Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Unidentified Committee Member]: That's true.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Alright. We're live. Alright. Thank you. 2PM on Wednesday, January 14. We are back, picking up work. We're taking a refresher course on, h five one six, an act relating to the approval of amendments to the charter of the town of Essex.

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: We touched on this and had some discussion on it last session, and it was something we flagged to pick

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: up early this session. So here we are honoring that decision. And, we wanted to start with our guests from Essex who are joining us via Zoom and just hear a little bit from them about the proposal we have in front of us. So looks like Mr. Dugan just popped up. How are you, sir?

[Greg Duggan (Essex Town Manager)]: Hi. I'm doing well. Thanks. Yeah. Greg Dugent, Essex Town Manager, and thank you for for having me. Also, is Kendall Chamberlain, who's the Vice Chair of the Essex Select Board.

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: Wonderful. So,

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: we have the charter proposal in front of us. So, if you just would like to give us your perspective and the community's perspective on what you would like to see done with it.

[Greg Duggan (Essex Town Manager)]: Sure. I I guess, ultimately, we'd love to have the charter changes adopted as approved by the Essex voters last March at town meeting, March 2025. We had seven charter changes on the ballot, all of which were approved by voters. This is kind of a continuation from some some changes that were, I guess, process started back in 2022. We had a charter review committee that went through the town of Essex charter, proposed a number of changes. The select board at the time back in 2022, 'twenty three felt like there was enough time to really pursue five of those recommended changes. Those went to town meeting in March 2023. Voters approved all of the proposed changes at that time as well. Went to the legislature. The legislature approved four or five of those changes. With some more time, the Charter Review Committee that we had revisited some of the other proposed changes, brought those back to the select board, and that's what was on the ballot a year ago was the seven remaining changes. Those were approved and are now sitting before you today. I'm happy to try to answer questions about any of them. I can walk through what they are and and the reasoning. So however you want me to to go from here, I'm happy to do that.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah. If you could speak to the reasoning, that would be nice.

[Greg Duggan (Essex Town Manager)]: Sure. I'll just go in the order that they appeared on the ballot. Let's see. We had so the town of Essex amended its charter to provide a clearer description of the role of town moderator. That was a bit Essex went to Australian ballot voting for town meeting a couple of years ago, two or three years ago. So we no longer have a formal moderator in the traditional sense. We do still elect a moderator. That person hosts the informational town meeting, but because it's less of a required position, just separating some of the responsibilities or, I guess, definitions of elected officials between select board members and the moderator. If they're in the same category in in the charter, differentiates a little bit between incapacity and the role of the moderator now that we don't have the floor vote for town meeting. Do you want to take questions in for each one or just run through the list at this point?

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: I guess we could stop real quick. Any questions on the moderator language?

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: Next

[Greg Duggan (Essex Town Manager)]: one, shall the town of Essex amend its charter change to charter to change the timing of approval of select board minutes? Currently, the charter says something to the effect of select board minutes shall be approved at the next select board meeting. Most of the time, that's fine, but there's instances where that's just not possible. Sometimes we'll have a special meeting, a workshop, team building session on a Saturday, and then we have a Monday know, the immediate after immediately after that, we'll have a Monday select board meeting. There's no time to put together minutes. Never mind, get them into the packet for approval. So it's really just kind of a cleanup thing, making sure that we we still try to approve them as quickly as reasonably possible will be the goal with the charter change, but just wanna make sure we're doing what we can to stay in compliance with the town charter. And sometimes it's just not possible to have the minutes approved at the next meeting.

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: Questions on that one? Representatives Waters Evans.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Does the charter specify, I'm just looking here, I'm sorry. It says it might not be ready and that you want to change the timing, but does it give a specific date that the number of days that the timing would be changed to?

[Greg Duggan (Essex Town Manager)]: No, just as soon as reasonably possible, and I'm trying to find the exact language that we have in here. It would still be in keeping with with open meeting laws. We still we still get our draft minutes posted within five days. But it was we're hesitant to put on a specific date certain just because, you know, things come up, things change. But we did want to try to get it done as soon as possible without being so limiting that we we might find ourselves in violation for whatever reason it may be.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Okay. But you're still intending to put the draft minutes up within five days?

[Greg Duggan (Essex Town Manager)]: Oh, absolutely. Yes.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Okay.

