Selectboard May (5) Meeting

JOHNSON SELECTBOARD MEETING MINUTES JOHNSON MUNICIPAL BUILDING MONDAY, MAY 5, 2025 Present: Selectboard members: Mike Dunham, Peter Hammond, Duncan Hastings, Adrienne Parker, Eben Patch Others: Tom Galinat, Rosemary Audibert, Jason Whitehill, Mike Patch, Kathy Black, Joe Salerno, Alec Jones, Jan Gearhart, Mary Lou Kopas, Casey Romero, Paul Warden, Kim Dunkley, Scott Meyer, Jackie Stanton, Kyle Nuse, Adrian Smith, Alyx Sellars, one other person Note: All votes taken are unanimous unless otherwise noted. 1. Call Meeting to Order Eben called the meeting to order at 6:30. 2. Consider Additions or Adjustments to the Agenda Adrienne added discussion on agenda packets. Duncan added an item related to the assessor. 3. Public Comment Joe Salerno said he has concerns about Legion Field and the potential moving of the bandstand. Eben said at the last meeting the board talked about all the things going on at Legion Field and the need for a larger plan. He believes the Tuesday Night Live committee is working on a plan. Adrienne said she went to their last meeting. They are working on a plan, but some things are moving forward before the plan. Eben said he thinks we need to see the plan before anything is done. Joe said he is hearing about plans to move the bandstand right behind his house. No one has talked to him and his wife about it. He would love to see a plan for Legion Field. His sense is that no one is talking to the neighbors about Legion Field plans. Kathy Black said it would be terrible to have the bandstand that close to their house when most parts of the field are not near people's houses. There are a lot of other places the bandstand could go. It is an attraction for people who are hanging out at the park and smoking pot. They don't need that in their backyard. She is not opposed to having the bandstand where it is now or moving it up against the hill, but she thinks moving it to the back corner by their property is unnecessary and unfair. Joe said he thought there would be a visioning session involving the community. Tom said a process is underway. It should be finalized with the involvement of community members. Adrienne said she agrees that meetings about Legion Field should involve the public so people can give input. She thinks what is motivating the group of stakeholders to move quickly is that they have a grant and a limited amount of time to spend the money so they are trying to plan out how they will use it. Kathy said it seems like a waste to make moves there before we understand how much space will be taken up by the library or what will happen with the grocery store lot. She asked, there is a grant to move the bandstand? Adrienne said no. It is a grant for improvements to Legion Field. Duncan said it is a Community Foundation Grant. Eben said the selectboard makes all its decisions in meetings that are publicly posted. Everyone is welcome to give input. Casey Romero said Howard couldn't be here tonight, but she thinks very soon people will come together to talk about the Legion Field plan. Mike Patch said people may not want the bandstand in another location. Wherever it is, noise will be an issue. Selectboard Meeting Minutes p. 2 May 5, 2025 4. Public Comment Adrienne said Green Up Day was pretty successful. A total of 328 bags were given out, 111 volunteers participated and 50+ tires were picked up. Adrienne said Isabelle Sullivan reached out to Jason about the baseball diamond but the public works department didn't have the bandwidth to work on it. She arranged for Greg Fatigate to do it and it cost $1,000, which came out of the recreation budget. Is it normal for it to come out of the recreation budget? Tom said we budgeted $8500 in FY25 and dropped it to $5K thinking we would spend $1000 on rented equipment using town labor. That price is better than we have seen in the past. We should be thankful for it. Adrienne asked if there are any updates on the Sterling Market buyout process. Tom said Vermont Emergency Management will be meeting with FEMA in Boston in early May. There have been no updates on the Swift Current process. He hopes we will have more information after the meeting with FEMA. Adrienne said after the last meeting she reached out to TownWeb and asked them to make a list of work that would require extra payment for a developer so she could see if the board agreed with paying for any of that work. She has not gotten that list. She was told that the person who was on our project was out of town for a week and someone else would be taking over. She heard on April 30 that they would reach out to her this week. Today TownWeb asked her to register for a training session. She feels it is an odd process. 