut of our sales tax, unless the argument is that the options tax is just gonna go up.

And I suppose do we feel we have that leverage or maybe combined with the other hubtowns John's been working with I'm not saying leverage I'm saying the opportunity to begin this discussion.

Okay thank you John Yeah and um I would just I mean for first of all I was like just trying to put start to put some data together so that we can understand what's going on and why it feels so hard on us um and and so I think that just starts the conversation so Oscar oh yeah sure I'll speak um John I appreciate that you did this I will say um that I do not believe at this point in time at the immediate moment that the state is going to save us and I do think that it's imperative that we don't spend money that we don't actually have and that we do look at our budget very seriously and we make some hard choices because that's what we have to do at this time until proven otherwise so depending on something that we don't have in hand feels risky um and we have ourselves we have Brattleboro we are strong we are creative thinkers we're not afraid to uh make our choices as a board and I think that's very important to consider as well um where we are right now yeah Oscar on a slightly different note I I don't want us to leave here feeling or or sounding too sorry for ourselves the the concept of being a hubtown is not new there are hubtowns in every state in the entire country I suspect it is an international phenomenon that you have a little urban center with outlying towns around it the the hubtown is more expensive and more desirable and the outer lying towns are cheaper but farther from what's going on and that all of us made a choice to live in Brattleboro all of us with some you know some degree of of what our options are but uh our the choice is available to live 10 miles away commute to Brattleboro live in a small town or pay higher rents or higher prices and live here and walk two blocks to a library and have three grocery stores and a movie theater and all that stuff.

So it's not like being a hubtown is some curse and it's not something that's inflicted on us.

It's just this if in the same way that some people will live in New Jersey and commute to the city other people will pay to live in Manhattan for all the the glamour and that's just Brattleboro has many amenities and exciting things and benefits that a town 10 miles further into the rural state doesn't have and I don't think we should lose sight of those benefits and just I I don't want us to feel too sorry for ourselves.

I continue to be happy with the choice I made to live here and I am not tempted in the slightest to move 10 miles away to save some money.

So just a a different perspective to to close with that's interesting Oscar and and and I certainly happy to live here as well but I I just say that as long as I lived here you know um Dick de Grey has been saying hubtowns you know it's not that it we're sorry to live here we're recognizing that there's a disproportionate uh burden placed on us with little benefit and so understanding it as John has pointed out seeing whether there's other ways to skin the cat you know I mean other other communities that are hub towns or have revenue sharing across the nation um as John has pointed out they're wrestling with these issues there's county government there's there's all sorts of things and we just need to know where we are and and what our options are certainly and we will should all keep pushing to get the best deal and the best angle on every single thing that's going on statewide or regionally or nationally that we can but also you know it's it's all right it's not so bad.

We'll make two.

In the meantime, here we are.

Yes.

All right.

Um let me thank you, John, very much.

We all appreciate this work, and um, I think it's a wonderful starting point for our our future fiscal health.

Um what's next?

Quarterly fire update?

Yep.

Quarterly fire update.

Gentlemen, please.

Okay.

Yeah.

You can you can take either one of those seats, and we need a third for Billy.

All right.

So fire department corridor update for quarter two, FY26.

Uh, again, just to save us some time.

I paraphrased raised some of this down to some bullet points, which I'll go over.

Uh so as far as responses, we responded to 1,029 fire and EMS incidents during the second quarter.

Uh our firefighters worked an average of 59 hours a week, uh, reflecting our ongoing staffing shortages and call demand.

Our highest frequency call types were sick person calls at 192, injured persons at 101 falls at 97, fire alarms at 66, breathing problems at 66, psychiatric and mental health emergencies at 48, and overdoses at 45.

Um, community engagement.

So we attended the health and wellness fair and supported that with pediatric engagement Bruce Bruce.

Um we did some standbys for football and ice hockey for the school.

Uh we did we had fire prevention month in October.

So that was multiple school visits, station tours, evacuation drills, and we also participated in the fire prevention parade over in Keene.

Uh we had numerous public facing events, including the trunk or treat, battle bratle boom, horribles parade, and we escorted Santa to Living Memorial Park.

Uh so personnel updates.

We've had four resignations in total this fiscal year to date, um, which is contributing to our ongoing staffing issues.

Uh, we have two new firefighters that are that have become fully cleared or operational.

Uh we have we had two conditional officers.

One is uh fully accepted and has vetted all the the approving process, the other one is still in the approval process with background checks.

Um current vacancies as they stand fire alarm superintendent, five dual roll positions and one single role position.

Uh we still have interviews ongoing.

Uh overtime, Bonnie spoke about this a little bit.

So in quarter two, our overtime totaled 315,289.

Um, and 51% of that was due to our vacancies.

Uh the overtime line is overexpended by 165,289,000.

Um, however, our staffing line is underspent by 273,285.

So that absorbs all that overage in the overtime.

Um EMS system updates, so operations continue to increase with pace and complexity of calls.

Uh Superintendent Fritz participates in the Vermont EMS advisory committee that helps keep that they help shape statewide EMS strategic planning.

This partation this participation keeps us informed and ready to adapt to any upcoming changes with EMS.

Um winter readiness work was completed.

All ambulances are equipped with small snow tires and new IV fluid warmers, so that's a new addition of equipment.

Uh this keeps the IV fluids warm, so rather than being administered at room temperature, they're administered at your body temperature to warm you up.

Um progress was made on EMS building.

We can billing, we continue to build that program.

Uh one one good news that uh that I was a part of uh when we visited with our billing provider, uh they informed us that a person's Medicaid had lapsed, and there was 24 transports that total uh 35,344 dollars.

Uh we worked with BMH to rectify that and get that turned back on, and then we could bill for those, even though those had passed, we were able to collect those funds.

Um we have an established relationship with a collection agency, which I spoke of earlier that will start collecting those past due invoices.