[Greg Duggan (Essex Town Manager)]: Still still planning to comply with the open meeting law in that sense.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Thank you.

[Greg Duggan (Essex Town Manager)]: Yep. And the the exact wording is that the minutes of each meeting shall be approved by the select board as soon as is reasonably possible.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Thank you. Did you have a question representative?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Yeah. I don't know if it's helpful. I think I'm not sure if I'm remembering this correctly. It might be a question for our counsel, but I thought that it doesn't really, like in law, it doesn't really matter if they're draft minutes or not. It's just that they're up as far as the compliance.

[Greg Duggan (Essex Town Manager)]: That's my understanding as well of the open meeting law, but the Essex Town charter talks about approving those minutes. And so it's beyond just the draft posting those. RDSX Select Board actually goes through, and they approve the minutes from past meetings. And so this is just looking at the approval process versus the draft minutes process.

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: Any other questions for this one? Representative Pinsonault.

[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault (Member)]: Regarding that, would it make sense to have a sentence in the charter that if a meeting, a special meeting or workshop happens to fall within five days of the next meeting, those minutes would be approved at the following meeting, so that they're not just out there in limbo and there's no deadline? That's just a thought. I understand if you have a workshop on Saturday and your next level meeting is Monday, you're not going be able to get those minutes done in time. But it would be nice to say that some stipulation that a meeting is held within so many days prior to the meeting, those minutes would be approved at the following. That's just my thought. Instead of leaving it out there with just no deadline.

[Greg Duggan (Essex Town Manager)]: I'm just trying to think through. So I just want to repeat it back to you to make sure I heard it correctly. Something to the effect of minutes shall be approved within five. I'm sorry, could you say something about within five days?

[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault (Member)]: What I'm saying is if you say that your minutes approved at the following at the next floor meeting. So my question is if there could be something saying if a special meeting or a workshop falls within five days of our next meeting those minutes will be available at the following meeting.

[Greg Duggan (Essex Town Manager)]: Well, it's outside of the at least five days. Yeah. So if it's at least five days before the next available meeting will be I think I think that's workable. I think that's the that's certainly the intent of the language that we have in there, but they shall be approved as soon as is reasonably possible. I'm not thinking of any instances where that may not be possible as long as we have those five days. Perhaps if there were holidays or something, yeah, that seems like a rarity. So I think that would be workable.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: No, thank you. I actually need to step out for a minute. Have a very time sensitive phone call I need to make. So I'm going to hand the table over to Representative Hango for a short period of time. Apologies.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Have any additional questions on number two on the timing right now for our witness? Philip? On the timing. Hey. I guess we can move on to number three.

[Greg Duggan (Essex Town Manager)]: The next one is, shall the town of Essex amend its charter to change the appointments made by the select board and the town manager? Currently, there's a section of the town charter that specifies who is appointed by the select board and who is appointed by the manager. Some of that is the cemetery commission is currently cemetery commissioners are currently appointed by the manager with approval of the select board. So it'd be shifting cemetery commission just directly to select board appointment. There's also some sections where the talks about the town manager appointing stuff like the fire wardens, fence viewers, fire chief. So trying to do some updates there. Adding the fire chief in so it'd the town manager would appoint the fire chief with the approval of the select board as opposed to just the manager directly appointing the fire chief. We removed or proposing to remove grand juror, fire wardens, fence viewers, inspector of lumber and shingles. Those currently are appointed by the manager with approval of the select board, so we would be striking those from that section and just deferring to statute if we were ever to appoint those positions.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Any questions on that? Okay. We can move on.