5. Consent Agenda The consent agenda included the minutes of April 7 and April 21 and retroactive approval for an expenditure of $7,046.80 for needed repairs for the 2019 HX truck to pass inspection. Mike moved to approve the consent agenda, Peter seconded and the motion was passed. Duncan moved and Peter seconded to authorize. Jason to spend whatever amount is necessary for any town trucks to pass inspection. Mike Patch suggested that there are some good mechanics near the border and in Canada that a lot of municipalities and police departments are using. It might save money to use them. Jason said if we need a Vermont inspection we need to go to a mechanic that is in Vermont. The motion was passed with Mike opposed. Eben clarified that this motion applies only for this year. Duncan said there is no harm in getting more than one quote. Mike Patch said the mechanics he is thinking of are used by the Department of Transportation, other municipalities and fire departments. Those mechanics know what they are doing. 6. Clerk & Treasurer’s Report: Warrants, Licenses and Any Action Items Rosemary said we got the final school true-up. Expenditures are at 75% of budget. Current taxes are 84.39% collected. That is slower than in the past couple of years. Tom asked how we are doing with cash flow. Rosemary said we are fine for now. Peter moved to authorize Rosemary to contact attorneys at Stitzel Page & Fletcher to start the tax sale process, Adrienne seconded and the motion was passed. Selectboard Meeting Minutes p. 3 May 5, 2025 Rosemary said we received a tax abatement request. Does the board want to wait until Eric can attend to hold the abatement hearing? Eben said he can call Eric tomorrow. 7. Purchase of Budgeted Town Pickup, Tandem and Equipment Tom said the sales rep we were dealing with at International has left and they have not yet provided the proposal we requested for the tandem. Should we try to get it or should we go out for bids? Jason said he would like to see us go with Western Star. Eben said the state spec is for an International. If we wanted to go with Western Star we would have to get sealed bids. Board members agreed they are okay with getting bids. Duncan said the only problem is that unless we have very specific specifications, it is hard to compare different proposals. Tom said we learned from going out to bid last year and now we know what to ask for. We received three quotes for a pickup. Eben said one question he has is whether we need the 5500 chassis. The price is $29,000 above what was in the capital equipment plan. The ripple effect of that on future years concerns him. The current pickup has a 1-ton chassis. Jason said it doesn't have to be the 5500 chassis. But it is a $4,000 difference to get that chassis instead of the 3500 and the 5500 is a 2024 that is in stock and all built so we wouldn't have to pay new truck prices. A new one with that body setup would be $12-15K more. It is a flatbed dump. The dump is already on it. We don't have the ability to chip into the tandems with the chippers that we rent. This truck would be set up to put chips into. They quoted a plow. The plow we have is functional. However, we might need to get a new one in the next couple of years. This truck would be the same size as Mark’s truck and could be used in case something happens to that one. The bed is a little shorter than Mark's but it has a crew cab. The crew cab costs an additional $2K. Tom suggested this could replace Mark’s truck and we could get an even smaller pickup for the foreman. Duncan said what Jason is saying makes some sense but we have a capital budget plan we just approved and this price is a lot higher than what is in there. Duncan said at one point the town had a Ford 350 with a king cab and a plow. Is it feasible to think about going back to something like that? Jason said we could but we do a lot more plowing now. The town crew is now plowing the municipal building, the park and all the Class 3 roads with one or two houses. There are a lot of people who bought houses on those roads and don't want turnarounds there anymore, so the tandems have to back out. Duncan said we have every right to put a turnaround within our right of way and people will have to accept that as the price of getting their road plowed. We should do that if we need to and it shouldn't dictate what we buy for a truck. Even though some of those roads are being plowed with the foreman’s truck, could they be plowed with the truck that is being used as a salt truck? Jason said we did have a 2500 with the salter/sander on it and it overloaded the truck. He thinks we should stay with the truck size we have at least and not go smaller. We bought a dump trailer and we need to have a truck that is big enough to pull it. Tom said Mark's truck is expensive and it fits a narrow niche within the town. What if this truck replaced Mark’s and then we got another 5500 when we had planned to replace Mark’s? That could save money and add versatility. He showed the capital equipment plan on the screen and showed the effect if we buy a less expensive truck for the next purchase. We would save $6,000. He feels we need a better rotation plan. We don't really have an up-to-date capital equipment plan. Eben said it was updated last year. Tom said we just updated the trade-in numbers. He thinks