Uh training and development.

So our medical director, Dr.

Storm continues to provide medical training to the fire department.

He led a pulmonary clinical training this quarter.

And training sessions are now being recorded, so we can continue to put those out to our folks.

Fire prevention, we increased tenant landlords.

There's increased tenant and landlord's tensions during cold weather, which have resulted in higher complaints, keeping our health and safety officer quite busy.

Just a reminder to the public when outdoor temperatures fall below 55 degrees, rental units must achieve 65 degrees indoors without overheating adjoining spaces.

If he is included in a rental agreement, it must be provided when the offside temperature is below 55 degrees.

Zone one inspection programs are ongoing through the summer.

Multiple streets are included.

See the backup materials or the code of ordinances, chapter eight for those selected streets.

Some positive stuff.

So Superintendent Fritz has completed his Vermont instructor coordinator training.

He is now approved to teach EMS classes, standalone classes such as EMT, AEMT or paramedic programs.

Fire Party EMS Edward Hagerman has also completed all his EMS fire EMS clearances.

Firefire paramedic Finn McMillan has completed his paramedic uh precepting and he's fully cleared practice independently as a paramedic.

And then Firefighter EMT Jared Von der Horse was promoted to acting lieutenant to fill the officer vacancy.

We continue to receive multiple messages of appreciation and thanks from our community members and those passing through that are involved with fire and EMS.

They recognize the compassionate professional and dedicated care provided by our firefighters and EMS personnel.

These letters reflect the outstanding service or provide our service providers provide every day.

And I apologize I didn't have this information in front of me before.

So to answer Randy's question, our ambulances are averaging about 7500 miles per year.

And after eight years, they'll equate to about 60,000 miles.

So still well under that 100,000 mile mark.

To answer Heidi's question, and the if you look back at the board minutes from 7225, that capture of how much EMS costs the town of Bratterboro was in that report.

And it's it's in that documentation.

That concludes the highlights from the quarterly reports.

I am happy to accept any questions that you may have.

Well, thank you.

You're board members, champ comments, questions.

None over here.

Thank you.

I appreciate your leadership.

And I always appreciate your presentation.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Members of the public.

Randy.

And people district.

Hey, thank you.

I appreciate it.

I I see a really good pattern here.

When we ask a question, you go over and beyond to get an answer.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

All right.

Anyone online?

I think this is the part where we say thank you very much.

Yep, and then we do your next agenda.

And then you do the next.

Yeah.

You're welcome.

Just keep your seat there, Chad.

Yes, sure will.

All right.

Let's dig right in.

What is the name of the next item?

It is emergency medical service advisory committee report update.

Right?

Yes.

Thank you.

So good evening, everybody.

I will make this as brief as possible.

But I wanted to share some information with the select board, the town, the community members about what's happening at the state level, and specifically about the EMS report that MSAC released in December of 2025.

So how did we get here?

A little bit of a review of where we are in 2024, Act 157 created EMS as an essential service in Vermont, which is amazing.

Additionally, in that act, there were two things which the MSAC, the EMS Advisory Committee, which I sit on, was charged with doing.

One was looking at an inventory and assessment of the current state of EMS.

The second is providing recommendations on a system-wide plan.

That first assessment was done and submitted, which is the report we're going to talk about this evening.

The five-year plan is due in December of this year of 2026.

As you'll see throughout the presentation, there are some QR codes.

So if you'd like to reference the Act or the reports that were submitted to the state, you can easily access those.

I apologize in the backup, the initial report, some of the QR codes expired, so we have some new QR codes there if you want to go and look at those.

But that first report that was due to the legislature in December of 25, started with a contractor, CCG, Cambridge Consulting Group, which submitted a report to the to the advisory committee in May of 2025.

That report had lots of limitations.

So there was another contractor that worked through some of those limitations to get us to where we are in our report today.

That report was broken down into seven different buckets or seven different areas, and talking about the performance governance, medical direction, workforce training, and clinical performance metrics of what's happening in the state of Vermont.

Specifically, what I wanted to talk about was that report.

I want to point out the limitations though that were mentioned in the Cambridge Consulting Report that were mentioned in the report to the legislature, and that were further discussed at the EMS advisory committee.

So many people are looking at this report and making some extrapolations from it, and so I want to clarify some of those limitations that are mentioned in the report, specifically when it comes to clinical benchmarks, which are mentioned in there.

So what we're gonna talk about tonight is specifically how Brattleboro is performing based on the clinical performance metrics measured in this legislative report.

So one of the great things about our own EMS system is it's our data.

As you've heard me talk about before, I'm a data and numbers guy, so I wanted to break it down, bless you, and um and present that to you this evening.

So this is going to be a further clarification of what went to the legislature specifically for our community.

The report talks about four clinical metrics that they used, which are national benchmarks.

Those national benchmarks are by NemSQA, which is the National EMS Quality Alliance.

Those metrics which were looked at by the state are hypoglycemic or low blood sugar treatment, stroke assessments in people calling 911 with stroke symptoms, vital sign documentation and trauma patients, and lights and sirens usage.

These are all call types or high volume or dangerous things that want to look at, and so there's a national performance metrics which we look at.

So in the report, so if you see the screenshots in here, this is the report that was submitted to the legislature, which references different districts performance.

We are in district 13.

There are two EMS transport agencies in district 13, Rescue Inc., Bratterboro Fire Department.

That's important to point out because as we mentioned with data limitations and some of the reports, if you look on this report, it's gonna have an N and an agency listed for all of the numbers.

The numbers up top, so the statewide national performance metrics and the district performance was all listed in that report.

So for example, vital signs and trauma, the national benchmark is between 90 and 95%.

That's where the asterisk comes from, because I use 90, I need a number to compare it to.

Statewide, there's 64% compliance with that national benchmark.

That's 26% below national.

Not great.

District 13, 91%.

