All right, welcome everyone to the select board meeting of July 21st at 617 p.m.

Welcome all uh board.

Any adjustments to the agenda today?

None.

Seeing none.

Chair's remarks.

Uh just to welcome all of you.

Look forward to having a productive meeting.

And I wanted to note that now that I've done it a couple times that I've been holding office hours at the works Sunday morning before each select board meeting from 9 to 11.

I plan to keep doing it, so please come by, say hi, talk about anything on the agenda or whatever is on your mind.

And with that, it looks like we have one set of minutes to approve if someone would care to make a motion.

Anyone can I move to approve the minutes of June 16th.

Nell has made a motion to approve the minutes of June 16th.

Any discussion?

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Carries 4-0.

Town manager's comments.

A couple of staffing uh updates tonight.

So after a comprehensive search process, ably led by HR director Sally Cruz Nix.

We are welcoming Sarah Rose Bissell as our new finance director starting later this month.

Sarah Rose brings an extensive background in sustainable financial management practices and organizational operations from the nonprofit and for-profit business worlds.

I'll be looking to her to continue the really great work that Bonnie Batchelder has done for us in the finance department over the past year, as well as continuing to innovate on how we are communicating all the numbers and finding efficiencies in service delivery.

Also, uh Lindsay Bellville has settled into her role as interim library director, and I'm very pleased with and grateful for how she is doing that.

I have an update on the library renovation project.

The contractors are moving to the front of the building next week, uh, which means that the rear will still be closed.

You won't be able to access the library through the rear rear of the building yet.

Um so the access will be in the front of the building, but it will be safely through the construction that's going on there.

So I I just want people to know that the library is still going to be open.

Um they'll just have to navigate uh through that uh construction.

Um there will also be some parking changes for where people park to use the library.

Those will be that info will be going out in a press release and on social media later this week, so look for that.

Uh the Brattleboro Recreation and Parks Department is excited to announce that the new pump track at Living Memorial Park is now open.

Uh I hope the riders get up there to enjoy it.

The pump track is located on the lower level of the park behind the playground and the basketball court.

The pump track is open from dawn to dusk.

Helmets are required, and it is not supervised, so please ride safely and be respectful of others.

A special thanks for pump track support goes out to the Vermont Community Foundation Withington Fund and Belco Excavating.

Um finally for the August 11th state primary elections.

Uh mailed ballots can be requested through your voter portal or by calling the town clerk's office or emailing the town clerk.

You may also stop by and pick up an absentee ballot for yourself only.

In-person voting can be done during normal business hours in the town clerk's office, so long as there are two election officials that were able to be scheduled in the office at that time.

That's it.

Thanks, John.

Welcome.

Board comments.

Board members with comments.

I'll start on the right.

Amanda.

Well, I just want to um welcome everyone here and on um line and um congratulate a lot of uh baseball success for the town of Brattleboro, starting with the Broadboro U uh 12U Little League winning the district tournament and advancing to states, defeating Rutland, and they'll be in uh St.

Albans, I believe, starting on the 25th.

Also the 10U All-Stars won D2 title, going to states defeating Bennington, and the state tournaments in Burlington.

And also the U-11s won their D2 state title and are currently playing in South Burlington.

And very exciting, uh, the Bratt Post Five COFAX baseball team won the 13U state Babe Ruth Tournament at Tennyfield, the newly renovated Tennyfield, beating Arlington, and um they will be in the regional tournament in Westfield Mass, starting starting against Westfield.

So that's great.

We were in the Fourth of July parade, you know, and saw all those little league, and I said, You guys, you guys need to win.

And they I said, you can ride on a fire truck if you win.

And they were like, well, all right, we're gonna do it.

And look.

Here we are.

Success.

Excellent.

That's quite a record.

Uh, left side of the table, Peter.

Thanks, coach.

You got it.

No?

Nothing.

Okay.

We're gonna move on to public comment.

This is the section of the meeting where members of the public can make a comment about something that is not on the agenda otherwise.

And if you're in the room, please raise your hand and I'll call on you.

And then once called on, come up to the mic, say your name, and please address any questions or comments to me as chair.

And if you're online, just use the raise hand thing, and Seth will see you and wave at me and we'll call on you there.

So, anyone in the room who'd like to make a comment?

Yes, sir.

In the black shirt.

Yes.

Hi, my name is Bob Beattie.

Um, I'm working with a group that's planning a parade down Main Street and utilizing the common on October 10th.

Um we're calling it the awake extravaganza of what it means to be woke.

Uh it'll involve a lot of music, um, theatrical things, and a whole lot of different groups, um union groups, anti-war groups, any any entity like the town of Brattleboro that has a DEI poster um hanging up on a wall.

In fact, I would invite the town of Brattleboro to um participate in some capacity in this parade.

In any event, um we've filled out an application form for this parade.

Uh I've made an initial inquiry with the police department, check with um parks and wreck about the commons, and I just wanted to give you guys a heads up about it.

This is October 10th, it's Indigenous People Weekend.

It's on a Saturday.

Any questions or no, thank you.

I think that's great.

It sounds like you're doing all the right things in terms of uh permitting and reaching out, so I'm glad you made this announcement publicly.

And anyone interested should contact you.

Is that the right?

Sure.

Okay.

You can contact me, Bob Beatty.

Great 802-258-7750.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Bye.

Anyone else who'd like to speak?

Randy.

Hi, Randy Blodge at Brattleboro.

Um I just want to make sure the select board, the legislatures, the governor, everybody's aware about our current state of our revised charter.

I will be voting no if it stands the way it is now with a 60% threshold for Australian ballot.

It's a two-step process.

The first step is open town meeting.

A simple majority wins there.

Um there's no reason to not be fair to the other part of the election and say they have less rights than the first part.

It's inequitable, it's not fair.

I don't think it's legal in the long run.

I think the ACLU, the associate the ADA, um, and some other people we've talked to have very big problems with this being a precedent set in Vermont.

And you know, we're gonna have our own informational meetings.

We're gonna talk about this.

I would like the select board members all to please reach out and comment to the public on this.

It is a complete change of our governance.

And we tried to compromise to have both things.

Um we were initially just Australian ballot, and we gave up on where Australian ballot ends after the second uh go around if it would be voted down twice and said we're willing to give that up just to get a simple majority, and we didn't get that.

Um so you know, we will be reaching out to the 500 and some people that signed the initial petition, plus everybody else that we know voted, you know, no for this.

The analytics don't tell the whole story on the vote in March.

If you talk to any statistician, what's been said isn't correct.

Um if you look at the totality of the voters.

And just name an election where 60% has actually been achieved in this town.

Go back to 2012.

It's on the town website.

It will never happen.

So it is completely unfair and inequitable.

So I hope somebody in the right mind will bring the town together.

We don't need more, you know, warring factions here that are completely against stuff.

We need to bring the town together.

We have enough other problems.

The hospital, infrastructure, lack of high-quality jobs that people can live on and not go check to check, or worse.

Look at our food banks.

Let's do something good for Brattleboro.

Let's give everybody equal rights.

Thank you.

Thanks, Randy.

Sue.

Susan Bellville, Brattleboro.

I'm also highly opposed to the 60 percent threshold on the Australian ballot component of the proposed charter.

It is uh it is so unfair.

Uh if the open town meeting people can pass a budget at a simple majority and then pass it on to Australian ballot, the people who come out to vote Australian ballot should have the same rights.

It should be a simple majority.

A 60 percent threshold to vote the budget down is unreasonable, and it is counterproductive, and it is really counter to our constitutional rights.

Thank you.

Thanks, Sue.

Anyone else in the room with a comment?

Tom and then Dick.

Hello, Tom Franks Brattleboro.

Uh my voice goes also to opposing the 60 percent threshold for Australian ballot.

Um the hybrid meeting is what you know, some people thought we wanted after the vote.

It was something that I put an article in the paper on before the vote saying, hey, that's possible.

It's actually only possible if people had voted for Australian ballot and that would prevail, but that's another issue.

Um now we have to have the Charter Commission work on it.

The Australian ballot um, the couple things about sorry, open town meeting.

As a select board, you present a budget, this group votes it down, and then you have to deal with this group, open town meeting, to get it out even to the Australian ballot.

It seems to me if Australian ballot uh doesn't get a chance to vote on a budget, the select board's pass our rights there have not really been met.

And as a select board member, I would not want to have to try to get through two bodies voting on the same thing.

Um I proposed to the to the Charter Revision Commission before we started the one person-one vote initiative.

And remind you, I'll just remind you, it's one person, one vote, not one person five-sixths of a vote.

Because that's effectively at the simplest math level, what that 60 percent majority requires.

If you look at the numbers, 400, okay, I'm doing my thing on numbers, I'll stop because some, if not all of you, everyone else out in the audience will glaze over.

It is not fair, it really disenfranchises the voters, it reduces the value of each person's vote by some numerically quantifiable amount, but the high the assumptions are challenging.

There were, I found 18 towns in Vermont that have a hybrid system where the budget is voted on by Australian ballot.

A hybrid is a word that the uh Charter Revision Commission has decided they don't want to use because they like making stuff up, I suspect.

Um, but it's basically a hybrid.

In all of those, there is no situation where a vote on the budget happens twice.

Um in most cases, the vote uh the budget is voted on by on town meeting day by Australian ballot.

In a few cases, there's a whole bunch of different things that are voted on by open town meeting.

I found five cases where a hot button issue in this town, the human services budget is voted on at the floor vote and then just passes as part of the budget into the open town meeting.

And lastly, there have been two recent towns that have voted to get a little saner, in my opinion.

One was the town of Barrie.

It had a procedure where I'm going to go over about three 15 seconds.

It had a procedure where if they the first budget did not pass Australian ballot, it automatically went to an immediate open town meeting.

That gave them a fast faster track to a budget.

They just warned the meeting the next day, and then it went to open town meeting.

They rejected that.

They changed their charter recently.

The town of Jericho abandoned open town meeting, developed a process recently to go to strictly Australian ballot.

Um as Randy mentioned, a host of organizations who are in favor of democracy, real democracy are opposed in various ways to the open town meeting format completely.

Not no 60 percent.

Thank you.

Thank you, Tom.

Dick.

Thank you.

Dick de Grey, Brattleboro, a couple of things.

John, uh if you could give me an update on where the state stands.

Can you ask me directly, didn't excuse me, Jessica?

Well, John will give me the answer.

Where we stand with uh negotiating with the railroad for that little parcel of property.

Uh the shelter is going to be open probably around two months from today.

Uh and I don't see us having a sidewalk in.

I would like to think that we are so if I could get an update on that.

Uh about two meetings ago, I asked for an update with uh downtown alliance on 160,000 revolving loan money that uh we gave them.

Uh I have not seen that on the agenda.

I see that they're in consent agenda here this evening.

I don't want to talk about that because we can't.

Uh but I supported giving them money.

It's been three years since we gave them that money.

And I would like to know what's happening with that.

Uh it was given not only to downtown Brattleboro Alliance, but also the chamber.

So if both parties could be here, but I think we're due an explanation as to how that money is being spent given the issues that are happening uh in our downtown.

Thank you.

Thanks, Dick.

John, do you have anything to add on the railroad?

Sure.

Um the the that sidewalk project has been an ordeal.

Um we are we current we have figured out I don't know how much detail you want here, but we we have figured out that in order to get the easement that we need, we need to first execute a construction agreement with the railroad.

We have signed a construction agreement with the railroad.

It is now with the railroad waiting for them to uh to sign it themselves, and then we are able to enter into conversation about an easement.

Umce we have the easement, we will then be able to undertake the project.

So I I have no clue on the timeline there.

It's really out of our control.

We've we've done everything we can.

The town attorney has been right on it, but it's it's it's like uh it's challenging.

So thank you, John.

And if I could, I think I I think John, you had told me that we are going to get an update on that.

It's on a future agenda, right?

For the DBA funds.

Oh, yeah.

Do you want to address that?

Or uh yeah, we are uh we're we've been trying to schedule a time to do that, that it works for everyone.

I think we have it, and that isn't a full board meeting agenda.