we need to start updating the rotation schedule to fit within the warranty and matching trucks to what we need. Selectboard Meeting Minutes p. 4 May 5, 2025 Jason said getting this truck would save us having to order a new one and wait for the dump body to be put on it. This is a good deal. Mike said he agrees about not keeping trucks beyond the warranty. Eben said we have also talked about leasing. Duncan said we haven’t seen projections of what the savings would be if we traded trucks in earlier. Peter moved and Mike seconded to purchase a Dodge Ram from Northpoint for $71,178. Eben asked if we can not take receipt until July 1. Jason said that is the plan. The motion was passed with Duncan opposed. Eben said at town meeting two people said they don't like seeing us putting cash on hand into the equipment fund. They would like to see us putting the amount we need into it. We are going to need to look at that at budget time. Duncan said he is happy to look at a different concept. 8. Hiring a 5th Employee Tom said one of our public works employees gave notice so we are now down to a four-person crew. The board had asked him to evaluate the financial value of the fifth person. He met with Jason and they put together numbers representing how much a fifth employee contributes to the town in various categories. He reviewed the numbers. More overtime would likely be needed if we did not have a fifth employee. We can't really put a dollar amount on morale. Right now we budget for 250 hours for the foreman. We are not staying within that amount. Without a fifth person, the foreman has no time off in the winter. Without a fifth employee, work time for ditching doubles. Employees take their vacations in summer which can mean dropping down a one or two-person crew. Having only four employees means equipment operators have to spend more time waiting for trucks. It probably means more overtime and contracting out more work. There would be fewer free weekends for employees due to the on-call rotation. Peter said he thinks Jason knows what he needs. Duncan said he had asked previously for a comparison with other towns that have similar highway mileage. He won't be able to make a decision until he sees that. The board got the financial information about the fifth employee right before the meeting. That does not give him enough time to review it. Adrienne agrees that she needs more time to digest the information. She is probably in favor of a fifth employee, but she questions some of the hours shown for work for committees. She wants to know from the committees if those figures are right. Forty hours a year for the beautification committee doesn't seem right. Jason noted that that is total time for 4 people. Mike said the big push for five employees was due to the gravel pit. We no longer maintain the gravel pit so it will take a lot to convince him we need five employees. Kim Dunkley asked if the option of having a part-time person who does not get benefits has been considered. Jason said when he started there were four highway employees and two part-timers who worked a combined 600 hours a year. We hired a fifth person because of the gravel pit and MRGP requirements. Then we cut out some part-time hours. Last year the part-time hours got taken away completely. So we are saving on something that we have always spent money on before. Hyde Park has a four-man crew and they just hired a fifth person. We are doing well on MRGP compliance. That is about having a team that can work together to do different jobs on the same day, like having the chloride truck follow the grader. He described how having 5 employees increases ditching efficiency. He said employees have gotten used to having an off-call week. They often use comp time on the week when they are not on call instead of getting overtime. Public works employees have been Selectboard Meeting Minutes p. 5 May 5, 2025 helping out with a lot of things such as the library that are not really in their wheelhouse. Not having a fifth employee will hit hard morale-wise. Casey asked if there are or can be different grades of employees with different pay levels and worker’s comp levels depending on what they are doing. Duncan said worker’s comp is the same for everyone in the highway department. Jason said employees are paid a little differently because of different qualifications, years of service or equipment they can run or safety training they have received. All CDL employees will be within a few dollars of each other. Mike Patch said the public works department has been doing a lot of things like gutting the library or helping committees. If we are going to go to 4 employees he thinks they need to just work on roads. The town can't cut staffing and expect the same things to be going on. He does not think the public works crew should have been gutting the library building. Why are they being asked to do work like mowing the ball field or helping with the project at the trailhead? In the past volunteers have helped with things like that. Eben asked if it would be a big issue to wait to make a decision till the next meeting. Jason said there is a good candidate who is very interested right now. We could lose out on that employee. He noted that there is another employee who is getting for ready for retirement but hasn't given a retirement date yet. Eben said the board will take this up again in 2 weeks. 