Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Alright. Welcome back, everyone. We are picking up a what was the hot word two years ago? Tranche. The Bennington charter request. That's not that great word. I know. It was so overused for a while. And with us is representative Greer Bennington, and he is the sponsor of these four charter proposals. So what I'll do for the sake of, I think, just clustering is give you an opportunity to just sort

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: of speak briefly to the proposals. All four. You can go. Awesome. Okay. So I do not remember the order in which they are assigned, but I will I have all four of them

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: in 93? 94. 95. 96.

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: I knew it was that. I just didn't know which one ninety three and 90 you know, I have not memorized that, but I have all four of them here. So 10, please. Just three.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: I can't claim it.

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: Remember? Okay. So I will so so just to go back a little bit on this. So we approved our charter, by by general Australian ballot on 03/04/2025. We had six proposals that we put on the ballot, two of which failed. But the four before you today are the ones that were voted on, and I just generally want to emphasize that the reason why I'm kind of in leading this process, I've consulted with our town's house delegation on this. I was the one that went to most of, if not all, the charter review committee meetings, the select board hearings that took place on them, and generally tried to be very informed with our community partners on all of them. So I felt that I would be able to give best perspective on the floor. So that's why I'm I'm here today. I definitely try to come in hopefully at some other point. But the amendments, or the the charter changes that we voted on is town. The first one authorizes the select floor to delegate responsibility to review materials following an investigation of a complaint against the police department. Second is providing a contract based exception to the current town charter requirement for notice cause and hearing for the removal of town manager. The third is to authorize the town to apply a 1% local option tax on non owner occupied short term rentals. And lastly, the fourth one is to establish first priority for municipal liens result. I'm more than happy to kinda detail a little bit of the rationale that I saw behind this that I compiled if that's appropriate.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Let's do that for a couple of minutes. Yes. We have a good block of time.

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: Okay. So the first charter amendment, like I said, seeks to expand the town's authority and discretion to grant the subordinate body, which in this case is our community policing advisory review board and referred to as CPARB. It's a very odd acronym. I served as vice chair of that board. But so essentially to give them further review, to have complaints, you know, and oversee the complaints once there's a formal investigation completed by the BPG Police Department. Currently, right now, our select board has the right and responsibility to review these investigations that have been directly handled by the police department. They cannot delegate this role to the subordinate body. So even though we settled a lawsuit, in '20 I believe it was '21 or '22 related to representative Chea Waters' situation involving the Bennington Police Department and other community affairs. The board was set up as part of a reparative process, and that's not necessarily what this charter amendment is in relation to, but that was the genesis of the board's establishment. But just to note, this is through some of my research that I've done to help advocate for this. Vermont's one of 18 states, which there's very different legal jurisdiction under all these that have statutes that govern community oversight of law enforcement agencies. So it is already within our statutory power to delegate more of this responsibility to towns from my understanding. I'm sure Tucker would be able to give us the absolute on that. But anyway, so just wanted to state some of that record. I'll I'll close on that unless there are any questions that I can answer. I have some more stuff, but I wanna shortstop trying to interpret.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah, I think that was a great tee up on

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: that one. Oh, perfect. Okay. So the second

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: one All right, hold on. Any questions from the table on that one before we shift over to 90?

[Rebecca (Unidentified Committee Member)]: I do. I see. So currently, Community Policing Advisory Review Board sees those tapes. They cannot. They cannot. I'm just trying to read section nine. The LFVF's responsibility to review video footage transcripts and other materials following the investigation the complaint against the police department to the existing, so they're going to allow the existing board to review them.

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: Yep. The reason existing's in there, and I've spoken about this to the charter committee along with the select board, is because if for any reason that body right now the CPAR were to dissolve or the board gets rid of it for a time and comes back with a different board where it changes from more of an advisory capacity to more of a review or potentially an oversight capacity, because there's so many variations of it, that it would that existing body covers all those different variants. Any

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: more? Any other hands on that one? Okay.

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: So I think the second charter amendment should be easy. So this is the one pertaining to the contract based exception regarding removal of the town manager. This is saying Oh, yeah. Yeah. More notches on

[Rebecca (Unidentified Committee Member)]: the Yeah.

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: Yeah. So sorry. So pertaining to the contract based exception regarding the removal of town manager, from my understanding, this is both legal precedents and also best practice was what I was told in Vermont. You will comment on that, I am sure. Sure. There's many ways to do that. But, anyway, it does exist in current statute. I I remember actually looking back at some other charters on my own. Free time, the town of Ferry approved a similar measure in 2019. I know I'm a little bit of a geek, but that's okay. But, yeah, town managers are essentially at will employees. And so, you know, with the respective municipality, you know, kind of fits into that general agreement that's made up. So I won't go into too much depth of that. I think you probably have plenty of legal expertise on that. Any questions? Questions on that one for the member?

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Rebecca?

[Rebecca (Unidentified Committee Member)]: I'm sorry, I wanted to go back to the first one. I neglected to ask this question. The Community Policing Advisory Review Board, are they appointed by some entity or elected?

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: Yep, so we're appointed. It's a non paid volunteer position. And we meet, when I was on board, we met once a month, now it's every other month, they scale back.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: And then questions on 694.