So I think we're looking at um September or October right now for an update on that uh Bradle Brattleboro Thrives project, which I think is what Dick was referring to.

So thank you.

Yes.

Janet Therese, um uh Brattleboro.

I just wanted to stand with everyone else to say that the 60 percent um is uh it's unfair.

You know, I I look at the downtown, we have democracy for all, so perhaps we should change it to democracy for some.

You know, I've heard people on the commission say that um uh they would plan their open town meeting around sort of their vacation time.

I know people who don't have vacation time.

I know people who work um uh unscheduled hours and can't plan ahead.

And even if they could plan ahead like that, there is no way that they would dedicate their unpaid vacation hours to coming to an open town meeting.

Um that's just not it's it's just not an equitable situation.

And and I really want to speak for those people that aren't able to come here tonight.

Those people don't show up, but they're in town, they're disabled people.

They can't come to an open town meeting and sit through eight or nine hours.

Do we not care about them?

Do their voices not count?

This is not equitable.

Um it disenfranchises people and it creates a system where um uh it's legitimately democracy for some.

I can't believe that Brattleboro would consider something like this.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, Seth.

Looks like we have some hands raised.

Yeah, let's go to the person on the iPhone first.

Can you hear me?

Pretty extreme echo.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I don't know anything.

I've looked at volume to match here.

Can't be anything.

Yeah, I'm sorry, I don't think this is I'm trying.

I don't think it's my phone.

You mute.

I'm sorry.

It's just not working.

There's too much echo.

If you do have a comment for us, could you email it to the select board?

Um our addresses should be on the website, and maybe we can do it that way.

My apologies to technology is breaking down here.

Okay.

Uh we'll go to Timothy next.

Um Bratabar's voters include the elderly, the disabled, shift workers, single parents, people who depend on public transit.

For many of them, Australian ballot isn't a preference.

It's their only way to participate in democracy.

A 10 to 12-hour open town meetings, not accessible to them, it never will be.

So when the Charter Revision Commission proposes a 60% supermajority to reject a budget, they're not raising a threshold, they're erasing votes.

This is disenfranchisement, plain and simple.

We're living in a moment when powerful forces in Washington are working to strip voters of their rights.

Why on earth would we replicate that here in Brattaborough?

A commission that would diminish the votes of our most vulnerable residents is not representing this town.

It's not representing its values, and it should not continue its work.

It's my view after watching these guys for two years that I would urge the select board to disband the Charter Revision Commission and start over this time, including all voters, even the vulnerable.

Thank you.

Thanks, Tim.

Okay.

Can you hear me?

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Can you hear me now?

Can you hear us?

Um we can hear you, yes, Eddie.

Oh, okay.

Thank you.

So this is about the charter uh review proposal.

Uh I've spoken to several of my neighbors.

Um, and they feel that the 60% threshold is um not equitable uh and would um decrease the voices of of many voters in town, and they do prefer, and I do too, uh, a simple majority that would be preferred um rather than uh the 60% threshold.

That's all I wanted to add.

Thank you.

Thanks, Hetty.

Okay, over to Neil.

Am I there yet?

Sounds like I am.

You are okay.

There we go.

Okay, I've already talked to a couple of you people on the select board about this, so I know that you know my general opinion of the 60%.

But basically, let me say that the ballot that we did last March actually would be what I would be calling letting people vote for two opposites at the same time, meaning that the final numbers come are end up being totally completely meaningless.

So they voted on Australian ballot and open town meeting, all on the same ballot, and neither one could produce a total majority of all of the votes committed.

So basing a 60% uh Australian ballot on those numbers out of that particular election is false thing to do.

If they really want to be say, okay, we've got a lot of people in town who want to discuss the budget after it's been presented by the by the select board, then let's have a period where they can come in and actually discuss, raise their concerns, and maybe even make some amendments.

But at when it comes time to go for a full vote of the town on the total amount of money that's going to come out of our taxpayers, that needs to be done on an equivalent and an equal basis.

So I hope that this the select board takes a serious look at what's coming out of the charter commission.

Thanks.

Thank you, Neil.

And Seth, I just there have been two people now who it did seem like maybe couldn't hear me when I was talking to them.

Does everything look good over there?

Yes, well maybe it's DCC.

Let's go to Ivan.

Ivan Hennessy.

Um I'm also against the 60% threshold, but for a very different reason.

There's no need to take a uh sledgehammer to our town government and um destroy a perfectly reasonable system, which is open town meeting.

Um spend some amusing commentary on the previous vote.

I think that uh the easy way to resolve that is to just have an Australian ballot um that does pit open town meeting against Australian ballot, head to head with no ambiguity.

In the meantime, the default by state law is open town meeting.

And um frankly to hear people talk of equity who have argued against making open town meeting more accessible is difficult.

It does not seem honest.

Thanks, Ivan.

Okay, we're going to move ahead on the agenda now to the consent agenda.

John, will you TS up?

I certainly will, Oscar.

So we have eight eight items on the consent agenda tonight.

If you approve this agenda, you'll be approving a 47,362 purchase of a replacement for fire department car number four as planned in the FY27 Capital Plan.

You'll be authorizing the purchase of replacement vehicles number one, number seven, and number thirteen for the police department, uh not to exceed two hundred and sixty thousand dollars as planned in the FY27 capital plan.

Those vehicles are all uh two of them are seven years old, one is six years old, and they're all out of warranty now at this point.

You'll be adopting a resolution and designating staff in support of a Vermont community development program scattered site grant in the amount of five hundred and forty thousand dollars that would allow the Wyndham and Windsor Housing Trust to deliver, continue to deliver a home repair program, counseling advocacy and first-time home buyer services.

You'll be authorizing the purchase of 11 sets of fire department uh fire decks PFAS free turnout gear from Reynolds, cost of 46,662 as planned in the FY27 Capital Plan.

You'll be ratifying the town's application for a SAMHSA streets grant to support comprehensive street-based engagement treatment and recovery support services for people experiencing homelessness, substance use disorder, mental illness, and serious emotional disturbance with awards of up to three million annually.

You'll be authorizing the purchase from Fournier Industries of four replacement rotary press channels for the wastewater treatment plant at a total cost of 189,756 as planned in the FY27 utilities capital replacement plan.

You'll be attesting to the fact that the DBA's downtown vibrancy fund award for FY27 will not be used to offset the town's regular DBA funding.

And finally, you will be appointing a new member, Nina Heller, to the Brooks Memorial Library Board of Trustees to serve from now until town meeting day in 2027.

Thanks, John.

Um I actually have one question that maybe I'm just misreading something here, but the the cost for the fire, the turnout gear is 46,000 in change in the on the consent agenda.

We have a much higher number.

I'm just Oh yes, it is 46,662, correct?

That's true.

About a little over 3,000 from what was approved in the budget, yeah.

So that is an error, that is a mistake on the agenda.

So with unanimous consent, I'd like to change 1897 to 46663.

Agreed.

Yes.

Okay, great.

And then Nina Heller is no relation of mine for the Board of Trustees.

Okay.

Um I'll uh motion to um accept the uh consent agenda as amended.

I think so.

As amended.

Okay.

Peter has moved to accept the consent agenda as amended.

The amendment was to item D.

Ready for the vote?

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

Aye.

Aye.

Carries 5-0.

Okay.

Regular business item A, the BMH Birthing Center resolution of support.

John, will you give us a brief intro?

Yep.

So at your July 7th meeting, the board approved a motion to write letters requesting support for the birthing center.

Two letters have since been sent.

The first letter expressed the select board's strong support for maintaining birthing center services at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital and encourage recipients to act immediately within their capacity to help accomplish that goal.

That letter was sent to the Governor, State Treasurer, Green Mountain Care Board, Agency of Human Services Secretary, Vermont, Department of Health Commissioner, Department of Children and Families Commissioner, Department of Vermont Health Access Commissioner, and 30 state legislators across Wyndham and Windsor counties.

Second letter was mailed to the select boards in 48 towns across Wyndham, Windsor, and Cheshire counties.

That letter requested that the select boards, their those select boards consider passing a resolution in support of the Brattleboro Memorial Hospital's birthing center.

So far we've heard back from three towns that are uh processing this uh this resolution and I know of a couple of other I understand are also considering it.

I will uh continue to keep the board updated on progress there.

Attached in your backup materials is a resolution for the Brattleboro Select Board to consider adopting at your meeting today.

Thank you, John.

Let me just I can summarize that if you want or if you just want to make that um I think we will have uh whoever would like to make the motion read the resolution.

Okay.

I'm happy to do that unless there is someone who'd like to do that.

I'm happy to do it.

Okay.

Please.

Um you want me to read the resolution or move move to accept the resolution as submitted and then read it.

Let's do this the second.

Motion first and then read the resolution.

Okay.

I move that the Brattleboro Select Board um approves um a resolution um behalf of the Brattleboro Memorial Hospital Birthing Center.

Great, thank you.

Um yeah, would you care to read the resolution?

And then we'll discuss.

All right.

This is Town of Brattleboro resolution.

Whereas the Brattleboro Memorial Hospital has identified the potential need to close its level uh level one low-risk birthing center.

Whereas the ability of the Wyndham and Windsor County regions to attract future economic investment and the next generation of residents depends on the availability of essential services, such as are offered at the Brattleboro Memorial Hospital Birthing Center, and whereas we believe that Vermonters should be able to safely give birth in Vermont rather than have to travel to other states.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the town of Brattleboro Select Board one strongly recommends that the Brattleboro Memorial Hospital do everything within its power to maintain robust birthing center services in Brattleboro for the benefit of the region.

Two encourages the Vermont Agency of Human Services, the Governor's Office, the Green Mountain Care Board, and the state legislative delegation to act in support of rural maternal medical care in general and to prevent the closure of the birthing center in particular.

Three urges its residents to choose Brattleboro Memorial Hospital first for medical services so that birthing center so that the birthing center can be adequately subsidized.

Adopted by the town of Brattleboro Select Board on the 21st day of July 2026 with a copy sent to the above mentioned entities.

Thank you.

So Amanda has moved to accept the resolution as read.

Discussion by the board.

I support this resolution.

I think it was an important one for us to send this message.

Thanks, Isaac.

Not seeing any other comments from the board at this time.

Any members of the public would like to make a comment?

Seeing none, uh board, are you ready?

Chair, do you want to clarify the the um organizations that the letters to be sent to as mentioned in the resolution?

Sure.

The it's the Vermont Agency of Human Services, the Governor's Office, the Green Mountain Care Board, and the State Legislative Delegation.

Is that correct?

Okay, great.

Oscar.

And the hospital.

Yes, uh.

We have Millicent on the line.

Great.

Hello, I don't know if you can hear me.

Can you hear me?

Because I can't uh I'm I'm a little uh you know I'm can you hear me?

Yes.

But I can't all right.

Well I can't see myself speaking, so um all right.

Um I'll just go ahead.

Um Millicent Cooley, District Nine.

Um I read the proposal.

Um I it's a really painful situation, and I uh am, you know, it's one that I want to respond to as well.

However, the proposal doesn't address a whole bunch of questions that I think need to be better explained, like how much will be needed from the town after this year.

Does it need um is it gonna need another million every year for the next five years?

When does B when does BMH need need a certain amount of money and you know before it closes?

It's like a timing situation.

What other solutions have been considered?

Uh you know, like uh there I've heard of things, but I don't know what's viable.

You know, how many are are actually going to be affected negatively by the distance that they have to travel to a birthing center?

Um just I just think it needs more information um to be able to just say it and otherwise it's an emotional issue.

Seth, can she hear you by any chance?

Millicent, can you hear me?

I can, yeah.

That's encouraging.

All right, there you go.

Just you just earned an up an upgrade.

Um Millicent.

Yeah, I also have a question.

Can I ask a question to this, added to this?

You ask Millicent to wait for a second.

Um, Millicent, could you just wait for one second?

Sure.

Well, it seems like our microphones are not getting to be CTV at the table.

Could you let Millicent know that we're having technical difficulties and ask her to state her question, but we may need to sort this out before we can answer.

Uh Millicent, we're having some technical difficulties on our end.

It appears the select board's microphones aren't working.

Oh so they can't hear my question.