District 13 is doing better than the state and exceeds the national benchmark by about 1%.

That is using an N of 193 agencies.

Start of the three agencies, as I mentioned, there are two EMS transport agencies in this district.

Where is that third agency?

No one knows.

Again, that is where we talk about the limitations of the data that the contractors have come up with.

So let's talk about Brattaboro Fire Department.

If you look at our data based on our calculations for calendar year 2025, we are at 98.2%, which exceeds the benchmark by 3.2%.

Specifically, if you look at our data, I wanted to give you the numbers.

I won't go through this completely with you, but showing you the graph of where district 13 is and then as reported in that legislative report, and where Brattleboro Fire Department is.

Our N here is 227 patients, but if you look at our metrics, there are three metrics which are measured, and you can see the different scores.

We got 100% on respiratory rate, really good.

We had 99.1 for GCS, so we can have areas for improvement.

But overall, Brattleboro Fire Department is exceeding not only the state, district, but the national level.

Additionally, if you look at that report, it compares fire-based EMS systems in the state of Vermont.

So the report references that 50% that fire-based EMS is about 57% in Vermont.

Again, Brattleboro is at 98.2%, which is a 41% increase over both state, national, and that subset of fire-based DMS.

That's one metric.

When we talk about this report, this report was comparing 2019 statistics.

Let's this is 2026, let's talk about 2025.

NemSCOA increased the requirements to try to look at their performance metrics to add two additional vital signs in that.

We're doing just as good.

You added more metrics, Brattleboro Fire Department still exceeds that national benchmark.

Again, showing that our clinical performance is better than what was presented in that report.

Hypoglycemia, again, I'm gonna go through these a little bit more quickly.

This report is here, and you can look at it in the backup materials to dig in.

But national benchmark 38% for treatment of low blood sugar.

District 38, statewide 35, again, on that same area, Bratterboro Fire Department, 83.3%.

So that again exceeds the national benchmark by 45%.

When we talk about our N, this is something again looking at statistics.

Our N is very small here.

This is six patients that were encountered in this calendar year.

So when we miss one, that statistically makes a big percentage difference when we're looking overall at our performance.

Again, if we're looking at the report comparing Bratterboro to District 13 and the state, we exceed the averages.

Lights and sirens.

So as you see us going down the road, sometimes we have lights and sirens on, sometimes we don't.

We know that lights and siren transport is some of the most risky transports that we do.

So we limit the usage.

The national benchmark is about 40% of your calls should be transported lights and sirens.

Statewide 37, district 87, and Bratterboro 92.

That means we are exceeding what the higher number here, this is unlike all higher number is good, so we are exceeding that benchmark when we talk about our no lights and sirens transports.

When we look at our no lights and sirens transports, I want to highlight something.

Again, data.

This is over 2,516 patients that were transported.

We have documentation of how about 2400 were transported.

You'll notice that's about we're missing about 6%.

Well, again, our data can be improved as well.

There was not a requirement when we first started some of this to require how your patients were transported.

Lights and sirens are not optional field.

We have since adjusted that, and now we will have more accurate data reporting.

Again, just wanting to be transparent and clarifying what our data is, what it looks like, and where we are compared to the standard.

Again, showing we exceed that standard.

There are times where we go from no lights and sirens to lights and sirens, and from lights and sirens to no lights and sirens, again, trying to be as safe as possible.

When we look at those patients that were transporting lights and sirens, again, showing you what we are responding and transporting those patients with cardiac arrest, heart failure, heart attack, strokes, altered mental status, unresponsive overdoses, sepsis, seizures.

So we are transporting the sickest of our sick patients, lights and sirens.

Again, showing judicious use and exceeding the national benchmark.

Stroke assessment.

So stroke assessment, national benchmark 84%, statewide 64, again, not doing very well.

District 13, 76%, a little bit better.

Let's look at the end in the agencies.

Where did the other agencies come from?

No one knows.

Again, EMS leaders across the state, including within our district, agree that this data is flawed.

There's lots of limitations.

This is the data that was presented.

This is the data that had to go to the legislatures with those caveats of the performance and limitations.

So looking at all five agencies, again, unsure of who they are.

Um, Brattboro, 66.7%.

We did not exceed the benchmark in this area.

So when we look at this, right, we had 30 patients that were encountered, 20 patients that had documented stroke assessments.

So this clinical metrics is about documentation of a stroke scale for patients whose primary impression is having a stroke, right?

Did we do the tests that we were supposed to do?

Some of this comes down to documentation error, right?

Is it listed in the documentation that you did it?

Well, with our report, again, that small number, we're showing 10 calls that we don't have documentation on it in the appropriate place.

So we've recognized that that's an area for improvement.

And we have a quality assurance plan that we're working on to include making it required to document if you've done a stroke assessment on a stroke patient.

Again, you would think these things may be um may already exist.

However, this is a statewide system that our reporting is done in, and the state doesn't make those specific requirements.

So Brattleboro has the capability to make increased validation and show what is required or what is recommended.

So we've made that, we've made that change effective immediately.

Additionally, we'll be doing some more documentation and assessment trainings to see if it really a problem with our clinical assessments.

I would argue it's most likely a documentation process, but we don't know yet.

So we'll continue to revisit that, and as you'll see, we'll revisit this at six and twelve months.

And I promise you that in 12 months from now, this number will exceed the national benchmark.

So this is a summary of showing our clinical performance compared to the national benchmarks, and as you can see, with the exception of our stroke assessment, we exceed the national benchmarks.

This report, which again has brought up lots of discussion, and that's great because there are lots of things are happening in EMS at the state level specifically.

This talks about clinical matrix, though, and it's important for us to recognize that that report was never made to extrapolate at the agency or district level.

If you want that information, we have that information now, and we can provide it and we can compare ourselves nationally.

So you can see that we are doing very well.