9. Better Roads Grant, LCPC Assisting with Road Inventory Tom said the town got a Better Roads Grant of $8,160 with a match of $2,040 for road inventory. Jason would like to hire LCPC to do the inventory. LCPC has provided a draft agreement. They would not go over the grant amount so $2,040 would be the maximum amount we would pay. Alec Jones of LCPC said each hydrologically connected road segment is required to be inventoried by October 31, 2027. LCPC would get the inventory done this year or possibly finish up next spring. The grant runs until 2027. LCPC would help the town get reimbursement from the grant. Mike asked, hasn’t that inventory already been done? Alec said it was last done in 2019. It has to be redone when the permit resets. All segments need to be inventoried, even if work has been done on them previously to bring them up to standard. Jason has a done a lot of work since the last inventory. Some segments that were previously shown as red may no longer be red. Grant funding is based on the inventory. Duncan moved to authorize the chair and/or the town administrator to sign a contract with the Lamoille County Planning Commission for road inventory, Mike seconded and the motion was passed. 10. Letter of Support for LCPC for Clean Water Service Provider Peter moved to authorize the town administrator to sign the letter of support for LCPC, Adrienne seconded and the motion was passed. 11. VHB Amendment for Scribner Bridge Scoping Study Tom said this item can be passed over for this meeting. 12. Rail Trail Committee Projects Mary Lou Kopas said the rail trail committee has provided an update on all the grant projects they are planning to do. Some have already been approved. They want to request that grant money they have been awarded that is not spent by the end of the fiscal year roll over to the committee for the next fiscal year. Selectboard Meeting Minutes p. 6 May 5, 2025 Duncan moved that any unspent funds as of June 30 related to rail trail grants and projects be rolled over and reserved as part of the town's cash on hand, Mike seconded and the motion was passed. Peter said he thinks the Village Green is a good spot for the bike rack. Why move it to the Cold Spring? Mary Lou said the village is concerned about having too many things at the Village Green. The rail trail committee wants to put a map kiosk there where the bike racks are. 13. Resolution Condemning Attacks on Due Process and Affirming the Constitutional Rights Tom said after the town received a request to approve this resolution, he reached out to colleagues about their thoughts. The opinion that hit home with him the most was that this is a big issue that is larger than the opinion of five people and should probably go before the whole town. Adrienne said she hears Tom, but she thinks the selectboard could easily pass this resolution. It is just reaffirming that we believe that 1st and 5th Amendment rights are valid. She explained that we were forwarded a resolution passed by the City of Rutland by a Rutland resident who urged us to consider adopting it. There have been some troubling incidents in Vermont that speak directly to this resolution’s urgency. Mohsen Madawi was arrested by ICE during what was supposed to be a routine citizenship interview. There was concern that he was targeted because of his pro-Palestine activism. The Vermont Senate passed a resolution condemning the arrest and calling for his release. Rumeysa Ozturk was arrested in March and transferred through Vermont before being sent to Louisiana. Her detention appears to be retaliation for co-authoring an op-ed on Gaza. Her legal team said this was a clear violation of her free speech and due process rights. A federal judge has since ordered her returned to Vermont for a hearing. Adrienne read part of Governor Scott’s statement about Mohsen Madawi’s arrest. The Burlington City Council adopted a resolution similar to the Rutland one. Some see this as a federal issue but issues at the federal level will trickle down to us. Without due process the town could face lawsuits and settlements, the town’s actions could become arbitrary or biased, residents’ rights to fair hearings or appeals would vanish, and processes would lack accountability and clarity. Without free speech, residents couldn’t voice concerns at selectboard meetings, criticism of town policies or officials could be punished, and people might self-censor to avoid backpack or consequences causing a lack of communication and making collaboration suffer. She encourages the board to adopt the resolution. Kim Dunkley said the selectboard is making decisions like spending $71,000 on a