Can hear you in the room.

Um it just seems like transmit to you.

Uh I I can hear Oscar talking.

You can't just can't yeah, I can hear Oscar.

Okay.

You can hear me, Mill.

Yeah.

But I the only thing that's missing on my end is I can't see that I'm talking.

So I didn't know if you could see me or hear me.

That's but it's working.

You don't need to see me.

You know what I look like.

Just about the resolution.

We're gonna have a separate the next agenda item is about the idea of raising funding or anything like that.

So if it's okay holds until Yeah, sure.

I thought it was the same, lunch together.

Sorry.

All right.

Um looks like one other comments online.

Yes, and then we'll come back to the board.

Hello.

Hi, Bob.

If you can hear me, if you can hear me and see me.

So um I'm not opposed to the resolution.

I think it's a great idea.

Um sometimes in this world of of sending emails and everything.

I'll send an email and then I'll walk downtown and somebody will say.

Oh, yeah, by the way, that email you sent the other day.

Here's the answer.

So this is in that in that scope.

I called the governor's office today.

And it wasn't just to deliver a message, but the party that I spoke to, and I don't know who it was, uh, was very engaging on the issue regarding the hospital.

And the takeaway was that uh there are still some ongoing communications.

I had kind of centered on what the plan was when the governor initially had sent some money.

Um so and they're going, I guess, through AHS.

So in addition to sending the resolution, maybe somebody who has more contacts than I do, uh, reach out to the governor's office or to the agency of human services and you know, try to ask some open-ended questions as to how we're gonna like work with this.

Um maybe uh you know, pave the path for the resolution rather than just the resolution hitting.

Um that's that's all I had to say.

Thank you for taking my call.

Thanks, Bob.

And I will just say that a pretty large group of people has been doing that outreach and communications for the last couple weeks at least.

Um, I'm gonna bring it back to the board for a vote.

Amanda has made a motion to approve the resolution that she read.

Any comments from the board or are you ready for the vote?

I'm ready.

People look ready.

Okay, all in favor of Amanda's motion, please raise your hand and say aye.

Aye.

It carries five zero.

Okay, moving on to the second item of regular business.

This is the question of actually um providing some form of funding to the hospital.

John, I'll turn it over to you.

Okay.

Um, so since uh since your last board meeting, I've been asked whether there are options for the town to offer financial support as part of a stack of funding to provide additional time for developing a sustainable sustainable approach to maintaining birthing center services uh over the long term.

The town attorney has advised that under Vermont statutes annotated Title 24 section 2601, a town may provide aid to hospitals at any legal meeting of the town.

Officials at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital have indicated they're seeking funding relief from the state as well as through private philanthropy.

Um they've stated that current budget projections for the next fiscal year show an inability to recover costs uh at the birthing center on as much as 4.8 to 5.2 million of expenses, but the cost recovery may not have to be a hundred percent for obstetric services.

Um to generate so in other words, uh the town the select board could call a uh town meeting to consider that question of some additional financial support to the um to to the hospital.

You have that authority to do that.

Uh to generate like a million dollars in aid to for the hospital, it would require a levy of eight cents per hundred dollars of assessed value, which works out to a total of thirty-seven dollars and twenty-five cents per quarter for the median home value.

Uh if you ask if you wish to ask voters whether they wanted to help financially support the birthing center, the select board could it warn uh special town meeting at at a July 28th select board meeting, uh and the earliest that you could do that would probably be September 2nd, 2026.

The cost of doing that sort of a meeting would be likely between one and two thousand dollars and could be absorbed in the FY27 budget.

The other option that you have to potentially financially support the hospital in some way is uh that you have 795,000 in um unobligated reserves that uh could be granted by the select board for uh support of the hospital uh could be a grant essentially.

Um yeah, and so there's a lot of questions and information that could if you did decide to do a town meeting to discuss this, that we could uh also schedule an information meeting if you would like, or and or address uh issues and questions at the town meeting.

So thanks, John.

And the only the thing I want to say structurally for this meeting is that if the board does want to pursue the town meeting track, what we would do today is make a motion to ask town staff to prepare a draft warning, which we would then come back and consider.

But let's first hear from the board.

Start with Peter.

Yeah.

Just just so we're aware this is um this all sort of stems from a conversation that uh John and I had had about what more could we do if anything at all.

So I've just sort of prepared um let's just call it an impact statement that I'll read for you.

And I just want everybody to understand that none of what we are discussing tonight is ideal.

All right.

I recognize we recognize that the Brattleboro taxpayers carry a significant tax burden uh and that is unfortunate that we have to reach a point where these options must even be considered this is not a decision the select board is making on behalf of community rather we are asking the voters of Brattleboro to decide whether this is an investment they are willing to make through that special town meeting.

The choice belongs to the taxpayer and it's one that deserves an open transparent and thoughtful public uh discussion.

Brad Road taxpayers have invested in the infrastructure that makes our community a place where families choose to live and businesses choose to grow.

We debate the costs every year in our open town meeting Brattleboro has a say there.

Few public investments are more important than ensuring the local health care something Brattleborians feel strongly about if BMH weakens or its birthing center closes the consequences will extend far beyond uh expecting parents the impacts are far reaching property values will will be touched economic development emergency care physician recruitment and the community's ability to attract young families all depend on a local strong hospital my proposal our proposal if we choose to um accept it tonight is to assemble a special town meeting to discuss appropriating funds through property tax this should not be viewed as a bailout but as an investment an essential public asset the cost of losing services would be measured not only in dollars but in longer emergency transport time transport times, fewer health care options and diminished confidence in Brattleboro as a place to raise a family or retire.

Just as importantly a local investment sends a powerful message to Mount Pelier it demonstrates that this community recognizes the value of its hospital and its birthing center and is willing to put local resources behind preserving them.

We ask the state of Vermont to recognize that commitment and respond in kind if Brattleboro taxpayers are willing to invest in protecting essential health care, state leaders should equally be committed to ensuring rural hospitals and maternity services remain viable this is an opportunity for local and state government to stand together and affirm that access to health care is not a luxury it's a public responsibility.

Thank you.

Other board members with comments at this time I was curious because my understanding is that currently the birthing center is in the hospital's budget that they will be presenting to the Green Mountain Care Board in two days.

They they have the birthing center in the budget for the first quarter which I think carries us until January essentially when we would need to have a special meeting for that to be able to be a part of the consideration for them to submit an amended budget that would keep it into that would allow it to be amended for the remainder or another part of the fiscal year.

I appreciated your clarification Oscar because I think that for a lot of people who have received this it feels very sudden and it feels like there are unanswered questions.

That's the feedback I've been getting um and I think there are probably many more still who just don't know what's happening.

That said I really appreciated your statement Peter and I I agree with it.

But yeah I I am curious what timeline we would want to work with and it's um through a conversation I had today with both co-CEOs six to nine months was put out for a reason to figure out if it if you know speak up through a conversation I'd had with the co-CEOs uh today the um six to nine month number was a number to um hopefully assess um and get support and see if they could raise uh a sum of three point eight million dollars to to stave this um this closure off so um that that was the conversation so to your point I think they have to go through the the Green Mountain um board and and submit their budget um but that's that's not the finality as I understand it.

So um that that was the conversation.

So to your point, I think they have to go through the the Green Mountain um board and and submit their budget, um but that's that's not the finality as I understand it.

Yeah, I it was explained to us that submitting an amended that making submitting an amendment to a budget is a fairly normal and accepted thing.

I guess what I'm wondering is uh if we made the motion to have staff prepare a warning and then it comes back, what are we considering as a date for the meeting?

Because I think that that period of sure we can ask town staff to prepare a warning to come back for us to consider, and then if we were to consider that warning in that interim period, there's a lot of what ifs I think we'd want to answer and maybe see if we could pin down any more specifics with from the board at BMH.

I think that's a good point.

And well, I'll make some of my comments now because I think they're responsive to that.

Uh I certainly have my reservations about doing something like this and asking more of the taxpayers.

I have reasons that we can get into later, a lot of which Peter covered why I think it is worth doing.

But there are big questions around what exactly the structure of what we're talking about is.

Umbody is interested in collecting a million dollars and writing a check to BMH and saying, I hope this makes things better and that you keep the birthing center.

Um of the advantages of the slower process that we would have to follow is that it gives us time to have conversations with the hospital and pin down exactly the conversation we're having.

My preference for this would be to raise the money and use it as a match for private donations that has a whole bunch of benefits, including that we don't pay out any of our own money unless there's buy-in from private donors.

Um I would also like us to reach out to other towns and ask them to also contribute to Brattleboro's side of the match, so that for example, if Putney contributed some amount, that would increase the total from one million to 1.3 million that then could be matched against private donations.

But there are certainly questions to ask and to be answered here, and I think that can happen in the interim and also will happen at town meeting if we should have one.

Um the the big picture thing I'll say is that sometimes you subsidize something that's unprofitable or that's struggling because you've decided that the costs of losing it are greater than the cost of the subsidy.

That's really what it comes down to.

And the losing the birthing center would it works against every single one of our long-term goals.

We would lose high quality jobs, we would decrease or make worse people's health outcomes, we would harm economic development, we'd make this a less attractive place to move to for all the young families that we say we want so much.

The downside here is the cost to the taxpayers, but every other factor to me cuts against letting this opportunity slip by.

So I'm looking forward to hearing from the public, but those are my thoughts right now.

Other members of the board, Amanda or Isaac?

Yeah.

Sure.

Well, I'm conflicted on this because on the one hand, I mean, I was born there, and AC this is an incredibly important resource for our community, which is why today I called the governor's office and voice support for his doing everything he can to save this, the birthing center.

Um the other hand, we have talked about the importance of having a structurally balanced budget where we are not spending money, one time sums of money for recurring expenses.

And um, you know, we we also said uh that a priority at a a few months ago at our retreat was that we would have our overall draft budget not exceeding a four percent estimated increase in property taxes, and it would have no drawdown of reserves.

So my my question would be what impact would this actually have in terms of has there been a discussion with hospital leadership, the legislative delegation or state officials about the significance of having this investment from the select board, or is it based on our thinking, oh this you know, do we have a do we uh do we understand that this would actually be a significant investment rather than just kicking the can down the road um of the for the birthing center?

Um and you know, would this local investment be motivating to the governor and relevant state agencies?

Do we have any sense from them about that?

So I mean I can address some of that if you're sure.

I think we can have a a little more open discussion now and then we'll hear from the public.

So um yes to what you said up front about this um these goals um to further Oscar's point.

Um does the closure of the birthing center um outweigh the cost of raising a little s some taxes and every model in this um community for this community shows that it would have a significant impact um as to how this how this community um moves forward uh which would make future budgeting problems which would um cause more cutbacks um and and with uh with very frustrating outcomes.

Um the biggest sentence in my whole entire um uh statement was um this investment from this community would send a powerful message to Mount Pelier.

So if we are willing to raise a hundred thousand dollars, you know, everybody who's talked to me about this goes right down to the million dollar mark, and and that's fine.

That would be ideal for the hospital.

I don't know if it's ideal for the Brad Road taxpayer.

Um and then to further reach out to those other communities and and maybe get some buy-in financially from those communities.

Um and it this is how um it takes big potatoes and little potatoes to make a bowl of mashed potatoes, right?

So we we need to take all we can and uh through that and and some private philanthropy and and hit an hit a pretty big number.

And we don't have a whole lot of time to do it.

So if we decide to ask town employees to draft a resolution, it's out there, it's in the ethos, we're moving forward.

We can begin to talk about the commitment that we are trying to make.

We pass, we passed the res we passed that to move to an open town meeting on September 2nd, I think.

Is that the right on uh just to clarify if you were to warn us on your August 4th meeting, the soonest you could have it would be September 3rd, because it needs to be 30 to 40 days in advance.

All right.

So we still have labor meeting.

Why would you have it on the other?

Hold on, hold on.

Uh it um I'm just all we're doing here is we're just discussing dates.

We're not setting them.

We're just putting it out there the 30 to 40 days that we have to.

If it has to go four days beyond Labor Day, then that that's what it'll be.