In summary, again, I think I I think I've beat this to death, but we take our town, our people, our responsibility, excuse me, very seriously.

Our clinical performance metrics show we are providing effective, efficient, high quality patient care, and we exceed not only our state partners, but we exceed the nation.

So I'm very proud to report that while that report has ambiguity, our data, our report shows we are doing a great job.

That's work.

Well, that's wonderful.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

I have one one question for you.

Um what was the overall purpose at the at the legislative level for commissioning this report?

Good question.

So lots is changing in EMS and healthcare as we know it.

Healthcare is getting more affordable.

We are a rural state.

We have challenges with reimbursement.

Brattleboro is not unique, that is happening um nationwide.

But the state legislature is looking at how the system is currently working and what can be done to improve it.

How can we afford better health care?

How can we provide equitable health care to everybody in such a rural state?

And this report's goal is to see where we are, and then now we are looking at where are we going to go?

And this year is going to be a very busy year for the EMS Advisory Committee to make a recommendation on changes to our state plan and where we will go from here.

And do you have recommendations that you you'd like to give to the legislature?

Absolutely.

And I am on the committee and I will be in with the work groups to help make those reports.

So the EMS Advisory Committee is comprised of representatives from each district in the state as well as the professional organizations and community partners that it encountered it cross-sects with.

So there is a lot of us that are doing work to uh improve the EMS system overall for the state of Vermont.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Colleagues.

Just to thank you and to say that that is the most enthusiastic 10 p.m.

select board presentation I think I've ever experienced.

But I enjoyed it.

It was great.

Thank you.

Amanda?

I want to say I'm so thankful that you're on the committee, the state committee and representing Brattleboro.

I mean, that's major for us.

That's a real win there.

And also I appreciate the expediency of your presentation and the vibrant way it was presented.

Thank you.

Agreed.

Is there anyone for the public who would like to speak to this issue?

Yeah, did you forget about us?

No, I looked over and I got a oh no.

No, no, no.

I was looking down at something.

I do.

I'm good.

No, you're good.

All right.

Um, you know, it's it's funny.

The um the the one thing that you sort of um were a little below average on was something that I witnessed firsthand.

Um you guys just sort of nail it nailed it when we called you, and that was the a stroke at a friend of ours who had a medical emergency called us.

My wife and I rushed over there.

We were like, this is well above our pay grade.

Let's call on the professionals.

You guys came in within minutes, nailed this, assessed it, got it to the hospital, 100% recovery.

So it was funny that that the one thing that was you know a little bit below average, it was the thing that I thought you guys shined on the most, at least that I had to see.

And let's face it, when people call any any one of you, they're not having a good day.

So to have this level of professionalism, just I mean, it means a lot to me for sure.

So thank you.

Thank you.

You know, that just reminds me that we can all um plug into your system to give basic facts of the the people in the household, right?

So that when you call 911 uh you're or we're already on your radar.

Could you explain that a little to encourage the public to participate?

So there's a link on our quarterly report, and that's the community connect.

And the community connect, what that does is uh, for example, 107 Elliott Street had a a fire there in that that flooded a lot of that building.

And at the command post, we opened up Community Connect, and in community connect was a list of all the tenants and whether they had family members to go stay with or whether if we need to find them shelter.

So that's the type of information that can be put into that and feeds directly into our dispatch system.

So we have you know live access to that while we're on the scene.

And it can it can include you know family members, pets, rooms, where rooms are located, all that information that's important.

So it's not just um the location, but maybe uh health conditions and relatives.

Yep, absolutely.

And that link is right in that quarterly report.

We put it in there every every quarter.

I think it's our website too, right?

That's true.

Yeah, it's on our website too.

Great, thank you.

All right.

Now let me ask the public uh is there anyone who wishes to comment on on this boom boom.

Hi, Gemma Seymour Brattleboro.

Uh I just had one question uh because I was not aware of the existence of this community connect program.

And that question is who has access to that data?

Thank you.

So uh the access to the data is only by those that are authorized to have first due, which is just the the fire department personnel and dispatch.

So it's not like the public can't go in and see that information.

But I meant does that data get transmitted to some corporation somewhere?

Oh, um, so it does live in our first due um, which is our dispatch software.

So all of our reporting and dispatch software, so it does go into that system.

The the information that is stored within the first due system is encrypted in the same manner in security that banks use for um that information.

So the information is very secure through that first due software um for personals uh people's personal information.

Thank you.

Mr.

Ozer.

Bob Ozar Bratleboro.

I won't be able to speak that fast, and I I can't do this that well.

But uh first of all, the third the I can't speak to the five agencies and why that was there, but the three agencies I believe the one was Golden Cross.

Um I guess the real question I have is that the data that was presented today uh may be different than the data that the consultants put in the report.

And I'm not sure I understand this correctly, but the consultants access state and federal databases to get the data.

So, but now there's a report based upon that information, which then goes to the legislature.

And I don't know, I didn't check today, but it's gonna go, I think, to Health and Human Services Committees.

Is that correct?

Uh sorry, I should be asking you.

Um is there a way?

So there was a meeting, I think, before the report was submitted, and the data was not corrected at that point.

Is there a way to correct the data now before health and human health and human services looks at those reports?

And I think that was I think that was it.

Yeah.

You know, what I think why is there a difference between the two data sources?

What I was cleaning from from Billy's answer is that the specific granular detail of town data is not as important as the overall uh statewide report for the legislature to use for their their purposes.

Am I correct?

I would agree.

Um additionally, if you read there's there's actually uh we joke about this in the committee, there's more disclaimers of the data limitations and challenges.

And if you read the C CG's disclaimer, it says that we believe that this report is basically providing what it needs to.

And so I I agree with what you're saying, they're looking at it as an overall performance metrics, not drilling down.

The Golden Cross response as far as that third agency, Golden Cross is a Vermont provided agency, it it is a license agency in Vermont as well.