truck. The selectboard makes all the decisions for the town. She thinks it is important to safeguard the Constitution. She thinks Johnson should stand up. Jackie Stanton said she agrees with Kim. This is an important time to meet the moment we are in and affirm the Constitution and the rule of law. It would mean a lot to her as a constituent for the selectboard to affirm it. Mike Patch said he doesn't think five people can make this decision for the town. He doesn't think the selectboard is put in place to make political decisions, only financial decisions. He thinks if the board wants a decision on this, all residents should vote on it. Mike Dunham read the oath of office and oath of allegiance that every selectboard member has taken. He feels as if he has already done this and he doesn't need to reaffirm anything because he already took the oath of office. Selectboard Meeting Minutes p. 7 May 5, 2025 Adrian Smith said this is not a political decision. It is basically affirming that the Constitution will be upheld on a local level. He thinks a lot of people are afraid now and are feeling their voices are not heard. It is important to say that we will acknowledge it as a town if someone's constitutional rights are violated. Alyx Sellars said the US Constitution is the foundation of our government and our democracy. It is the reason the selectboard members were elected. They represent our democracy and Constitution. But we have had multiple acts in our state and across the nation that have violated the Constitution, our freedom of speech and due process. It is absolutely necessary that any elected official protect citizens. That is their duty. It is the selectboard's duty to uphold democracy. Duncan said the selectboard’s duty is spelled out in Vermont state statute. It is not to the US Constitution. It is to the Vermont Constitution. The selectboard’s roles and responsibilities are not related to telling an ICE agent that they cannot arrest someone. What Alyx describes is a lot broader than what the selectboard is empowered to do under state statute. Paul Warden said he thinks it is important for us to meet the moment. This is a very important issue. The federal government doesn't care what Johnson thinks, but he thinks it is important for us to go on record opposing any violation of the Constitution. However, he has read the Rutland resolution and he would take issue with some of the wording. Peter said he shares the disgust with the immoral actions of this regime and he as an individual will continue to protest, but he does not feel it is appropriate for the five selectboard members to speak on an issue that has also become highly partisan for the entire town. So he regrets that he will not second a motion to adopt the resolution. Adrienne moved to adopt a resolution condemning attacks on due process and affirming the constitutional rights of all people in our town, rewriting the language of the Rutland resolution to reflect Johnson's values and voice. The motion died for lack of a second. 14. Beautification Mini Grant Approval Adrienne said the beautification committee gives out mini grants every year. They got about eight or nine applications. They weren't able to accept all of them because their budget was tight. She listed the applications that they want to approve. The amounts total $775. That is within the beautification committee's budget. Duncan moved to accept the beautification committee's recommendations to award mini grants, Peter seconded and the motion was passed. 15. Library Relocation Tom said the library move was spectacular. We did an awesome job. For every problem that came up a solution was found. Adrienne said Tom did a good job with the library move. He had a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of hard work. Many people were involved in making this move happen, including Jeanne Engel and the library trustees. It was really magical watching the building move. It was invigorating to the community and it was a big step for flood resiliency. Scott Meyer expressed respect and gratitude to Tom for pulling the move off. Tom said we agreed in the fall to enter into a contract with Mumley for a term of up to 3 years. But he could not find a contract with them. Mumley has drafted two contracts that were included in the packet. Duncan moved to approve the contracts submitted by Mumley and to authorize the town administrator to sign them, Mike seconded and the motion was passed. Selectboard Meeting Minutes p. 8 May 5, 2025 Tom said we need three policies for grant reimbursement. The policies he drafted are temporary ones just for the library grant project. Duncan asked, these policies are required for spending federal money? Tom said yes. Duncan moved to approve the three policies needed for grant reimbursement and to authorize the town administrator and/or board chair to sign them, Peter seconded and the motion was passed. Tom said bids will be coming in next Monday for the concrete work. There was a site meeting today and only one