I don't want to get caught in that minutiae that that's that's how you lose traction and you just spin tires on the ice, all right, getting caught on caught up on stuff that's easily moved, because that's easily moved.

So the thing that is not easily moved is the statement that we would be making as as the political body for the town of Brattleboro to call upon the town of Brattleboro to decide if you have an appetite to raise money through property taxes to do this.

And if you do, then that story just gets greater as we move down, that we made this commitment as an entire community to save the birthing center.

And I will just say the loss of a birthing center is kind of the the canary in the coal mine.

Um, you know, about how it's it's not necessarily uh the thing that acts as in and finishes it, but like we need to then be thinking about the hospital as a whole, and we need to place the hospital as a whole back up on a higher platform than where it's been.

And we need to also understand further that they are too a nonprofit in this community, um, and the stuff that they have to go to for reimbursement through Medicaid and and and private insurers and all of that.

So this is not a for-profit entity, and I think the more we understand that, the better off we'll be.

Thank you, Peter.

John, did you have a comment?

Oh, I was just gonna clarify that uh what in your backup memo, what we were suggesting was if you wanted to uh do a special meeting next week on the 28th, you could uh warn uh special town meeting for September 2nd, and that was probably gonna be the earliest we could get within the windows and have a location and all that.

So great.

Thank you, John.

Mill?

Yes.

Um first of all, I want to say thank you, Peter, for your thoughtful statement.

I think um it really resonated uh investment in an essential public asset is what we're talking about.

Um in favor of uh the motion to um direct staff to um prepare a warning for a town meeting on this issue.

Labor Day happens to be on the 7th of September.

I know that because that's my wedding anniversary, not to be self-focused or anything.

But so we are not, that is not the Labor Day weekend.

The emphasis on maintaining momentum to show the state, the region, the broader community, what Brattleboro is all about is really ever present with the need to have it be sooner than later.

And all those baseball players I was talking about in my comments, the volunteer coaches, the you know, how many of those kids were born in Brattleboro?

You know, how it's it's it's the start.

Um community connection begins at birth at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital.

And uh I'm invested in this town as we all are as select board members, and so um and as a town as well.

So I'd be curious to know what the public also thinks at that open town meeting.

Umanda.

I have a couple other questions and comments just to get it all out there so the public can show on it and then Nell as well.

Um so I just want to say that the the only uh I'm interested in exploring the town meeting special levy version.

I'm not interested in spending down any of our reserves to anticipate a question we might get.

Um John, a couple technical questions.

Well, really the the main one is how would this work in relation to the income sensitivity provisions that go along with property tax?

It would it function in the same way?

Yes, I believe it would, unless uh Hannah has a different I I'm not sure I understand the question.

Sure.

So there are some income sensitivity features built into the property tax collection system.

And I I don't remember exactly what form those take, but in the in I believe it's the form of homestead rebates and things like that, which mean that uh people who make less money pay proportionally less in income tax.

Okay.

So that's my question.

Would those be in uh in effect through this, or is this a completely separate mechanism?

I think this would I think this might be separate.

It depends on there are some which uh reduce the grand list value of your property, and so those would be relative to you would get assessed on the grand list value.

So if your grandless value has been reduced, you wouldn't owe any more, but there are some where it is actually a credit that you receive from the state.

I don't know how that would work with a special assessment.

Okay.

Maybe we can flag in as a simple.

We can look into that.

Yep.

Okay.

So let's go to Nell, and then I think we'll have a motion if there's one to be made, and then we'll open it up to the public.

Um I do I appreciate Oscar, you bringing up other towns because that was what had immediately occurred to me when I heard about this is that we the entire discussion surrounding the birthing center um has been about how it is not just a need in Brattleboro, it is a need for the region and an emphasis and a clarity about why you know um Greenfield and Keene, while they are relatively close, there's significant restrictions that can apply because of them being out of state because Greenfield does not have an obligation to take Medicaid patients.

This is what I've been told for the record.

Um, or doesn't accept MVP because Cheshire is significantly overcapacity um with their birthing center as well.

And so just because you can register as a patient doesn't guarantee you a spot to give birth.

And so if you're giving birth in an emergency room, that doesn't mean that when you get triaged hoping to go to a birthing center, they're gonna have room for you.

Um the out-of-state like loss of connection to pediatrics in-state has also been noted.

Um the long and the short of that being that this is something that's going to affect the region.

And I do think that if we were going to try to collect funds through taxes because the state has not appropriately intervened, uh we should attempt to do that on a larger regional scale.

Um and all we can do is ask.

I do understand our own limitations here.

Um, but I think that messaging is consistent with the impact of the birthing center, and I think it could be uh a good companion for that.

And I think it could be a good companion for that.

That said, I think what we're probably going to get questions about and things we need to be very clear on, which is part of why I'm not sure.

Like I would personally want more time than July 28th to come back and you know warn a special meeting for September 2nd.

Unless there is a reason that we're hearing that we really need it that early in September for it to actually be relevant to the conversation about an amendment to the hospital's budget.

I would prefer more time to make sure we can hammer this stuff out to be able to answer questions because people are going to ask.

So what happens if we recoup this tax or sorry, we accrue we collect the tax and then we don't get the private match.

Like say we set it as we're gonna collect this tax and it's gonna be given with a private match.

People are gonna want to know what if, you know, is it a buy down of the like FY28 tax rate for them?

What's gonna happen?

Um I think if we had been able to start the conversation, maybe reach out to other towns to be able to comment on the likelihood or just like the reception of that would be worthwhile.

I think this has been something that's been challenging.

Um but I think taxpayers would ask this at open town meeting and we'll probably ask this now.

You know, what we can raise this much, will it sway the board?

What will sway the board?

Um that has been a challenging question because they're in a hard position, you know.

Um but I would expect we're going to encounter that and we should be able to offer something for it.

I think it's important to be clear about what the goal of the money is.

So are we collecting a million dollars in hopes that it'll get matched to two million in hopes that that will persuade the board to amend for the remainder of fiscal year 27, but that that 2 million will effectively be a stopgap until April.

You know, are we hoping that they will be able to get a budget adjustment from the legislator?

Are we hoping that it'll be a stop gap until July because we're hoping that they'll be able to get money from the legislator when they reopen January in January?

I think that communication and clarification are all things we're gonna run straight on into when people say, well, we love the birthing center, we recognize the importance of the birthing center, and it frankly it's what we've been running into with private donors.

Um the the one piece uh the one thing I'd add to that is that we don't need to make the scheduling decision now.

We can make that in agenda setting, or we can even make scheduling decisions as a full board.

So we don't need to sort that part out, and if we feel like we need more time or want to take more time before scheduling to uh have more time for some of these questions, we can do that.

And I do recognize that this what I'm saying right now is not necessarily relevant directly to the decision of do we ask staff to prepare a warning?

But I'm pretty sure a lot of this is what we're about to get asked, so I think it's good to get it out there.

Um the only other thing I was gonna say is I I do think it's important to, again, in the messaging emphasize like this would be a choice for the taxpayers to implement a one-time special tax.

It's not saying we're adding the hospital into the municipal budget.

Um it's it's frankly as a result of you know, a trickle-down effect of many other things, right?

It's saying we have explored other avenues, and this is what seems to be within our power because things at a state level are not.

Um Bob had mentioned AHS earlier, but my understanding was that AHS essentially has only a few, a couple to a few million to deal with emergencies through this fiscal year, and so it was unlikely that money or any kind of substantial money would come through them because that's a few million for the whole fiscal year for the whole state.

Yes.

Uh and I I'll stop, but I you know I really appreciated the last line of what you said, Peter, which I think was something like health care, you know, isn't a luxury is a right or essential, you know.

Responsibility.

Yeah.

Yeah, like it's an essential service, government is to provide essential services.

I think this is within that purview.

Um, so let's let's just recognize that there's gonna be a speak next.

I had my hand up.

Do you mind if I got it?

So let me go to Amanda and then Peter, and then we'll have a motion or not.

Um I was going to request that John speak to some of the points that Nell made if you feel comfortable doing that from the work that you've been doing from a from a town and um and the next-gen group that's been really trying to solve this challenging program and in contact with the board.

And I mean you've done a lot of legwork on that.

So I mean just open that up for your comment.

I mean, a number of the questions that Nell raised are good questions, but hard to know and answer to.

Thank you.

Peter?

Yeah.

So I mean again, all the things that would get an open town meeting to say yes to this should be the exact same things that get the open town meeting to say no.

Plain and simple.

But what we have here is an emergent situation.

Maybe as we sit, maybe not as they sit, don't know.

Again, this is just a statement that I am hoping that my fellow uh board members will adopt with me to begin to send that message up to the State Capitol.

Thanks, Peter.

Yes, one more comment now.

Um of what I'm saying is because I don't believe that we should be going, you know, to the ends of our means to support the birthing centers continuation.

Um and some of what I'm saying is because I have had the privilege to sit in on meetings and hear some of these conversations, but I know that the people sitting in this room and watching haven't.

And so I know that some of these questions are hard to answer.

Um, but I also know people are going to ask us them.

And my intent is just to show that I recognize the need for further consideration if this is something we're gonna ask of townspeople.

Thanks, Neil.

One more thing.

Yes, please.

So say our we do decide to request that staff warn this town special town meeting on for the purpose of that.

And um part of that special town meeting actually it could be a paper ballot.

It doesn't have to be necessarily uh someone could request a paper ballot if we wanted votes to be um or you know, someone from the floor, as Randy did at the last open town meeting.

So just just throwing that in there.

Thank you.

Okay.

Would anyone on the board care to make a motion?

We have a suggestion motion.

Ready?

We're creating a motion.

All right, I'll motion um that um we direct town staff to make to prepare a warning.

To prepare a warning for an open town meeting.

Special town meeting.

Special town meeting.

Great.

Peter has made a motion to ask staff to prepare a warning for a special town meeting.

Let's hear from the public.

And having seen facial expressions, I will remind everyone, please direct your comments to me and please be um professional.

Randy.

Randy Blodge at Bratleboro.

I I guess I it's more clarification and information because I think we're moving very fast, as several of you have said.

First of all, I think you should have it after the 7th, not the second, third, or fourth.

People are coming back to school, people are away, it's the end of the summer.

I think if you truly want a representative open town meeting, it needs to be the weekend after that at a minimum.

And it gives you a little more time to think about this and and check off some things that you're not sure about.

The other thing is the hospital is 14 million in deficit.

This is you know, it's a moving number, high threes, low four million for this.

Whatever we give one time is gonna be very hard for that hospital to budget.

So keep that in mind.

And you know, I know we're looking for a match, we're looking for the state to come up with money, but if you're looking at it to help the hospital, you have to realize they need to be able to count on sums of money that are consistent to be able to budget.

And with Medicare Medicaid federally changing this October, and then again next year, they're decreasing.

Um, you know, there's a lot of unanswered questions of how all that gets done.

But if it is just a one-time thing, like we heard, I I don't know long term if that solves the problem.

And I'm not dismissing that this isn't important.

I'm just saying if we're we're gonna do this, let's do it right.

Um and then you know, we need to talk about we're going to be up around a 12 percent tax rate for FY27.

So just there there needs to be information given to the public as we go through this so that people can make the right decisions based on their situations.

Thanks, Randy.

Dick.

Dick DeGray Brattleboro.

Uh when Vermont Yankee closed, uh, everybody thought that the sky was going to fall and Brattleboro was gonna fall off the abyss and all the surrounding towns.

They didn't.

Uh does anybody here in conversations know what the board uh administration, what their vote was to close the birthing center.

I'm not sure they just walked in and said, okay, let's close the birthing center.

I talked about the oncology department at the last meeting and said that they were in danger also, or are we going to fund them?

Nell made a statement about reoccurring uh payments that this isn't gonna be reoccurring.

I would agree with what Randy said one time.

W we can't do one time.

We can't afford, in all honesty, we cannot afford to fund what the municipality needs.

And for all the things that Peter was talking about that we need this and we need that, and it's gonna have this impact.

There's no facts for that.

Everybody is just saying something and hope that it sticks, and this becomes a hard issue, not a head issue.

And that happens with the board.