It it is a license agency in Vermont as well.

That doesn't still jive with the dates that the report was accessed through.

And so if you also look at the report, it doesn't, it has uh differing dates of when they pulled the data from.

So that's why I felt it important to say when our calendar year was.

Again, we've made changes to our documentation.

So if you look at July 1, there weren't the same requirements as there were October and December.

So as we've refined our data, that is why we provided a bit more granular data for that.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I think it's also important to note that this study combined a couple different attempts to get data.

So the first attempt failed, they tried again.

Some of this data comes from before we were even a transporting agency.

So to kind of lump DFD into this data is is really unfair because we weren't transporting.

Thank you.

Are there other members of the public who wish to speak to this item?

All right, then no motion.

No motion.

Well, I want to thank all three of you for coming and and giving us such a lively presentation at 10 o'clock at night and uh always being so helpful.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Nice work on the monitor.

Thank you.

Very good.

All right.

What is next?

Yep.

Uh and I don't know.

Do we have Hillary Francis online by any chance?

I'll do this one then.

Great.

All right.

This is town clerk office contingency staffing plan.

So uh town clerk Hillary Francis has put together a memo for the board.

Uh that office is currently aware of two staff members who have out of work situations that may require them to be out of work for an indeterminate period during the next six months.

And uh she is looking for guidance from the select board on how to proceed uh when you know, in case they are down one, two, or possibly even three staff at any given time.

And uh Hillary is suggesting uh three possible options here.

One would be that she could um hire per diem employees to cover the office if a situation was needed where they were down at down staff coverage.

Um the second option that she's proposing is that uh she hire per diem employees to cover the office, but just for essential services like uh cashiering land record documents and doing election work, and then the third possibility is that when we have um staff out that we close the office entirely and just have other departments date and stamp the mail and then the town clerks staff would catch up on that when they got back get back.

So um she's recommending options one or two, and in the case of during an election period, uh she strongly suggests option one, but uh either option one or two would put us over budget, so um that's why she wanted to get select board guidance on what to do here.

So appreciate any feedback that you have.

Let me just clarifying question.

Um we're not sure exactly how much time we're talking about.

Correct.

And we're not sure because like there's an election now, but I don't think Hillary's talking about this.

She's talking about August.

Am I correct?

Um potentially then, but really over the next six months.

So it could be now, it could be tomorrow.

We don't know.

But um to in order to do some of these options, she would have to start hiring people, and that is the sort of what what she needs direction on.

Great.

Um ladies and gentlemen, what do you think?

I would support option two, which is hiring per diem employees to cover the office work for essential services only.

Um I mean, if it were the uh the first one, it would we're only talking $3,700.

So this one would even be less, presumably.

But it seems like this is something we we can't really avoid.

Yeah.

Um, I think it's interesting because maybe we can um have a hybrid where we do option two and then have a caveat for if it is during the election period, we do just just those days of of one.

Sure.

Do you like that idea?

Yeah.

I was I was literally gonna suggest the same thing.

Oh my gosh, great line.

This is so weird.

Um no, I you know, because uh we um nobody does elections better than Hillary, but without a staff, I think that's what holds her up.

So yeah, so I mean I would definitely I would definitely be a fan of the hybrid option.

I I see that that would sort of melt them, and I think it would be a little bit less of a spent expenditure, even though we're not talking about a bunch here.

How about on this side of the aisle?

Yeah, so I've consistently been impressed with how lean the town um clerk's office runs.

Um run a very lean budget, and um I think it's very important to have um contingency and options and also see like uh a per DM employee being in training for longer term employment, which is a good idea to do and have um and also the importance of our elections.

We have to have that secure.

So I I mean that the hybrid idea, I think that's that's a sound plan.

Um yeah, I mean uh sounds like it would work.

Um John is yeah, oh yeah, uh yeah, I mean any of these options would work, so it's great to hear starting to hear some consensus here.

And and and Oscar, if you weigh in, I think I think we can uh I agree.

I indulge me for a couple questions here.

So two of the staff, at each of them at some point in the next six months, they're expecting to have they'll each have an out of work situation for some period of time.

And then they could not overlap, which would be the easiest.

They could both overlap, or we could be down all three staff during the time.

Is that if someone's also sick or something like that?

Okay, and then for option one, is 3700 more or less a worst case scenario or an average case?

Yeah, I think an average.

Okay.

I mean this sounds fine, and I'm happy to trust Hillary with do option two if you really need to bring more people on, that's okay.

We're these are small, small amounts of money for the overall budget.

So great.

So do you have the information that you need?

I do.

I feel like I have direction to uh to go with option two.

So I may have a hybrid of option two with option one during election periods.

We need a motion for this.

Well, um, sure.

That would be great.

I have one area of questioning, and that is can birth certificates be obtained online currently with our town clerk's office, or is that in person?

I think it needs to be in person.

Okay, and um and I guess that's the I mean I think about like immediate need that comes up, and that's one of those.

So thinking of the town clerk's office being closed.

Um well and two would handle that, Amanda.

Yeah, you know, but uh what what um Isaac and I have been talking about was option two with the use of option one only during election periods.

So that is pretty much what our guidance is to you.

Although it says in option two, hire pretty employees to cover office for essential services only, cashiering, land records documents, close the office to the public as long as we are not in early voting.

I'm a little confused by number two.

So when number two says we'll close the office to the public as long as it's not early voting, that when it's early voting, that's when we add in the hybrid of number one.

So if it's during early voting, we'll pivot to option one.

The rest of the time is option two.

It's just to take care of the day-to-day workload so that when they do come back, you know, they're not buried.

Yeah.

And address the the uh Yeah, I guess I'm I I mean, uh frankly, I'm leaning a little bit more towards number one, so that the office can stay open.

My only thought there is that, you know, we we talked about a month ago budget cuts, and one of the things we talked about was, you know, maybe it's okay if an office is closed for a day or two.