[Greg Duggan (Essex Town Manager)]: Okay. Next one. Shall the town of Essex amend its charter to require a mailed notice to residents regarding the availability of the town auditor's report and annual report. This is just to give us some more flexibility in how we notify and warn town meeting. Currently, the charter speaks about that speaks to mailing the town report. Currently, it says the annual town report shall be distributed to the legal voters of the town no later than thirty days prior to the annual town meeting. What happens there is that we put together an annual report each year. It includes updates from department heads, the select board, the manager, the auditor's report, our proposed budget for the coming year, proposed capital budget for the coming year, a variety of other things. It ends up being roughly an 80 page document. It costs us about 10,000 or $11,000 to print that and mail it to every single household, which is how we've always interpreted the charter. The intent is not to notify people, but the intent is to give us some more flexibility of how we do that. Anecdotally, people will go up into the post office and just find recycling bins full of the annual report. And so what we're looking for is some flexibility here is to be able to notify people that the annual report is available, whether that's a postcard, whether it's a smaller flyer, but sort of a notification that town meeting is coming up. The annual report is available online, or if you wanna pick it up at the clerk's office or have it mailed, just letting people know there's other ways to get that. We would still be creating an annual report, still making it available to voters, but looking for some more flexibility into how we make that available and how we let people know that it's available.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Questions about the motivation behind that, Rob Pinsonault?

[Rep. Sandra “Sandy” Pinsonault (Member)]: We did the same thing. Was a previous town clerk at Dorset. And when I first was town clerk twenty one years ago, we did 1,000 town reports. And then we realized that most of them were in the recycle bin at the post office. So, the following year, we did this vote and we did seven fifty. And then we had all these leftover. And we put them out in mom and pop grocery stores. We put them out in boxes at the post office. They allowed us to put them at the post office. We put them out at school. And we still had extra. So, then the following year we went to 500. We're down to printing two fifty. And we have it on our website available if somebody wants to look at it and we'll we do it in house so we can print one right out easily. But it saved a ton of money, both in time, staff, and printing costs. So I agree 100%. Every town should be doing this.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: I'm not sure many towns do mail them anymore, even my tiny town does not mail them. We just stopped not long ago, so there are a few outliers. Any questions on that one? Any more questions? Okay. Alright, then

[Rep. Leonora Dodge (Chittenden-23)]: Looks like we've got a few more.

[Greg Duggan (Essex Town Manager)]: Three more on my list. Should the Town of Essex amend its charter to amend subchapter 10 Department of Real Estate Appraisal? I'd say no real substantive changes here, but instead of calling it the Department of Real Estate Appraisal, looking to call it the assessing department. So really just kind of catching up to what we refer to as our assessment department. I guess Department of Assessment is what we have it in here, but just some changes in there to try to capture the wording that we use. Otherwise, I don't think there's anything substantive in that section.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: No objections at the moment. Right. Go ahead.

[Greg Duggan (Essex Town Manager)]: Okay. Shall the town of Essex amend its charter to remove the description of transacting business for annual meeting that is now voted on by Australian ballot? I mentioned earlier that a few years back, Essex voted to move to Australian ballot rather than floor vote for town meeting. Some of the language in the charter was specific to, I guess, in regards to having that floor vote. So it's more just catching up at this point and trying to update the charter to reflect that we're no longer doing the floor vote.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Any comments on that? No. Okay.

[Greg Duggan (Essex Town Manager)]: Okay. Lastly, shall the town of Essex amend its charter for de minimis changes that include wording, formatting, spelling? Pretty much what it says to get into a little bit more. Specifics there, my notes on that one. Basically a cleanup of the charter. Nothing substantive. We're not looking to change the meaning or context of the charter. Some examples are where the references to quote unquote board, changing that to select board. Some of the text was reworded or changed just to help with flow readability. The town attorney added a word in there to one section about contract. So just trying to improve consistency, clarity, make sure the select board is clearly referenced as opposed to the board.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Anyone

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: have anything on that? Does your vice chair have anything to say to us today?

[Kendall Chamberlain (Vice Chair, Essex Selectboard)]: Good afternoon. Thank you for that note about the town report. That's been on my list for a while. Thank you for your time.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: So, thank you. We have two representatives from the town of Essex here, and if there's no objection, would you like

[Rep. Leonora Dodge (Chittenden-23)]: to say something? Yes, Chair. Just wanted to introduce your My name is Leonora Dodge. For the record, Leonora Dodge, representative of Chittenden 23, Essex Town, part of the City Of Essex Junction. Just wanted to clarify the of, the new appointments by select board would include the cemetery commission, is that right? Okay, so we just need to cross that out in section 402, because it's right now listed as the manager appointments. It was not crossed out. So I just wanted for the record to hear whether that is what you're requesting. I think it was just an omission.

[Greg Duggan (Essex Town Manager)]: Yes, that's a good catch, thank you.