We don't have the ability to come up with more money for the hospital.

And I support the hospital.

But the reality is this is a taxpayer issue, and you're running into the building and it's on fire.

This happened two weeks ago.

I would ask you to table this so you can answer questions that have come up here this evening.

You have no answers for questions that even Nell was talking about.

And yet we want to schedule a meeting.

When we go to town meeting, we vetted everything before we get to town meeting.

We have answered question after questions.

You have not answered any questions, and you're sitting here saying, let's schedule that meeting.

And this is all on the fly.

Don't be afraid to say, let's table this for a month.

Let's get the CEOs down here to talk about it.

They didn't ask us for money, my understanding.

They're talking to the state, they're talking to other nonprofits.

They didn't come to the town and ask for money.

I would also ask you to schedule a meeting, not send a letter with the so surrounding towns that you sent the letter to.

If not anything, Guilford, Dummerston, Putney, Hensdale, Chesterfield, and also find out the statistics.

How many Brattleboro births were there?

How many people from Brattleboro were born there?

I'd like to know how many people on the baseball team were actually born here.

Maybe none of them.

Think about it like that.

So we need to not run into the building that's on fire.

We need to do our homework before we ask people who are struggling, struggling.

I just got my tax bill, and so did everybody else.

And then you're gonna ask for another 140 on a 184,000 dollar house.

You're gonna ask for another 140 dollars from people who are struggling.

84 percent, I heard this on the way to the meeting tonight.

84 percent of the people in a low-income bracket are make are living paycheck to paycheck.

People making $55,000 to 110,000 dollars are living paycheck to paycheck.

You've got something to think about before you schedule a meeting and put a burden on people that can't afford to pay their taxes now.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dick.

Uh Ivan and then Sue.

Ivan Hannesy.

Thank you.

This is great.

This is action.

And it's obviously been thought about a lot in a very short period of time.

And you're completely right, this is a vital part of the hospital, and the hospital is a vital part of the town.

And um to leave it is to um give up on the town.

And I see that you're not.

You're you're fighting for us.

Thank you.

Thanks, Ivan.

Sue.

Susan Belville Brattleboro.

I fully agree with Peter's assessment for the impact to the community.

It will be not an instant impact of a it, but it is a huge, huge impact of taking high-paying salaries and forcing them to leave the area to uh get a job in their field of choice, and it will result in people leaving the community.

It will result in services shifting to other communities that will force people to rethink where they're living because they don't have access to their core essential services, uh medical services in our community.

I think it's incredibly important that everyone has a conversation, particularly the select board and administration in this town has a conversation with the surrounding towns and convince them they need to do a buy-in to this project.

It makes absolutely no sense for Brattleboro to be standing there, raising or attempting to raise money to help the hospital when we have absolutely no buy-in from anybody else who uses that facility as much as anyone in Brattleboro does.

That's a critical piece of it.

The other thing I want to, and it's getting down into the Minutia.

We have a primary in August, and we have a November election.

Why don't you think about taking that vote if it ever comes to happen and moving it to the November ballot and not incur another additional charge to the taxpayers in this community if you're diverting money and you say we've got it in the budget and you are diverting money from someplace else, like a sidewalk repair to run an open town meeting, that is not prudent planning and is certainly not fiscally responsible.

When you have a ballot coming up in November, you can put it on the ballot.

Thank you.

Thanks, Sue.

Let me I want to respond briefly to the end part there.

There may be more discussion to be had about this, but the advice we have gotten from the attorneys is that the statutory authority we have to do this under Title 242601 specifically describes it bringing it to a town meeting.

So there may be more to explore there, but that's why we have it structured that way for now.

Kate Um Kate O'Connor Brattleboro.

Um you all know how I feel because I emailed everybody.

Um I do want to thank you for wanting to help here and save this as a vital resource for our town.

But I think you know the taxpayers of this community are not an ATM machine.

I actually have the the tax stats, how much taxes have gone up over the last eight years, which I'll email you.

I won't read them right now, but it's unsustainable and unaffordable.

What I do want to say is none of Nell's, as we said, none of Nell's questions or Isaac's questions have been answered, which is has there been a discussion with the BMH administration about whether even us giving the money will do anything about this.

Will will the governor care?

Will the Green Mountain Board care?

I don't see how you do a town meeting in September.

I want to hear directly, to be perfectly honest with you.

I want to see somebody from the hospital coming here and telling us if you guys increase taxes to the tune of a million dollars, it will help us, and here's how.

I want to know that the governor, I don't Pete, I I worked in the Governor's office.

To think that, oh, they're going to go, oh gosh, those people down there are raising a million dollars, we're going to chip in.

I want to hear that if that's the truth.

I work there, and I'm telling you, that's not what drives what goes on with the finances in the State of Vermont.

We need to hear what the Green Mountain Care Board says about the budget that the hospital is going to put in on Friday.

There's too many unanswered questions.

And I want to see all the stats about what it's going to do to our community.

If, you know, now we've gone DEF COM 5 that the hospital is gone.

Right now, the hospital board, the hospital board made this decision, a business decision.

And for us to sit here and think we're going to raise a million dollars and we're going to change their decision.

I want to hear it from them.

I want to hear the board say that that's going to change our mind.

I want to hear the CEO say it's going to change our mind.

And I want to hear it from the Governor and the Green Mountain Care Board that it's going to matter.

Because if it's not, you're just taking money from people who are already over taxed and stressed out.

So please don't rush this just because you think we're going to get all this support.

Right now, I'll say this, I'll make the pitch.

Anybody and everybody can write a check right now to Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, put birthing center on it, and send it up there.

It's a 501c3, or I don't know if it's cypher point, it's a nonprofit.

You can do a tax write-off.

We don't have to tax the taxpayers of our community to get money to the birthing center to the hospital.

So please take your time before we take this step, because I just think we're we're rushing, and you're not you have no answers to any questions.

So thank you.

Thanks, Kate.

I just want to clarify.

I know you all know, but just to clarify that the motion on the table is to ask town staff to come back with a draft warning not to schedule the meeting and not to raise any taxes or raise any money.

Okay, let's go to Millicent and then Neil and then come back to the board.

Hi, Millicent Cooley.

Um I'm that was basically my message that I spoke to soon about was I I agree with all the goals and many of the things that you've the reasons you've said why why we should do this, but I think I think they're uh the they're really important unanswered questions.

So I'm in favor of of of really like thinking the thinking it through.

Um I have a question about the cost of the town meeting also in the proposal.

It says um one or two thousand dollars for the cost of an open town meeting.

And um recent at the most recent um charter commission meeting that where they talked about adding an election, I asked about the cost of an election, and I was told something like 10 to 20,000.

So I want to make that's another question.

When you when you have when you have another another kind of town meeting, or if it's gonna be a ballot, it should the the cost of that event.

I I'd like to know what that is too.

Thanks.

Thanks, Melissa.

John?

Well, I mean holding a meeting is less expensive than printing and mailing ballots.

So that's the kind of distinction there, I think.

And the but the and then the other factor that is involved in a meeting is whether you want to do an informational meeting beforehand or not.

That is an additional cost.

And I we're also I don't know how big a factor this is, but we're not printing a thousand copies of the town report.

Um, no, et cetera.

So I we can look into that in a little more detail, Millicent.

Thanks.

Neil.

Wait a minute.

Back here.

There you go.

Hear you if you can hear us.

There you go.

Now I got you.

Okay.

First of all, I'd like to really thank Nell and Dick de Grey and Kate.

I'm for once I am in total agreement with you.

Um, that what we need to do is think this thing out.

The more I hear about the hospital, the more I hear that it is in trouble and that the birthing center is just the tip of the iceberg.

And I really think that we need to get things settled out.

And how we do that, I think getting the the those who use the facilities of the surrounding towns, get them involved.

We need the hospital.

I have no qualms about that whatsoever.

However, I don't need to see a huge raise in the local taxes.

I think there's got to be a bunch of other ways to do this.

I know in the past uh Peter and I talked about it at one point where they used to have the big lobster festival and banquets and and the town got really involved in uh fundraising for the hospital as well.

I don't say that that's the answer, but I say that there are other ways besides simply tacking on more money to the 51% of us who are ending up paying the local uh taxes.

So please consider do a lot of homework before you decide.

Having a public meeting, I have no problems with that.

I'm not politically savvy enough to know whether you do that by warning or whatever.

I would just hope that it was an informational meeting and that you did have people like the heads of the various boards, representatives from other towns, etc.

etc.

involved in being able to provide the answers that some of which have come up tonight, but only a few.

So there's there's my two cents.

Thank you.

Thanks, Neil.

Okay, I'd like to come back to the board.

We have a motion on the table.

Um further comments from the board.

Uh if town staff and Isaac.

Oh, I'm I'm sorry, Isaac.

I just talked.

That's okay.

Go ahead.

If town staff prepares a warning.

Is the warning is there a period of time with which that has to be acted on before another one would have to be prepared.

I wouldn't think so.

No.

We see Anna.

Anna.

You just have to any meeting you're gonna have has to be warned 30 to 40 days in advance.

So that's the only like if you ask for a draft, it's just a draft.

And even if you were to warn a meeting, you can decide to cancel it.

Thank you.

But a draft could be made and held for a while.

Just because a draft is made does not mean a meeting is happening September 2nd.

No, absolutely not.

We would have to approve the warning.

I understand it would have to be approved.

I just wanted to confirm that if we if it was prepared, revisited as an entire topic, it would not necessitate another drafted warning.

It might.

It might.

If the substance changes?

Yeah.

Okay.

But not as a time period concerned.

Okay.

I think.

I'm just going to say it again.

Most of the things that I brought up are things I am aware of because I've been able to sit in on meetings that have been had through community assembly on this topic.

And the people that we need buy-in from, if this were to be the case, are people that haven't had that privilege and are people that are going to have the questions that have just been raised.

So it's a matter of due diligence, and it's it's also just a matter of people being able to navigate information where I think that if we draft the motion, what's the actual consequence?

Nothing, because that is not the same as acting on it.

I think there may be a morale consequence.

That's something I'm thinking about right now.

Thanks, Nil.

Isaac and then Peter.

Based on the feedback and input from the public, I'd like to offer a substitute motion.

Okay.

So I move to substitute the following motion for the pending motion, which is that the select board invite the CEOs of Brother Memorial Hospital and a representative of Green Mountain Care Board to an upcoming select board meeting to discuss the future of the Bravo Memorial Hospital Birthing Center and how the town of Brattleboro and surrounding municipalities might support.

I'm taking notes.

Okay.

Isaac has offered a substitute motion, which I don't think we've had on this board yet, but it is proper.

It's sort of a full-scale amendment.

So that's the motion on the table now.

We can discuss it now.

Absolutely.

Or do we have to vote to the question?

No, we it's like an amendment.

So we'll discuss it and then we'll vote on whether or not we substitute it.

If we reject the substitute amendment, then we'll go back to discussing the original motion.

I believe it needs a second to be considered.

For for we use Robert's rules for small boards, so we don't need a lot of the normal seconds.

Okay.

Um comments.

My question is going to John about feasibility of Isaac's request.

Um time frame, et cetera.

Um is there a potential hybrid um option of say the board tonight um approving the first motion to draft a warning for a possible open town meeting and in the interim get invitations to um and see if those members could come to our August 4th meeting if they're willing.

Um I think that uh it would show a lot of um it wouldn't show just hot air from the board to um it would show the intent that we possibly are going to approve an open town meeting and in the interim there's more information being provided to the public.

Um I echo what Nell said about you know the there are a lot of communication strategies happening now.

Most of them have been more at a state level and some um members of the municipal um government, but it's so obvious, especially from what Kate and Dick said that the information thus far is insufficient and it's a big thing to vote for.

So can we how can we provide that for the public?

So you want to try I just want to understand um so you're looking to answer all of these questions before a town a town meeting consider or before you even warn the meeting, or is that is that what Osh?

How I would vote would be to approve requesting that staff draft draft a warning for a town specific special town meeting in regards to uh budgeting taxpayer dollars to in support of the sustainability of the of the birthing center um as leverage to um you know entice more giving from um the state from uh et cetera.