And so I I think it's it's a good exercise of of discipline for us.

And it may not even happen.

It may not overlap in the most demanding way, but if it does and there's a little reduction in availability to the public, I think that's what I think Oscar makes a good point.

You know, I think um, given this, this I think gives us the best chance of saving the most money.

And and again, I think we've all sort of pointed out it's not a it's not a huge sum of money anyway.

So yeah, I'd be.

I mean, if we need a motion or if you you have the guidance, we can yeah, let's do a motion.

I just want to make sure that I understand make a motion.

I'll make a motion and I'll make this up.

I'm gonna slow jam it.

Um, so I'll I'll motion that uh we do we instruct town.

Yes.

All right, instruct the town manager uh to work with um uh our town clerk on a hybrid model of uh the proposed one and two hiring per diem at a rate of 2478 an hour uh with no benefits uh for election times.

Uh otherwise hiring a per diem employee to cover the office work um for day-to-day stuff.

How much is stuff is spelled S G.

Okay.

So um Peter has made a motion, but let's leave that and we won't vote until we hear from Heidi.

Heidi Fisher District 7.

Um, one of the things I think she mentioned in that was having BCA members help.

I'm wondering if there's a possibility of including putting out there, are there any volunteers from the BCA who would be willing to help in the office without having to incur the expensive I I I'm I'm sensing that there's like legal ramifications to doing town clerk work on a voluntary basis.

I don't know, but I'm just one of the things that is that am I correct, John?

Yeah, um and I know I know she's incorporated that idea, Heidi, in in this.

Uh I think it's I think there needs to be at least one staff person on when the uh BCA member is volunteering.

So I think it's to cover that one staff person that we're talking about here.

So yes.

You know, this memo just says should this happen during early voting periods that there's these absences, as long as we have at least one staff member in office, we feel confident that we can find a BCA member to volunteer.

Yeah, so that's already baked in, but obviously it's a good question.

Yeah, yep.

All right.

So Peter's made a motion, and I believe his motion is to uh guide the town manager and the town clerk to provide a contingency plan that um hires per diem employees subject to option two uh for the majority of the time, and utilize option one for uh election periods.

Okay, all select board members in favor of this hybrid motion.

Please raise your hand and say aye.

I there we are, five zero.

Thank you very much.

Okay, now there's one more issue, and that is the item that was pulled from the consent agenda.

Let me welcome uh assistant chief Evans to the table.

Chief Hart, are you coming?

Brought my chaperone.

Great.

Please begin.

Please tell us about this uh police car and sure.

Um I can give you a short version and then maybe lean on just asking you what specifically you want to know if I'm not hitting it.

Okay.

Um so this is for our FY26 approved car.

We had, I believe we had two vehicles approved for replacement in the FY26 budget.

Um, this is the second one of those to come before you.

The last one you approved a couple months ago.

Um we have a six-year cycle replacement plan that we've built in.

Uh one of the things the chief gave me when I got promoted was our our vehicle uh capital plan, which was difficult to say the least.

Uh there had been a lot, a lot of years of where vehicle purchases were pushed off uh for various reasons, um, which created quite the a mess of trying to plan for when we would replace vehicles.

Um because we would have some years where they would the capital plan would show like we should be replacing five cars all at once, which is not very feasible.

Um, and then some years where it would show we had no cars to replace.

Um, so we worked through with John.

Uh we initially had a five-year replacement plan that's been in place as long as as long as I could see um for our programming.

We looked at mileage, we looked at hours that the vehicles run.

I learned I think that the hour thing is probably even more important for us than the mileage because of the equipment that we have in the cars running.

And warranty plans that come with the cars, which is a three-year 36 that we get out of whatever vehicle we've been purchasing from whatever manufacturer we've been getting it from and a five-year 60 on Power Train for warranties that's been consistent throughout all three manufacturers that we bought from.

So we pushed it out, we looked at our maintenance costs that we've had projected and uh in the past.

We felt comfortable with going moving from a five-year to a six-year to give the town that that benefit.

We think we can the newer cars uh nowadays they're lasting longer.

Seem to have less operational repair costs to go with those.

Uh so we pushed it out to six-year placement plan uh that we worked with uh John and with finance on to come up with a consistent plan to make that happen.

Um I guess I would impress up on you.

I think it's really important that we stick with that plan because that's what we didn't do in the past, and that caused some difficulties with car maintenance and with then trying to program when to purchase cars because we would just back up when to purchase cars, and all of a sudden we would end up with backlogs of having to purchase cars because they were out of service.

Um with this one, I gave you the uh entire cost of the vehicle and upfit, uh, which is the way that we program the capital budget.

Uh each car, we just give you a total cost for what that vehicle will cost us.

We anticipate it costing.

Um the cost, uh the budget part that we give you is for the vehicle purchase and the upfit of the vehicle to be an emergency service vehicle.

So all the lighting, the graphics, the radios, the uh wiring that goes with all that, um the transport uh block that goes in the back seat, all of those things.

Um those things can vary.

So the cost we give you when we project out the cost of each new car, is if all those things were replaced when we purchased the vehicle.

Um, because we don't know, like I can't tell you you know, three to five years from now if we're gonna need to replace every one of those pieces or if we can reuse some of those.

Um, many times we can reuse it.

Uh our radios tend to be good for at least one uh one car replacement before we have to purchase a new one.

Um, our packages for prisoner transportation.

Sometimes we get lucky and we can use those for a few.

It depends uh on if it's the same vehicle and if the manufacturer has made, you know, like Ford made a little tweak in the transmission housing that caused the prisoner compartment to not fit, and you have to purchase a new one.

Um we we do look every year at what do we have to replace inside the vehicle.

So the number we give you is uh generally the most expensive it could possibly be, but we work very hard to have it not be that price, um, which we have in the past, that's why we had um some uh money still in the capital plan from our vehicle costs.