contractor showed up. He suggests delegating selection of a bid to a single board member so a contract can be awarded on Monday. Then construction can start next week. If we delay removing the steel supports beyond 45 days it will cost us $600 a day. Duncan asked if the RFP indicated a time by which the pour needs to take place so we don't have to pay the penalty. That seems to be an important consideration in selecting a contractor. Tom said he definitely included that in the email to potential bidders and he made it clear at the site visit. Mike said he would like to see at least two bids. The board discussed other contractors who might possibly be willing to bid. Tom said he will contact some other companies and if any show interest and can get to a site visit this week and promise a response by sometime next week he will delay awarding the contract by a week. Duncan said he wants to make sure any bidders can hit the target date. The board agreed to recess this meeting until Monday at 4:00 for the bid opening. 16. VEC Agreement/MSI Contract Tom said it looked like the only existing agreement was the grant agreement. Eben said the MSI contract was done too. Tom said he doesn’t know that he remembers that. The board motioned to award MSI the contract. Duncan said we didn’t sign the contract. Tom said he added the language Duncan suggested to the VEC agreement, saying that the town is to be reimbursed the maximum amount allowable by the grant. And he added language saying Mumley will be representing the Town of Johnson. Duncan moved to authorize the town administrator or chair to sign the VEC agreement and thereafter to sign the MSI contract, Mike seconded and the motion was passed. 17. Vermont 250th Resolution The board agreed to approve the resolution wording presented in the packet and to sign it later after a more visually attractive version has been produced. Donna Griffiths asked for clarification on whether the resolution being discussed is different from the one approved at the last meeting. Duncan said he drafted a resolution that combines language from the two resolutions approved at the last meeting and can take the place of both of them. Duncan moved to approve the Vermont 250th resolution as presented, Mike seconded and the motion was passed. 18. Industrial Park Tom said he believes Mumley has moved forward with the NEPA report. Mike said there will be 26 units going in in Morrisville and they are close to the interstate. Do we want to continue to proceed with our industrial park plan? Duncan said he wants to. Mike said when we first started this we didn't know about the 26 unit park planned in Morrisville. Duncan said that one doesn't have village water and sewer. He thinks it could take 10 years to fill our industrial park, but once it is filled and we have tax revenue and job creation, he thinks it will be a benefit to the community. Eben said Johnson is geographically and economically different. There are larger industrial parks in larger towns than Morrisville. He doesn't think it makes sense to seesaw on our plans based on other towns putting in industrial parks. Selectboard Meeting Minutes p. 9 May 5, 2025 Peter asked if Tom knows when the final NEPA report was submitted. Duncan said the final report will go to the Northern Border Regional Commission. Mumley is still in the process of finalizing their report to submit to NBRC. Peter asked if there is any idea how much longer they need. Duncan said he doesn't know. That is a subject of continuous discussion between Randall and Mumley. Originally, we felt that the NEPA review should be done before we submitted for an Act 250 permit. We had discussed that that would make it easier to get through Act 250. But he is not sure that was a good idea. He thinks we should have submitted for an Act 250 permit. 19. Cemetery Maintenance Duncan said a couple of years ago the board asked him to reach out to the Vermont Old Cemetery Association and see if we could establish a cemetery work day. He recently got an email from them discussing a Whiting Hill Cemetery work day. He suggests that the town contract for work on Evergreen Ledge, Plot and Grow cemeteries. He did about half of the stone repair work needed at Whiting Hill and he is hoping the Vermont Old Cemetery Association can do the other half with volunteers. Peter moved to authorize Duncan and Tom to prepare and circulate an RFP for cemetery maintenance, Adrienne seconded and the motion was passed. Adrienne asked if the board is okay with her working with Tom to try to get the cemetery added to Google Maps. She noticed that the pizza oven is not on Google Maps either. Board members agreed they are okay with Adrienne doing that. 20. Meeting Packets Adrienne said at the last meeting she said she thought it was important for the meeting packet to be posted around the same time as the agenda. She thinks Duncan said he was okay with the packet being on the website but felt that it did not need to be. Duncan said he thinks the town administrator's report is