Um and can and you know it's there's a lot of moving parts to this whole thing.

It is very confusing, and it's been very clear tonight for who's spoken up, how very confusing it is.

And how can we remedy that?

Yeah.

So I mean, often the select board will warrant a meeting and then hold an information session to answer you know questions about a bond or question, you know, why are we investing in uh wastewater treatment plant or whatever?

Um so that's typically though all those many, many questions that people have about spending money get answered in an information session held before uh the special town meeting.

So if if that's what I'm hearing that the board wants to do, we can certainly arrange for uh information session before a special town meeting to answer everybody's questions.

We could invite the um hospital to be there, we can invite whoever you want to be there to address uh questions that the public might have.

Um that to me that's independent of uh you know that's the process that you could use to answer people's questions.

I mean that that happens all the time whenever you you want to meet.

Yeah, completely understood.

I'm wondering if that satisfies your request or not really I mean that would be great, but I also want to know as a board member, you know, in that example that you're giving, you know, we would have a clear understanding if there was a bond issue that we were advancing, we would be really clear about the need for that and the impact of that, the value of that, and that's what I would like to get that.

I'd like to be able to have some more answers and be able to hear from the hospital CEOs, uh if we can hear from Green Mountain Care Board, somebody from the governor's office, uh, as um as much information as we can have going into this be so that we have that confidence before taking this to the town and asking for the all the voters of the town to take time out of their schedules to have uh town meeting on this topic.

So that sounds like a preference to leave your substitute motion as is invite people to the meeting to a future meeting to get more information first and delay Peter was it?

Your original motion.

I was Peter.

I'm losing the thread.

Um delay that whole process started that whole process until after that.

Does that sound like I could sox to nine months was the number that was thrown out.

That number was thrown out a month ago.

What I'm trying to convey here is some leadership from this board to save a vital asset in our town.

I get that there's on a bunch of unanswered questions.

Um we could approve this thing and those things will be unanswered questions.

We could we could turn this thing down in a meeting and there will be unanswered questions.

Um does 100,000 help?

Yes, it does.

Does a million dollars help?

Yes, it does.

Does $3.8 million solve the problem?

For a while?

Yes, it does.

These problems will not go away unless this committee, unless this community recommits itself to Brattrow Memorial Hospital in a way that will include philanthropy.

Would I have suggested that this board adopt tonight is a path to try to get that done?

To try to send a message.

And I know everybody loves to sort of second guess if that message will land, if that message won't land, um, you know, loves to argue the point, um, loves to say it's uh that you know we don't need to go right to DEF CON 5.

I think you meant DEF CON one.

Um, but we do.

We're there.

If we were a restaurant and the cooler blew, we would have to find the money to repair the cooler.

We wouldn't do it again next year, because hopefully the cooler would be prepared.

Maybe we would work with the hospital to raise that money moving forward.

But you know, I am merely suggesting that more than the four or five people that we've heard from tonight get a chance to speak to it.

And if they as a community, as a town, decide that it's not the right decision, they will let us know.

Conversely, if they decide it's the right decision, they will let us know.

Keep in mind that the most that that the poorest person and the richest poor person deserve health care.

If we remove that from this community, what do we have left?

Somebody did a map about what a birthing center removed from this corner of the state is in it literally almost spits splits the state in a third that there is no birthing center in this area.

And again, the whole hospital needs to be held up.

It's not just the birthing center.

The birthing center is the emergency right now.

The birthing center is indeed at DEF CON 1.

And like I said, six to nine months was told to us a month ago.

So to kick the can down the road, to get more questions answered, only to kick the can down the road, furthermore.

This is what leadership work looks like.

I have attended every single meeting since the announcement at 7 30 in the morning at 5 o'clock at night.

I have not missed a meeting about the situation that we're in.

And yes, we are as equally as frustrated as everybody else is in this community.

But we need to send a statement.

And if that statement ends up with a no in an open town meeting, then it ends up with a no at open town meeting.

But at least we have a community that can gather around and recognize and give us time to get those questions answered, hopefully satisfactorily.

So I'm not I'm not actually going to support your counter motion.

I want to make a couple comments real quick.

If we're going to do it, because the budget goes to the Green Mountain Care Board on Thursday.

If that's the case, then a decision today is there is a time factor to that.

Um I want to.

You know, this is about an investment and it's about risk.

If it was if it was we raise a million dollars and the birthing center is saved forever and there's never another financial problem, I would do that in a heartbeat.

I think most people would.

The reason this is difficult is because we don't know that might save it for this year.

Does that mean it's saved going forward?

Does that mean we've spent a million dollars to keep a service for a year only, or does it build for the future?

We don't know the answers to that question.

That's a question for the individual members of the board and the community to make.

I I'm gonna steal your metaphor of the burning building.

I I think it's a reasonable one, but we're in the position of looking at a building that is burning that is valuable to the community and considering are we going to spend our resources on saving it for a little while?

We don't know if it's savable, we don't know if it'll catch fire again in a year.

But we also know that if we sit, or I believe that if we sit back and demand that we prove the value of the building and prove that the the aid will work, the building will burn down in the meantime.

So I think that this risk is merited, and I think we should also recognize that what the community is asking the hospital to do with their letters and their outreach is to take a huge risk of their own.

We the community has essentially been asking the hospital, please keep this open and keep losing money, and we'll try to help you make it work.

So I think it is fair to ask to spread that risk around a little bit to the community that wants it so badly.

That's that's my position on that.

Um Isaac, and then we'll hear three comments from the public and bring it back for a vote.

Two points.

The first is that everybody on this board has now voted three times in support of the hospital, the birthing center, we are unanimous in wanting to see it continue to stay open.

The second point is that I would be comfortable with um basically doing these two things at the same time.

Continuing with your motion that you made, Peter, um, with to to directing the staff, town staff to uh put up a draft a warning for an open town meeting, and simultaneously invite to our next meeting the um representative of the hospital, the Green Mountain Care Board, um perhaps and the governor's office too.

Okay.

That sounds like what we were considering a little earlier.

Um, does that would unanimous consent from the board would well I guess you would withdraw your substitute motion and we could amend Peter's motion or with unanimous consent from the board to withdraw the substitute motion, not seeing any objections, and then to amends Peter's motion along those lines to prepare the draft warning and separately invite the stakeholders to a future board meeting for a conversation?

And then to amend Peter's motion along those lines to prepare the draft warning and separately invite the stakeholders to a future board meeting for a conversation.

Yeah.

I mean I'm suggesting at the meeting where we're considering the warning, so it their next meeting.

To be after at that meeting to be able to actually hear from the stakeholders.

Okay.

I can imagine scheduling difficulties if but if they can't come, they can't come and we can see if they can come another meeting, but let's invite, let's aim for them to come to our next meeting.

Okay.

I was just gonna note that if we were, you know, if we were just talking about the potential to have a special meeting on July 28th, could we have a special meeting of the board to consider, you know, the warning can be drafted, but in conjunction with people who may be busier than us, their schedules, and you know, like there's the co CEOs, we definitely need board representation from the hospital because that's who's voting on the budget.

Um then, yeah, if we're going for anyone from the Green Mountain Care Board or state level, that's a whole other thing.

I think I'm not even sure how we would get somebody from the Green Mountain Care Board.

So I I would suggest that Amanda and I can tackle the scheduling and the inviting people piece and see what is possible, but that we can take as the intent of the board to invite those stakeholders to that meeting.

I would like to state an intention for going into a month where we only have one select board meeting if we're talking about like pressing matters if there needs to be a special meeting to be able to have the discussion that needs to be had that we should consider that as part of that whole you know when we're talking about a pressing timeline with everything else, if it can't be August 4th, but it could be some other time in August when what could that be?

Yes.

So that we would be open to a special meeting in August, even though we had plans to just have one meeting.

I'm not seeing any.

And there are some things that we can answer on the town end that we don't need, you know, like what would happen, what actually would our stipulations be, and what would happen if we don't meet those for people whose money got collected or got voted on collecting.

Okay.

So and I think one thing we should also be sensitive to is our town clerk's office.

So there's a primary election August 11th, and then there's a general election on in November.

Um and thinking about that in the time frame.

That's going to be workable from them and you know, get get feedback.

But the more information our town clerk knows the sooner, the easier it will be.

Yes.

And it's never easy.

It's always complicated.

But it's it's considerate.

Yes, I I agree.

And you and I can take all of that into consideration when we talk about scheduling.

Okay, so unless there's an objection, I'm gonna assume unanimous consent for the modified motion, which is to ask town staff to draft and to invite the stakeholders we've named to the meeting where we consider this.

Okay.

Now I'm gonna hear from Dick and Kate.

Are you raising your hand, Bill?

Yes.

Okay.

Three comments, and then we'll vote.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I thank Isaac for his for his motion.

He he's very correct.

Uh you know, you we could hold a special election a special meeting in October and still have time to uh uh see if we want to appropriate the funds.

But it would be good to hear from the stakeholders themselves as to I would want to know why you didn't come to the town and ask for funds.

And uh are you going to go to Putney?

I made a suggestion that you try to hold a meeting with the even if it's a Zoom meeting.

A zoom meeting.

Uh whatever you need to do to get information.

Uh you know, what John was talking about, the informational meeting is after the meeting's been scheduled, we have informational meetings.

That's not what Isaac was asking for.

Isaac's saying, let's get the people in here, let's talk to them.

I understand what Peter's saying.

You know, a hundred thousand dollars, a million dollars.

Three million dollars doesn't even fund the fund the birthing center for a year.

And that's a three point.

We're going to we're going to we're gonna fund something for a year.

Is that the best use of our dollars uh to extend something?

Uh there's people that are going to Hanover, going to Keene, going to Greenfield, going to Springfield for a lot of medical care that they cannot get in Brattleboro.

I speak from experience.

There's many, many people that travel out of the area to get medical care.

And if the birthing center is going to close, it's it is inevitable that it closes.

We want to assure that we maintain some sort of a hospital.

The hospital beds have shrunk over the years.

The retreat has been in financial trouble.

Its services have shrunk over the years.

I didn't see the board jumping into that foray.

I believe we're really out of our lane here, that their board made a conscious decision, not easily, but something that they looked at a dollar and cents issue, just like you do when we're talking about the budget and what impacts the board and what impacts the taxpayers and what we have to provide for the community.

So I really think that we're off the rails here in doing what you're doing.

And I appreciate Isaac's motion and I hope that that happens simultaneously and not the warning first before we talk to the leaders.

Thank you.

Thanks, Dick.

Kate and then Bill.

I'll make this really quick.

I want to echo that Isaac's on the right track.

And that if you can only get the priority people for you to get in here is BMH, because we can sit around and say we want the hospital to stay open.

The only people that can make the decision to keep the hospital and the birthing center or any of those services open is the board of directors at the hospital.

So before anybody is voting at a town meeting to provide funding, we need to hear from BMH.

So if no one else comes, those are the people that you need to have to tell us that our us making a financial contribution out of our tax dollars, that's who we need to hear from.

So I just want to thank Isaac, but make it the priority.

It's BMH.

They're the ones that voted to close the birthing center.

They're the only ones that can keep it open.

So we have to have a conversation with either the CEOs or the chair of the board of BMH.

So thank you.

Thanks, Kate.

And I think it will be good to have them at a meeting.

I will just say that there have been ongoing extensive, you know, really um diverse conversations going on with all of these people we've named, including the board, including the the CEO, they just haven't been happening in select board meetings.

But your point's well taken.

Bill?

Thank you.

Bill Harvey, Brad of Vermont, I also want to speak in support of Isaac's motion.

I I really like the additional information that I've heard.

I really want to thank it.

Because I too, I've lived in Brattleboro all my life.

I want to keep the birthing center open.

I also want to keep Brattleboro as a as an important part of our community because it's done such a great job.

And I think now hit a perfect word, and that is representation.

I believe I heard her say that.

And the people that I have talked to in Brattleboro, one of the things they've talked about is if our taxes are going to go up.

Yes.

The main reason for it would be to keep the birthing center open and to keep Brattleboro viable, Bradford Memorial Hospital.