[Rep. Leonora Dodge (Chittenden-23)]: For the record, I have to credit, this was one of our select board members who actually pointed this

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: out to us, sorry. Helps to have multiple sets of eyes on a document, especially if it's a document that's really familiar to you, it may not jump out as something that needs to be changed. You all are welcome to stay and listen to the rest of the conversation. And I think we're going to be inviting up legislative council, please.

[Kendall Chamberlain (Vice Chair, Essex Selectboard)]: Can I ask a question first? No. I was trying to get clarification on what you were just

[Greg Duggan (Essex Town Manager)]: talking about.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: The, for the about the cemetery commission. That I'm trying to read the clarification on this that the select board so you want the town manager to appoint the cemetery commission or the select board to? The select board. So in the earlier section, you have listed the select board appointees, will now be

[Rep. Leonora Dodge (Chittenden-23)]: A, B, C, and D, including the cemetery commission. But unfortunately, in the old language, they were listed as being appointed by the town manager, and it just didn't get crossed out under the old language.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Okay.

[Rep. Leonora Dodge (Chittenden-23)]: Yeah, so it was added to somebody else's purview, but not removed from the original purpose.

[Kendall Chamberlain (Vice Chair, Essex Selectboard)]: Okay, that's

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: where I missed it. Thank you. I was just trying to so I was trying to find anything here. Thank you.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Alright. So, chair is yours.

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: Great. Good afternoon, everyone. Tucker Andersen, Legislative Counsel, you have in front of you, age five sixteen. These are amendments to the charter of the town of Essex. And with your permission, I would like to note, but maybe not explain, all of the technical corrections that are contained within age five sixteen. There are quite a few. This is the second time that the town of Exodus has done a comprehensive technical correction within their charter, something that legislative council always appreciates. It's time for statutory revision in the summer, and I receive the 1,200 some odd pages of Title 24 appendix and have to make quite a few notes about updating references and removing suches and whereas is and therebys. So having noted that, the operative provisions start in section two, first with the approval that you are all familiar with, noting the date that the voters approved the charter and stating the general assembly's express approval of the amendments contained within age five sixteen. We can breeze quite quickly and efficiently through pages two and three all the way to page four. We'll be working within section two zero four of the charter, which relates to the organization of town government. On page four, in subsection c, starting on line three, we have some language relating to removal of select board members. So in the event of death, resignation, change of residence outside the town, or incapacity of any select board member, the remaining members of the select board may appoint a person eligible to fill that position until the next annual or special meeting. Two things to note here. First, the change is that, if you move out of the town, then you are redeemed, removed. The position becomes vacant automatically. Another thing to note is that in this list of clauses, there are the bases for vacancy of a position. There's listed incapacity. When we get to the end of this subsection, I'll flag for you that there's mirror language, that is applied for the town moderator in subsection d, and I'll note that incapacity is not included as a basis there. At the end of this subsection, it states that incapacity shall include the failure by any member of the select board to attend at least 50% of the meetings of the select board in any calendar year. So from January 1 to midnight December 31, inside of that calendar year, if a member has not attended minimum of 50% of the meetings of the select board, that member is decapacitated for purposes of this vacancy provision in the charter. I feel like someone or myself may have asked this question previously, but refresher, is that provision in any other charters? I will absolutely look that up for you. It has definitely come up in the past. Yes. In my memory, yes, it exists, but it was also a provision that was proposed back in 2018 or 2019 in s one eighty one that house government operations considered, applying to all select board positions in the state, and it was removed from s one eighty one is perhaps what I'm confusing. Perhaps myself as well. Thank

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: you for looking into it.