really for the selectboard so it is not essential for it to be on the website. It is a public document but it is for the selectboard, not the public. Adrienne said she looked up when we started posting board packets. In May of 2020 all board members agreed to post packets on the website. She still thinks it is really important. She is okay with leaving out anything sensitive. She doesn't want to create more work for Tom. She doesn't think it will work out to send out the packet only to people who request it. That would mean a lot of emails to Tom. Mike said he was in favor of posting the packet in 2020. But he has some concerns about publicly posting information about bids received. If we put out the meeting packet he thinks it should not include as much information as the selectboard receives. If it is difficult to have two separate packets maybe it would be better just to post the agenda. Peter said he doesn't see the need for everyone to have access to the packet. It feels more valuable to the board if the administrator compiles it with just the selectboard as the audience, recognizing that someone could request it. Tom said when it is out on the internet it loses context. He finds himself not saying what he wants to say because he doesn't want to put it out to the world. The town administrator’s report should be just for the board. Eben said he is in favor of packets being on the website. But he agrees with Duncan that they are for the board. He will send one to anyone who asks. Adrienne said she was emailed three times about the resolution that was on tonight's agenda because there was no packet posted. Tom said those requests can be sent to him. He sent out two packets. He doesn't think it will be that common for people to Selectboard Meeting Minutes p. 10 May 5, 2025 contact him requesting a packet. Eben suggested posting the whole packet minus the town administrator’s report. Tom asked if he could use his judgment to redact other sensitive items. Adrienne asked if it should be Tom's judgment or the board chair’s. Duncan said Tom works for the selectboard. He thinks the report really needs to be targeted to board members. He thinks it is fine to just put the agenda online and send the report to board members. He doesn't think the report becomes a public document until we have our meeting. Eben and Adrienne said they would like to have the packets posted online. The other three board members said they would like to have them sent to the board only. Adrienne said she thinks Tom does a great job but sometimes he makes mistakes. Maybe something that someone wanted in the packet will not get put in. She thinks there should be checks and balances. The public should be able to see what is in the packet to see that what they wanted is there. Mike moved to post only meeting agendas and to reserve the board packets for the selectboard, Peter seconded and the motion was passed with Adrienne opposed. 21. Assessor Discussion Duncan said there is an interlocal agreement committee meeting on Thursday. He has been approved to attend. He sent out a packet with two spreadsheets over the weekend. Justin has suggested that he could go from 8 to 10 hours a week for Johnson but Duncan is trying to find out if he really wants to increase his hours. We have enough money for his benefits if he works 8 hours and gets the maximum benefits he is eligible for. But if he goes to 10 hours and gets the maximum possible benefits, we would be about $4,000 shy. If he keeps his health and dental elections as they are now, we would have enough for 10 hours. Eben said he would rather keep Justin to 8 hours for this year and increase to 10 next year because the year after that we will increase his hours even more for the reappraisal.. Duncan said any formal change will come back to the board for a decision. Mike said he is in favor of keeping him at 8 hours because of the uncertainty about healthcare costs. Adrienne said she is in favor of increasing to 10 hours. Duncan said when we are working on the next budget we need to keep in mind the need to increase what is budgeted if we want to increase his hours to 10. 22. Old Business – Town Sewer Service Area Duncan said LCPC is finishing up their work on the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program. As soon as that is done, Duncan, Alec Jones and Seth Jensen are supposed to finalize the Town Sewer Service Area map. Duncan needs to make changes to the language of the ordinance and then we can adopt a new ordinance. 23. Executive Session – Employment Evaluation and Negotiating or Securing of Real Estate Purchase or Lease Option Eben moved to go into executive session for employee evaluation and negotiating or securing of real estate purchase or lease option as allowed by 1 V.S.A. § 313(a)(3) and 1 V.S.A. § 313(a)(2), inviting Rosemary and Tom to remain, Mike seconded and the motion was passed at 9:21. The board came out of executive session at 9:55. 24. Adjourn The meeting was adjourned at 9:55. Minutes submitted by Donna Griffiths