However, I think representation by an elected official on either a short-term or long-term basis is going to go a long ways to people keeping the birthing center open.

In other words, somebody, a select board member or somebody, if if once you raise taxes, let's face it, that tax is not going to ever be repealed.

It's going to go on year after year after year.

You raise eight cents.

I've never seen it.

I I've never seen a tax burden decreased.

I I just have never seen that.

Maybe it does happen, but I've never seen it.

So I want to thank Isaac.

I want to thank now.

I want to thank all of you.

You guys are very encouraging tonight because I can see the amount of work you put into this.

It's important.

But I like Isaac's motion.

Thanks, Bill.

And the only thing I want to add to that is that at least philosophically you may be right that taxes never come down.

The model we're talking about here would be a one-time special assessment that would not be baked into the budget going forward.

You might be right that the conversation of spending the money would come up again in future years, but at least it wouldn't be baked into the municipal budget.

It would have to be approved by another special meeting, right?

Well, it would just be a one-time action.

I'm just saying if people said oh, we want to fund the birth center again, it would have to be approved again, right?

Yes, or it would have to be put into the municipal budget and approved the normal way, which come back to the board.

We have a motion on the table to direct staff to prepare a draft warning and to invite the stakeholders, particularly BMH and Green Mountain Care Board, if possible, to that meeting.

You ready for the vote?

I don't know if it goes in the more in the in the motion, but can we also that which is like the business of the town?

Can we try to have answers for that on our end too?

Yeah, we'll I don't know that that needs to go into the motion.

But I think we'll yeah, we'll work to flesh all of this out.

Okay.

I'm not gonna read the motion a third time, but we're gonna go to a vote.

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

Aye.

That carries five zero.

Okay.

I'm gonna say we're gonna take a six-minute recess and then we'll come back for interaction.

Thank you guys so much for waiting.

We'll be back in six minutes.

Welcome, Russell and Casey of Interaction.

Hello.

Thank you for waiting.

Sorry, we ran a little behind there.

That's okay.

Yep.

We're prepared for that.

Thanks.

John, is there any setup we want to do here?

Well, uh, not really, just that uh we've been having ongoing conversations with uh Russell and Casey about ways to bring restorative justice and other uh services that they're incredibly good at to uh help with the situation downtown and um looking for an update from them on that.

Great, great.

Well, welcome, we'll turn it over to you guys.

Great, thank you.

And uh I'll start first.

So again, I'm Russell Bradbury Carlin, the executive director of Interaction.

And um, yeah, as John was saying uh it was like a little over two years ago that we were brought into conversations around safety issues downtown and was there a restorative justice response that we could bring to that.

And um we decided to, we took some funding and we um asked for um a group of consultants from uh who are in Vermont but not in this community to help do an assessment for that.

Um I think we came here in the spring and uh talked about that, what what we were gonna be doing, and so this is coming back with the report, which you should have a copy of.

Um I'll just put a little bit of like a beginning and in case you will talk about the results.

But uh we ended up working with the creative discourse group.

Um and the process of gathering info for the report, um, mainly, and this is again not the report, so I'm just kind of saying this for everybody who's listening in and here.

It included material we provided uh to them, such as like an overview of our current restorative justice programs, um, as well as things like an overview of one Brattleboro, other things that kind of give them a context of what's exists here already.

And they interviewed 22 people in the community.

Uh some of them they did in person, some of them they did over the phone or in Zoom.

Um, and that included municipal and civic leaders, business owners, police, and members of the Bratt team, uh youth uh formerly unhoused residents, grassroots organizers, and mutual aid leaders, and BIPOC community members.

Um we I think hopefully maybe not, but uh Sue McCormack from Creative Uh Discourse Group is possibly supposed to be on the Zoom call.

So in case we get I see some nods over there.

So yeah.

So um if there are questions as we uh after we're done presenting and they're about the uh gathering information, Sue's available to respond to those, so she's here with.

And I turn it over to Casey.

All right.

Hi everybody, if we don't know each other, I'm Casey.

I am the director of restorative justice programs at Interaction.

Um so I'm gonna talk a little bit about the report.

I know the select board has a copy.

Um and specifically what I want to focus is on that first page, that nice visual that shows sort of the differences between the systems lens.

Oh thank you so much.

Um so this first page is a visual that shows the different lenses when thinking about safety and how some of those came up as we were doing the interviews.

So on one side you'll see more of a systems lens, on the other side a community lens.

And what I actually want to hone in on is that middle section there, the shared understanding uh areas of alignment between the people that we spoke with throughout uh gathering information for this report.

Um so I will spoil the report for everybody.

There isn't a brand new shiny restorative justice program that we can bring that we're not already offering in some way.

Um and if you don't know, Vermont is uh leader in the country for restorative justice programs.

So not to pat ourselves on the back too much.

We've already got some of these things here in place.

But what this report did help us focus in on some of the commonalities that people have about not wanting to erase or sideline others and wanting to be able to hear each other's stories.

And specifically when we talk to the youth, which if you don't know the youth council through building a positive community, shout out to the youth council.

They are amazing.

They're really hoping to have more opportunities to bring people together.

So I know I started with a little bit of a downer that we don't have a shiny new program, but there are two offerings that uh we're exploring expanding and specifically looking at how we can expand that in the downtown area.

So one of those is expanding our community restorative justice programs, uh, which brings folks together voluntarily who are in conflict to participate in a restorative process.

So presently we're already doing that work, and we've been doing it with housing orgs and tenants.

We've been doing it with coworkers and with neighbors.

And so we could, in collaboration with the town, think about conflicts that might be occurring in the downtown and apply our current community restorative practices programs to those conflicts.

Another thing that we could offer are reparative meetings with those that are involved in those specific conflicts that we identify.

The thing, however, I'm most excited about, and there is a little bit of detail in the report of what it could look like, uh, is the idea of piloting community circles uh in the downtown with a wide variety of people.

So we've already done two rounds of community circles at interaction and learned quite a bit about that process.

Um and so a couple of things we could do to bring that uh dialogue and folks together is holding a series of circles uh with topics generated by community members and also holding quick little intro circles or get to know you circles at gallery walk to try to get people interested in the idea of what a circle could be, um, like light lift and then come together on a broader spectrum to talk about uh some of these things, which from what we learned in the report is what people are really hungry for.

And I know the town has a vested interest in gathering people and sharing more positive stories and rebuilding trust with folks.

Casey, would you tell everyone a little bit about what the community circles are and how they work?

Yeah, absolutely.

So the ones that we've currently done, we've uh invited folks to come together, so whether they're residents, small business owners, community leaders, um, over a series of dialogues.

Sorry, had to think of my word there.

Um and so we let that be a little more open-ended of what do you all want to talk about as a group, uh, diverse perspectives and opinions.

Um and what we found is people really wanted to talk about what it meant to belong in Brattleboro and what safety meant to them.

And so it's a facilitated conversation.

Uh the facilitated part being we're not here to debate, we're not here to have like a town forum.

We're here to talk about our own experience, how we've been impacted and deeply listen to others.

So without totally breaking confidentiality, that's a little bit of it.

Thanks.

Yeah.

So just to kind of put a button on it, our next step would be of course I got you, um finish drafting our proposal about the community circles piece as well as some of those reparative meetings.

Uh Russell would like to bring it to one Brattleboro to try to get buy-in from them and continue talking with John, as we've been doing, as well as Chief Evans and others.

Um I know you guys just had a big conversation, and this is a total tonal shift from talking about um the hospital and money.

Uh, but right now we're not looking for any money, just your buy-in to have more conversations.

If I could just add one more thing.

Um I really am interested.

I feel like a lot that gets brought up in this um in this report really sits well at one Brattleboro as far as like if there's going to be any follow-up around this.

And I'd really encourage people to read this, because I do think what it gives is it gives a snapshot.

I I from my understanding from what I hear, there's a real feeling of divisiveness in this town that there's really like a separation on how people see things, and there's a lot more.

There's a lot of dissension that that still exists.

And I think reading this report will give, at least particularly the beginning part, will really give people a sense of like we're not as divided as it feels.

And I think it largely feels like a divide divided uh town because of like social media.

And this is actual conversations with people brought together and really kind of laying out a picture.

Um I even just for that I encourage people to just read through this.

Um thanks to both of you.

Um John, before we ask questions or comment, um is this report available?

Standalone on the website somewhere?

Um no, it's well, it is in your backup materials.

Yep.

Is there a page that it would make sense to put this on?

Um we can people can find it easily.

Could we we could probably find figure out a way to do that, I think?

Yep.

Okay, good.

Great.

So we'll we'll find a way to make put this on the town website so that anyone who wants it can read it.

But in the meantime, if you go to the select board page, it's in the big packet of select board backup materials on page 32.

Great.

Um my only comments are I've I've read the report, it's very in-depth, and I think I agree everyone should read it.

Um thank you guys for doing this work.

I think there's a lot to dig into.

I agree that it's a good fit with what I've experienced last year at one Bratleboro.

Um I'm you know, interested to keep following it and and hopeful about the direction you're taking.

So thank you.

Um other comments or questions for Russell and Casey from the board.

Isaac?

Yeah, I appreciate it as well.

And that it seemed very comprehensive and that you were bringing together multiple perspectives.

Um it's and that then diagram of sorts is really great to see and see that overlap and where there's consensus building.

Thanks.

Thanks, Isaac.

Um Amanda?

Sure.

I think I want to say thank you for stepping up because John mentioned to me I wasn't on one brothelboro at the time.

I was um, I think Oscar was that you were the one organization that said, okay, we'll take a stab at this and we'll we'll begin begin.

So thank you for doing this.

I see it as a beginning.

Yeah.

Um I'd like to see more concrete outcomes.

I'm intrigued by what you're saying about taking the the tenant um, what did you say?

The housing organs and presents.

Yeah, oh yeah, uh community restorative practices program.

And talking about community restorative justice in uh in downtown.

And I just sort of wonder, could you provide a case example of of how that would work?

I sure our community is hungry for outcomes.

And to say that people are generally like the first line, people are generally safe in Brattleboro.

As a selector member, I don't want that word generally, even in that sentence.

Yeah, absolutely.

I want to hear people are safe safe in Brattleboro.

And that's everyone, right?

Yeah.

Um and we hear from a lot of the public regarding absolutely not feeling safe, having examples of um their children being unsafe.

Um and that's really disturbing, and it's like, so I want to know what's the next step.

We were talking about sustainability of Brattleboro Memorial Hospital.

Like, what's the next step?

What are you visioning?

Yeah, oh my gosh.

Um I was asked to keep it to 10 minutes, and now you've asked me about my dreams.

So I just want to name that.

Um First of all, as far as the community circles conversation, what I'd really like to do is meet with uh the town and actually create what we consider to be a successful metric or what information we want to gather from that.

Um overall, what I would like to see is more people feeling like they got a chance to hear other people's perspectives.

They understand other people's stories.

But what you've asked for is a little more about a case story a study about our uh community restorative practices program.

And so I'll give sort of a general study since I don't have like releases to give a ton of confidential information.

Uh one of our housing partnerships was experiencing a lot of conflict between residents as well as between residents and the housing organization management.

Uh I'm sure if you've ever rented, you might be familiar with I've called my landlord three times, nothing is getting fixed, nobody cares.

And that idea and narrative of nobody cares perpetuates, and when there is crime or things happening, the narrative grows.

Um we started holding tenant circles at a few different housing sites.

And through that, we were able to bring um the staff from the housing partnership as well as uh police chief Hardy when she was still with us came.

Um and we actually got to have real-time conversations with people about what are you seeing?

That information was directly going back to the police department.

Um what are we missing and that information because the housing partnership was there in real time, they were answering questions, solving problems, reducing conflict.

Um and over time people continued to want to meet because as they were getting their needs and answers in a real-time fashion, uh they were also realizing that they were building community.

So I know it's not like X plus Y equals Z for at least this example.

Uh but we've used it through um different conflicts between um a boss and a coworker or two co-workers that cannot get along at work.

We've used it in like the housing partnership that I've uh just talked about.

Um and we also use it uh models in our traditional restorative justice programs where someone has been charged with a crime and then work towards amends.