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: We are time warping today. We've been all over the place. Yes. 1966 with the Freedom of Information Act, eighteen sixties with justice John Forrest Dillon. And here we are still more of 1812. Ended the clock in the hole. Go back in time, 2025, Essex Town Charter. Okay. Subsection d, the town moderator shall perform duties as prescribed by law and preside at all town meetings, reflective of general law. In the moderator's absence, the town clerk shall call the meeting to order, and the first order of business shall be the election of a moderator pro tem. Moderator shall conduct every meeting according to this charter or the laws of the state. The moderator shall preserve order in the conduct of business in the meeting, and in all things shall preserve the principles of fairness and openness in town government. We are at the top of page five. In the event of the death, resignation, or change of residence to a location outside the town, the select board may appoint a person eligible to fill that position until the next annual or special town meeting. If the select board is unable to agree upon an interim replacement until the next annual or special meeting, a special election shall be held to fill the position. This is built into the subsection that relates specifically to the town moderator. The one thing that I noted for you is that capacity is not in the list of those clauses, and, it should be noted that this vacancy language is also built in to a subsection that includes the ability the day of a meeting for bill election of a moderator pro tem. So you have a few different mechanisms here for replacing, an absent or incapacitated moderator. Okay. We can move along. We will skip through sections two zero five and two zero six subsection a at the bottom of page five because they contain technical corrections and move into subsection b of section two zero six at the top page six. You were discussing this just a moment ago. This is the subsection that states that the minutes of each meeting shall be approved by the select board as soon as is reasonably possible. This replaces language stating that it shall be approved at the next meeting. The discussion that you all just had was about the open meeting law and the time limits that are required there. I will bring you back to discussions that you had just last session when you, proposed amendments to the open meeting law. And the term approved appeared in the open meeting law related to minutes, and it was struck. That's right. And it was struck because approval is not a universal practice in this area, and there is no distinction in the law between official approved and draft minutes. So this morning, you got an overview of Dillon's rule. Right, and the way that charters are construed by the courts. Within that judicial gloss, when we are comparing general laws that are applicable to all municipal corporations and special laws that are applicable through a charter granting authority to an individual corporation, that language, that special authority, is strictly construed, and it is construed against the municipal corporation. So in this case, it is most likely that if a reviewing court were to look at a challenge, they would say, well, approval does not matter for the deadline that is applicable to all municipalities under the open meeting law. The time limit as prescribed is five days. It doesn't matter whether the select board takes the step to approve those minutes, they must be posted. So if it is the intent of the committee and this community to, supersede the open meeting law deadline requirements for the posting of minutes, my recommendation would be to update this language to be as expressed as possible so that there is only one way that it could be construed, and that is that the deadlines required under the open meeting law superseded and that the minutes will be posted when they are approved and apparently as soon as is reasonably possible. A note from the drafting manual, reasonable as a standard, unless it is more specifically articulated, is disfavored because we don't have a universally applicable definition of what is reasonable. We'll move on to page So far

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: we gone with

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: Shea Waters Evans.

[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Yes, I cannot move on. So I am wondering, so if we removed this part of the charter, then it would just stand the minutes needed to be posted within five days?

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: My testimony is that the requirements of the open meeting model will apply either way. Okay. Because this language is not sufficiently specific to supersede those deadline requirements because the deadline doesn't apply to approved versus unapproved minutes. It just states that the minutes shall be posted within five business days. So we could refine the language to speak to it more clearly within the charter itself. Right. Yes. We're gonna be within, section two zero eight related to the select board appointments. You just heard a bit about this. And, top of page seven in subdivision a six, cemetery commission comes under the appointment authority of the select board. And as you heard, there's a section later on where there's conflicting authority held simultaneously by the town manager and the select board. The committee moves forward, with the town of Essex charter amendments that can be struck in a committee. Moving along to page nine. Within that section four zero two related to the officials that are appointed by the town manager, town proposes on line nine, page nine, to add the fire chief and to remove reference to the grand juror, fire wardens, fence viewers, inspector of lumber, and shingles. I believe that I mentioned this last session, but these are some municipal positions that have been cleaned up elsewhere in general law. And largely, what you see with some of these is that municipalities that have codified charters return to the general assembly to ask to have them removed. One thing that I will put out there is that, the general assembly has given authority for municipalities to suspend charter provisions in order to use authority that is granted under general law. That lasts for three years, and in the interim period, they send a certification to the legislature requesting that their charter authority be repealed. So that is something that municipalities can use as some of these grand juror, fence viewer, inspector of lumber, and shingle positions are eliminated from general law. And if you ever want to talk about the history of fence viewers, happy to get into it. Fascinating time in Vermont's history, land rights, fences between farms. It's just the way our coal, but I don't think we've immersed ourselves in the history and the context of the inspector of lumber and shingles. That's Well, it might be as great. Yeah. A vital position at the time. It was. It's true. Alright. It was sort of problems.