So this one um shows you the 89,000 for the vehicle.

Uh the reason we didn't give you a specific vehicle is because since COVID it's been difficult for us to work through getting a uh an autoplace to tell us like here's your you know, we call and ask for a car and they say here's your 2025 uh Crown Vic or Ford Explorer or Dodge Charger VIN number, and this is what it costs because if we spend two weeks to a month and a half getting that approved through here, squeezing it into a board meeting, we go back to them and they say, Well, we don't have that car anymore, um, but we have these three others that are similar, uh, different VIN number, and like this one costs 400 more.

This one's 350 less, and now I've gonna have to come back again to the board and say, Oh, well, it changed by 300 bucks.

Um, what I gave you here is what the whole total cost for the car actually will be.

I expect the initial purchase here that we're gonna make it will be in the uh 50 to 55,000 range, which is the current uh state bid for the vehicles that we buy.

Um, and expect that to happen.

The last we bought was 54 in change, I believe.

Uh so it's gonna be right about that, but I don't have a specific car to give you in a memo today.

Um, so that's why you see the figure as it is.

Amanda, did you have concerns?

I had a question.

Um sometimes when we hear about um different departments, emergency vehicles, there's a trade-in value that is stated for the what for it looks like replacing cruiser two.

So is that in the calculation?

Um it's not in the calculation we give you no.

Um so we've we've actually had some discussions on this with uh what we're generally able to get when we contract out and we do bids for cars and stuff, they'll give us what I think is exceptionally unreasonable numbers back on what they're gonna give us for the vehicle.

Um they generally don't look at the vehicle, they just tell you we'll give you you know five thousand dollars for it, um, and that's that, and apparently a lot of places just do that.

Um so we've taken a step from that and to try and look at what kind of return we can get reselling those cars ourselves, whether that's the town sells it outright, or we shop it to other places to trade it in.

Um, so there is some sort of trade-in or resale that will offset the purchase cost of this vehicle.

Right, okay.

Right.

Um which can affect our end bottom line for the specific car.

Right.

And that does that go back into where does that go back into?

Like, does it go back into the release capital budget or does it go into the general fund budget when it comes back?

If if there's a sale?

Uh it would that's a good question.

I can find that out for you.

Exactly how that would work.

I I think in general, if it was a trade-in, it would just come off of the cost and the capital budget.

If it was a separate transaction, it would come in as revenue and we'd account for it that way, is my guess on that.

Oscar, do you have a question?

Yeah, uh really boring question, but um, this particular car, can it go another year?

And the two reasons I ask are one, if it's 90k on a six-year replacement plan, if we can squeeze an extra year out of a car, we say 15 grands, give or take.

And two is sometimes we get unlucky, right?

And it's like, well, we plan for six years, but it's four years, and we need a new one, and we just have to that's just something we have to do.

So if there are times when we get lucky and yeah, this car's holding up really well, it can go seven.

I want to make sure we don't miss those opportunities.

So is there I know obviously repair costs generically go up over time, but is when we replace the the uh fire car in the spring, like the engine needed to be replaced.

Is there's is this one falling apart, or could it go another year without major problems?

Um so a couple things on that.

Um, remember we're looking at uh emergency response, these are a frontline emergency response vehicles.

So if it's my pickup that I drive to work and it breaks down, that's inconvenient.

Um if we have these cars that break down when they're in emergency response activities, that could be like a life safety issue.

Um so I'm hesitant to say let's push it as far as we can with any one of the vehicles that we have.

Um, especially with our frontline patrol response cars.

I think that personally, I think it's it's not good for our public safety to do that.

Um we've already pushed these out a year.

Um, these were a five-year replacement plan.

We've looked at the data for our cars and looked at the cost that they are, um, honestly, because they're it's not cheap.

Um built this six-year replacement plan, which gives us an extra year out of each car already, which does help with the cost, mitigate the cost sum.

Um, but also gives us a solid for plan for replacement that we can budget for year in and year out.

So if we if we push one, that's how we ended up with the really poor plan that we had in the past where we there was occasionally cars that would get pushed and that never got rectified, and we ended up with years where we had several cruiser purchases that had to be made that weren't really budgeted for.

I think certainly if we pushed it, we would say we would take the money and put it aside and say, look, we know this is getting replaced in a year or two, no matter what.

So I I mean I any department had uh telling me no, we need this, this is important.

I'm gonna give that a great deal of credit.

Um but you you just you saw how we were scraping for every dollar and cent.

So you know if if this car is doing all right and could last another year, I I would love to to hear that.

But if you uh if you think it's time and it needs to be replaced, I will absolutely credit that.

So I do think it's time it needs to be replaced.

Okay.

Thank you.

And you know, we had this discussion in this in the spring with the I guess it was assistant chief keyers car, and then life safety issue came up.

And and uh I don't want to put anybody at risk, including uh police officers or the public.

And so uh I also want to note that while this is budgeted for $90,000, you just said it was gonna cost more like $50, right?

Well, the vehicles, so the vehicle itself costs will be about $50,000.

Um, and then there's the upfit cost that we have to go out to bid on.

Yeah, uh, which you you folks will see the bid once we get that back for upfitting the vehicle, and that'll have the specific equipment that we've gone over and the upfit gone over and needs needs to be replaced versus what we can salvage.

And this is how we're getting rid of.

I'm sorry, Jeremy.

This is through this state procurement process.

Is this yes?

We use the the state.

Even though it's a new hampshire uh deal.

We use the state bid uh pricing.

So even if it's not the company in Vermont that got the state bid because we've had difficulties with that because um they could just we've had them say we just don't have the car.

Um we've had them say we have the car, but we're just I know we got the state bid, but we're not selling it for the state bid.

We're gonna sell it for more.

Um it's been really neat.

Um so if we can't do that, then we take what the number is from the state bid and look elsewhere to see where we can purchase at the state bid price.