So I think what we could do is put together um some more general outcomes that we've seen and share that out widely with the town as well to try to answer that question of what is the next step, what are we hoping to have happen?

Cool.

Um do you guys.

Do you mind if I ask a few more questions?

Okay.

Um so in terms of the restorative justice model that you referred to early, does a person actually have to have a criminal or civil citation in order to qualify for restorative justice?

Great question.

Um so in our traditional models where uh like the court diversion you might have heard about, pre-charge, um, as well as reparative panels, those all live in the criminal justice sphere with us under our restorative justice programs.

The things that we're talking about tonight, doing um some reparative meetings or the community circles, uh, those do not require um a specific citation.

Anyone can access that at any time.

Uh it's also free for people to participate in and is very graciously funded through an earmark that we received from Bernie Sanders' office uh at this time.

So nope, could be as simple as um, hey, me and my neighbor are not getting along, or I'm having a hard time uh with this person that maybe is uh outside my business, does not have to rise to the level of criminal.

That's a really good question question though.

Thank you, Amiga.

So we could, as a citizen, for example, reach out to the co-op and say, I'm really struggling with people um soliciting me for money in the parking lot.

Could we have a community circle regarding this behavior?

Yeah, a thousand percent.

And address it.

A thousand percent.

Okay.

And we have a good relationship with the co-op.

So that's a great example, actually.

Um the co-op at times has done uh community work with us uh when they know someone is shoplifting, for instance, but they might not want to bring up charges to create agreements for them on how they can use the space and also everybody's needs are getting met.

Shoplifting isn't happening.

Or a business owner could say, hey, folks are walking over from the co-op.

Can we have a circle and talk about how we as a town together can make agreements on um what behaviors we want to see.

We could do absolutely do that.

Co-op's a great example.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Of course.

Thank you, Amanda.

Yeah.

Thanks, Amanda.

Peter, any questions or comments?

Um I took part of the study.

You did, yes.

I was there.

Um it's interesting to sort of see the um the outcome.

Um I will have to say um predictable.

Mm-hmm.

Right?

I mean, uh the other than the the nice Venn diagram in the middle of it, I didn't expect that I have to say.

I mean, all the information um that is here feels shared throughout the community.

I'm I'm not familiar with who all got interviewed.

Um but uh it was it was uh it it was interesting.

So it it's it's good to see it on paper.

I'm gonna read read through it again just to make sure I understand it.

I I appreciate that you guys use the grant money to to do this.

It just gives us like another little kind of thing to kind of point to and say, well, this is what we found out when this happened.

I'm not a I mean I think studies are important, yet I don't think they're important.

Yeah, um, I mean if I could speak to that just quickly is like I I agree.

Like I think on some level the the response wasn't that surprising to us.

Um and um but I we felt like it was important also to have someone besides just us saying this to actually have someone else but still in Vermont to know the the state anyway to kind of go through this process and to and and yes, and they came back with that with with that.

And also I also agree with your both sentiments and so we kept this relatively small.

This wasn't like we you know polled and pulled everybody in town together and got like it because this could have been really expansive.

And I feel 99% sure we would have landed in the same place.

It would be interesting though if you did the same thing, same questions, wrote the algorithm just to pull all the comments from social media how different it would look.

Yeah, yeah, that's really you know that's why I kind of underline the I feel like just a counter-narrative to that and a real narrative, yeah.

And I appreciate that that phone apps can um sometimes um guide the way we think.

I appreciate you doing that.

Thanks.

Of course, and thank you for taking part of it too.

Yeah.

I've I'm just gonna jump in something that I want to tack on to what Amanda was saying.

Just to give maybe another more challenging example.

One of the I think maybe the the origin of the child safety zones and all this conversation came from Flat Street and the Boys and Girls Club.

Is there a tool you have that would be a good fit for let's say you know, staff at the boys and girls club who are worried that they're the kids coming there feel unsafe and the people who are on the street who might be contributing to that feeling.

Is that something that could fit into one of these practices?

Oh, absolutely, yeah.

And I also I just I don't feel obligated to say yes just because you're sitting at the table.

I know it's a tough question.

We can do anything.

We can do anything.

Um I will say Boys and Girls Club is also an example of an organization that we have partnerships with.

Um we've already provided them um trainings as staff for restorative practices, both thinking about how to navigate those really difficult situations when someone is making people feel unsafe, right?

How to have conversations with people that are trying to address maybe behaviors that are making people feel uncomfortable, um, or even down to how do we keep ourselves feeling comfortable and safe, um, as well as using restorative practices when working with youth in that space.

So honestly, it might be uh a situation of let's talk about how you're feeling, why those feelings are coming up because feelings are just unmet needs or met needs.

Um, and how do we find the right resources or people?

Who do we need to talk to to make sure you have what you need?

So sometimes a restorative process isn't necessarily bringing an offender and a harmed party together.

It can be bringing people together like someone that's experienced harm and the people they can share power with to feel safe and feel like they uh have had some repair.

Okay.

But and uh it sounds like sometimes it does involve bringing the person maybe causing harm in the person receiving harm together.

And the the magic sauce to that is when people uh feel willing and able to do that when they and it's a voluntary process.

Um but I know people say who voluntarily wants to come together and talk about these things, but they do.

Um it's usually a magical experience, and I wish I could like bottle it and share it, but it does happen.

Great, thank you.

No, any comments or questions?

Um, thank you guys for coming tonight and doing all this work.

It's interesting for me as someone who hasn't had direct experience with interaction before, but I've heard all of these anecdotal experiences that my friends have had.

Um to see this come together in this way and to kind of get to meet you guys in a different sense.

Um I haven't been on the board as long, so I haven't been in the same position as you know, say Peter, relative to one Brattleboro.

Um I just I really enjoyed reading through this and I think you know what you said, Casey, about voluntary gathering is what has to be emphasized.

And I've you know, I've been a part of smaller community spaces that have a attempted to have restorative justice, but uh have been lacking that way to hold it.

And I've been a person who you know attempted to look in a community to say like what mediation resources are available.

Um it would come up with like the legal definition of mediation and uh and all the costs all associated with that.

So it is really heartening to see that that is something we have in our community, and also you know, contrast it with my having lived in a much bigger city, and yet, you know, here in Brattleboro, we have this service, it's funded by the state.

Um that's you know, it's lovely.

I am grateful to live in a place where we have this, and I'm grateful for you guys to you guys for doing that work and all the the community connections that are involved in that.

Um then on a side note, Casey and I did a play together, so it's kind of fun to see each other in different hats here.

Yeah.

Thanks, Nell.

Any questions or comments from the public?

Seeing none, I think um we'll thank you very much for this presentation.

Thank you for waiting.

Of course.

And again, offer anyone interested, the report will be available on the town website.

Yeah, thank you both.

Thank you so much.

All right, enjoy the rest of the meeting.

Final item of the night, the monthly, not quarterly finance report.

All right, John.

Let's hear it.

All right.

So this is the finance department's report through the end of May for fiscal year 2026, 11 months ended.

And I just wanted to say I'm really grateful for Bonnie Batchelder's work on these reports and the continuous improvement that she's been bringing to them.

So with 92 percent of the fiscal year completed through the end of May in general fund, uh revenues are at 108 percent of the annual budget and expenditures are at 95 percent of the annual budget, which means that we have that we're in a good position overall.

Uh we have total revenues of 26, almost 27 million, and total expenses of almost 24 million, which means we have about a three million dollars surplus currently.

Um in the report you will see uh information about the uh receivables.

So uh on the revenue side, so there are 1.6 million of receivables, and those are broken out between general receivables, EMS receivables, current and delinquent taxes, interest and penalties, and bag revenue.

The EMS revenue is uh currently at uh at the end of May, through the end of May, it was at 100 percent of uh budget annualized.

We expect to see 1.254 million of revenue during the fiscal year, which would exceed our approved budget by $373,000.

Uh receivable calculations are based on 38 percent of total outstanding receivables, which is actually what we've been seeing.

We've been collecting at 38 percent for fiscal year 26.

Um risk management is a big area where we're over budget right now through the end of May, uh about 188,000 over.

Umtime budgets for FY26 are also over budget.

Fire overtime is currently over by 424,000, 425,000 for the year.

That is offset as we've discussed in the past by underspending of staff salary lines.

Um so right now the underspending in fire through the end of May was 290,376, which means that we're we're about 134,000 over in fire for overtime and salaries.

Police overtime, however, is uh while the overtime line is over by 132,000.

That is offset by 510,000 in savings, meaning that we're about 378,000 under budget overall in the police department, which is great because that covers the fire coverage, which uh I love it when those guys work together.

Yeah, yeah, they're working together.

So they'll uh figure out a way to make a joke out of that.

But um so then uh looking ahead, Bonnie reports uh out to the end of fiscal year 26.

And the really the bottom line here is that we're expecting the fiscal year to be in surplus at the end of the year by approximately 530,000, which is great news.

Yes.

Umtility fund uh also at 92 percent of the year.

We're uh revenues are a little bit over uh uh that plan by one percent.

Expenditures are a little bit under, so also doing good doing well in the utilities fund.

We are seeing a surplus of thir just over $13,000, but also covering $2.5 million in depreciation, which is fantastic.

Parking fund revenues are low as we've discussed at past meetings.

66% of the annual budget.

Expenditures are 87 percent, so they have been um they have been cranking down and trying to save on uh in the parking budget.

We are still facing a deficit of 219,000 of which uh well in expenses 222,000 of that is depreciation.

So on a strictly cash basis we are we're 2900 to the good currently in the parking fund.

Yeah I think that's all I will mention.

Except I will update you on the audits.

So the uh financial statement audit for fiscal year 25 is now done but um we are the the thing that's still outstanding is the single audit which is which is the requirement on the town because we accept federal grant money and so that's a little bit more of an involved audit we are we just got information yesterday on the testing the final testing that they want to do on major programs under the single audit uh as soon as staff are back from vacation we'll be able to reply on those uh on that testing and because the auditor issues one report with a financial audit and the single audit together uh we don't have drafts yet from the auditor we so we're expecting this still may be out a couple of weeks however good news is that we have we are on the auditors calendar for the fiscal year 26 audit and that is scheduled to begin September 21st with uh possible preliminary testing in august so we are on track to have the fiscal year 26 audit in time for publishing the town uh report which is great great thank you john that is a great update uh my only comments are I I'm looking forward to next month's report to see if that if to see in in final terms if we end up in surplus and how much because that would be wonderful um and then also yeah like you said just to recognize I I really think Bonnie's done incredible work and been really responsive to our feedback in making changes to this report and improving it and um I'm also looking forward to what Sarah Rose can do in continuing to move it forward.

So those are both great things.

Thanks Josh other comments from the board starting on the left comments or questions.

John I appreciate you giving the the audit update that was great to hear and I also I had asked John about it and I had then gone to go Google and learn more about financial versus single audits and so I appreciate that succinct summary too for anyone watching.

Thanks Nell Peter great report no complaints thank you.

Amanda I would like to learn what is the difference between uh the what is a single audit and what is the testing part of that process you mentioned that two times.

Yep well so we it it's kind of just a check so you know you you take a you pull a sample and you you're testing against that so you you can't look at every single invoice or every single transaction that was made you have to pull a number of them and so they do that sort of randomly or they may have an algorithm or a system I'm not really sure but then they go and they ask our staff to pull certain things and then they pull them and then they want to make sure and check that those are accurate against the reporting that we did.

Okay so then the 2026 testing will be happening starting September 21st you said um possibly in August they'll start to ask us for certain things which our staff have to then scramble to pull together and then provide to them and then they go do the audit and they check those against um you know how what our number reported numbers so and just to be clear for people watching having it scheduled like this means that we are well on track to have an audit done by town meeting and so on and so forth.

Isaac comments or questions thank you John Great any questions from the public seeing none thank you John for presenting that sure and believe it or not it's time for one final motion.

I have a motion to adjourn.

Peter's motion to adjourn all in favor aye aye carries five zero thank you all thank you.

Thanks Seth thanks Ivan Sue and Frick for still being here at the end and anyone else in the audience at home yes there's still some people on Zoom thank you also