[Greg Duggan (Essex Town Manager)]: And the winner.

[Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: I don't

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: want anybody sneaking rocks into the. In the latter half of section four zero two, there is some general authority that is granted here for the town manager to appoint any other officer that the select board is authorized to appoint if the select board has not filled the office within forty five days after the day the position becomes vacant. So the select board with its list of appointees has forty five days to take action. Otherwise, the town manager has concurrent authority to appoint those positions. If we are all ready to move along at high speed to page 10, section five zero one But I have a hand for representative Morgan.

[Michael Morgan (Member)]: Yeah. Tucker, does that have precedence anywhere else of the forty five? Have you seen that? It's worth I can take a look at some of the other charters, and see whether this was borrowed from existing authority or whether this is even There's Off the top of my head, I don't have having currently being one. There's great authority in that position as a select board to maintain that capability of doing that, I think. But not the town manager couldn't, but I'm just curious. Okay. Thank you. In section five zero one, appointment and removal. All town employees not elected by the voters shall be appointed, supervised, removed by the town manager unless it is otherwise specified by this charter.

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: Appointments, layoffs, suspensions, promotions, demotions, effectively any relationship between the town and an officer, and performance of duties shall be supervised in such a manner as to ensure that the responsible administrative officer may secure efficient service unless otherwise specified by this charter or state law. All right. Some updates in subchapter six, technical corrections in a few instances. In section six zero two, a substantive change related to the annual town report. You heard the summary of this earlier. Subsection a, the town select board shall employ by contract a public account to examine the financial statements of the funds of the town. The annual auditor's report shall be made available to the voters not later than thirty days prior to the annual meeting, and notification of the availability of that auditor's report shall be distributed by mail to all households at least thirty days prior to the meeting. Annual report shall be made available to the residents of the town at least ten days prior to the meeting. It's at the top of page 11. Okay. In section six zero four, we're on page 11, line four, updates to, the language related to the time of holding the annual meeting of the town. The annual meeting shall be warned and held as specified in general law. The election of officers and the voting on all questions to be decided, the budget by Australian ballot or voting required by law, shall take place on the day specified in 17 DSA section 2,680. It's the general law applicable to Australian ballot elections. We have a series of technical corrections all the way through to page 13 until we get to section 1,003 related to the appraisal of property. You heard about some of the technical ish updates to the name of the Department of Real Estate Appraisal to the Department of Assessment. At the end of section 1,003, there is new language inserted related to the Department stating that the Department shall review or cause to be reviewed appraisals of all real property in the town that is subject to taxation in accordance with the standards for appraising established by state law. So reference to general law again. In section 1,005, updated language related to the powers and duties of the Department of Assessment, states that the department shall have the same power and discharge the same duties, proceed into this charge of those duties in the same manner and be subject to the same liabilities as listers pursuant to general law. In section three, there is a repeal of a section of the charter, and that is language related to the town meeting, warning, and budget. It will now flip back to underlying general law entitled 17. Okay. Related to warnings for Australian ballot votes. This actually will take effect on passage. One thing that I noted for myself and may have elected to state out loud is that there are a few references in the replacement of officers, so pages four and five, that states that the vacancy will be filled at the next annual or special meeting. Typically, there's a time that is inserted in there, so it would be in sixty days for the next annual or special meeting that would be held within those sixty days. Here, a special meeting can be warned and held at any time throughout the year. So effectively, this is just at the discretion of the appointing officers to call a special meeting. Otherwise, it's gonna be the next annual meeting.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Any

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: questions for counsel? All right. So, thank you so much.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: We got a couple of curiosity questions on the 50%. One other thing that ref Morgan flagged. Clarify as we continue to work on this, we need to clarify the language about the minute posting.

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: And

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: those seem to be the three flags I have for now. Correct? Alright. Cool. It's a little ill, right? Any other feedback, commentary before we wrap for the day and hand it to the floor? Yes.

[Greg Duggan (Essex Town Manager)]: Thank you for the consideration and the questions, and look forward to hopefully seeing the Charter changes passed with any feedback that you have. Thank you.

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: Thank you so much for joining us. And yes,

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: we will continue to talk and work through these things, but yeah, we'll get there.

[Greg Duggan (Essex Town Manager)]: A good afternoon. Thanks.

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: You too. Thank you.