Right.

Well, I'm all in because of the life safety issues.

Colleagues.

No, I'm fine with that as part of the plan.

Yeah, I think um, you know, again, uh to echo what it's been said here already a couple of times.

Like I'm I'm I'm not a fan of putting our first responders at any level of risk, jobs hard enough.

Um, so giving you the equipment to make that job easier is is the most important thing that I do, and on that I can make the motion.

Great.

And I do want to say I appreciate answering the questions.

You're welcome.

It was just the memo was really brief, and I was used to other discussions about trade-ins and like any thank you.

You're welcome.

All right.

Uh Pete, make the motion because members of the public who'd like to speak to it.

I will uh motion to approve the purchase of a police cruiser two from McCulkin Chevrolet in Nashville, New Hampshire for a price not to exceed 89,000 dollars.

Great.

You just made a motion.

Let's hear from now.

Now, Mayor District Date, so I don't have a comment about the purchase of the cruiser.

I am just curious.

Um, you'd said that the department's been discussing how questions to me.

Sorry.

Uh Assistant Chief Evans had said the department's been discussing reselling cars either directly or through a third party.

Um and I know John said he would check where that's been coming in in the budget, but I'm curious, is that has that actually been done before, or is it being discussed as a first-time measure here?

Yeah, I think we've done it in different departments uh when we think we could get more revenue for the town through that method.

And so I guess thank you.

And where will we see follow-up on that?

I suppose.

Because if people are trying to cut chart what what this actually costs long term, because if they could get, you know, maybe 20K is totally unreasonable in at the car, that really does significantly reduce the per car expense.

Um I'm not sure.

I don't have a good answer for you on that.

Um I I think it's uh I mean it would be I it wouldn't be in the warrant, so yeah, you're right.

I don't know uh where where we would be reporting that out unless the board uh requested additional work to be done to track it.

Okay.

I'm sure it can be communicated through email, but I'm sure those who like to read all the budget would be curious to know where they would find that.

Okay, thank you.

All right, uh Seymour Rattleboro.

Uh I believe I've mentioned before my family has been in uh emergency services my entire life.

And uh with all due respect to Assistant Chief Evans, um, as a police officer, he is not a motor pool operator uh specifically.

And I would feel a whole lot more comfortable about this idea of a six-year replacement cycle on capital vehicles.

If there were some more data available uh that would demonstrate uh, first of all, the mileage of the vehicle, uh, the model of the vehicle, and some comparisons with uh other municipal use hard use vehicles, so that we would have more of a comfort level of understanding that, yeah, it's highly likely that this vehicle is going to end up costing us more money if we don't replace it immediately.

I I think that um you know it it's very much true that motor vehicles in general have become much more reliable, especially over the past 20 years.

And even for a hard use vehicle, six years to me seems like a pretty short replacement cycle.

And I think that seven years is that would if somebody said to me seven years, that wouldn't even cause me to blink um with with modern cars.

I mean the the the truck that I recent that I stopped driving four and a half years ago was already 20 years old at that time.

And yes, it's not used as a police vehicle every day, but um, you know, these things do last a whole lot longer than they used to.

So I I would just feel that we should have more of a comfort level with uh with some actual data behind it.

Thank you.

Um I think we should um trust the process that our police department has.

And um, yes, um, I'll just comment um Norma, you you're going to need to be in the microphone.

I think inches from a clean getaway.

Um yes, I think um that was um Gemma's comment is reasonable, so I just want to comment on it.

Um just in case no one knows that we do um regular maintenance on the vehicle.

We take the vehicles in, and we have a um we also have um we keep track of when the vehicle each vehicle is due for whatever maintenance is due for.

So those are things we can produce, or those records um that show how each vehicle goes in, how it gets, you know, we try to keep them running as much as we can, but as the assistant chief talked about, we were behind vehicles for so long that we actually have vehicles that stopped working.

We had vehicles um, especially when we um when we were behind, I think three vehicles at one time, and then we had one actually stop, just die at a scene.

So that costs us a lot of scrambling to get back to getting the vehicles.

So we do have maintenance uh records, we keep the records uh with um fletchers that takes care of our cars.

Um we also know when they're due for any kind of upbeat of or or records or upkeep.

And the thing is too about the cars, because of the amount of equipment that are in the cars, that the cars are constantly having to run, because we have to run for our radios, our computers, um, our cameras.

So it's a it's a constant beating up basically of the cars, not just for them to run to to jobs, but also to maintain the equipment that's in them.

So I think um, you know, sometimes that that doesn't come out, so that's why I just wanted to point that out.

And also the fact that we have been behind in asking for cars at least three years.

Because every year we try not to ask for a car.

So we actually put two cars on hold for two for two years.

I myself have never updated my car because patrol needs the cars.

They need the cars.

So we've stepped back on asking for other cars that we were approved for in the capital budget, but we felt that it wasn't, you know, and that's what we did.

We sat down and we said, how long can we keep these cars and not ask for a car?

And that's where the six years came in.

But they were never really up on the five-year replacement because they were behind the the three cars when I got here.

So I think that there's a lot of you know we don't I just wanted to make sure that no one thinks we frivolously asked for things because especially vehicles we do sit down and try to work out what's logical what's a logical ask request and what is something that we can bring you know all of our records to and show the the wear and sale on the vehicles so I just wanted to answer that.

Thank you Chief.

Any more comments from the public board are we ready to vote?

I am Peters made a motion the motion said he moves to approve the purchase of police cruiser two from McMulkin Chevrolet of Nashua and Capture for price not to exceed $89,000.

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

Aye thank you thank you thank you.

Oh that's yeah that passed five to zero all right one more motion I'll motion to adjourn.

Uh Peter's motion to adjourn all select board members in favor please raise your hand and say aye.

Thank you very much.

Thank you Seth thank you BCTV thank you John