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: And remind me, that's the short term rental one.

[Rebecca (Unidentified Committee Member)]: Oh, that's

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: No. That was the one.

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: Oh, that's the just talked about. Oh, that's town manager. I'm sorry.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: I was just doubling back to that because just get back. Okay.

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: Six nine five pound. At short term rentals dot com. If I got that going. Okay. I have my order right. Okay. Good. Alright. So just like a lot of other towns have done in Vermont already, I do not have the exact number off top of my head, but the town of Bennington has requested to give the select board the option to levy a 1% tax on short term rentals that are residential properties owned for purposes of commercial activities related to lodging. So again, similar to what other municipalities have done, it's not guaranteeing the select board will levy this 1% tax, but it gives them the option to levy it in the future. I think that there was a fiscal analysis that the town did. I do not have that off the top of my head about what they would expect to collect on a 1%, additional tax. So I can try to buy that information if that's there for you. But if not, I'm sure there's some statewide data that can be used to make some estimates on methamphetamine. Any questions on that one? And the last one, okay, this one's going be a lot of fun. I will do my best to answer this as well as I can. Okay. I'm just gonna read this off the way I wrote it in a letter from a few months ago. Okay. The prioritization of municipal liens resulting from fines is an innovative approach to further regulating the housing market in the town of Bennington. Currently, Vermont's municipalities incur legal expenses related to code enforcement of properties violating environmental health and general welfare laws that are often not, how do I want to say this, often not repaid to the taxpayers. Town currently has approximately two fifty properties that are annually litigated to address violations for delinquent property tax payment or failure to comply with the town's stated code enforcement powers, which are outlined in 24 VSA Chapter 103, Appendix 102. I've spoken to several of our local financial institutions about liability and assets that may be affected by this amendment, as well as our town delegation. However, it should also be noted that there's no evidence to suggest that prioritization of liens will result in a financial net loss for any of these entities and it would remain in the interest of the town to ensure all parties are entitled to appropriate compensation. I hope that was not too legal jargon and summed it up pretty well. I see some questions on the amendment.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Over three hundred?

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: Two hundred and fifty. I forget I think when I did my notes, when I was there in the '24, I couldn't go back. I fill up journals really fast, as you can imagine. But I think it was 242 properties, but that number fluctuates quite a bit. It has gone up dramatically in the past few years, though. It used to be around, like, a 100 to a 130, and it's gone up quite exponentially from there over the past, like, five to ten years, Which was one of the reasons that I can compares to other counties Yeah.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: For, like, a per capita. Right? Yeah.

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: Well, I mean, we're 16,000 people more or less, so I don't know how that would compare to, like, a Burlington. A lot of them are also repeat violators, from my understanding, when I was several properties would be mentioned at these meetings, not trying to pick on, you know, one particular property owner, but just, anecdotally, they would reference properties that have been in violation for years. And the town really has very little in its toolbox to address some of these violators. Any questions I can answer about the intent for the bill? No, I think I'm definitely grasping what you're trying to do.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: It'd be an interesting conversation about the titles of needs.

[Rebecca (Unidentified Committee Member)]: Yes, representatives and all. So, when there's a municipal lien on a property, it goes up through foreclosure, there's a petching order, and you're asking that the municipality be put to the top.

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: So this is where it's a little convoluted. So the way the charter committee and the select board approved the language for the charter, they put in there that it would move to the top of the lien prioritization list, except yeah, so it'd be moved up to the highest position it could be, except for any VA loans or any sort of federal, I guess, any federal priorities on the lane that already exist. So it could be it would move up ahead of, I believe, a mortgage. I'm trying to remember some of the other examples that were stated, but it would move pretty much from the bottom of the barrel to closer up midway to the top.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Okay. So I was reading that correctly. I guess that every question I have is for counsel and or treat us as well. Not you. Yeah.

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: No. And I think that I would be more than happy to bring in because I know the Bank of Bennington and several other financial institutions in my area. I've spoken with them about this, spoken to people on the ground, just trying to get, you know, the people that are for it, against it. Let's try to get somewhere together. Just for the record, I love to mediate. I don't like to pick sides. I like to get all the, you juices flowing, but I'm more than happy to, you know, point them in your direction and get them to come in to testify because I think, specifically, I know the Bank of Bennington has invested a lot of time and energy in speaking with our delegation about this. I missed their most recent meeting, not because I did not wanna be there, but because of conflict of schedules, but, I know that they're really eager to talk about this.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Okay. Yeah. No. That would actually be helpful for us. If you wanna email us a list of, like, potential witnesses, that would be helpful. And perhaps maybe, like, I don't know what order we're gonna visit these Mhmm. And how quickly because they are all individual items. But if you don't mind sending us a list of folks from your community for each piece, that'd be very helpful. I got that. Yeah. And

[Rep. V.L. Coffin IV (Member)]: for me, because I'd like to see the numbers, the record of how the votes went, because you said there

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: was Yep. I can provide the we'll

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: get that from the municipality when they Yeah.

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: Yep. I I will say this, VL, they were very decisive votes on all four. Alright.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Anything else for the member?

[Rebecca (Unidentified Committee Member)]: No. It's for the council. Yep.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: That's accurate. You're free. Thank you.

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: Alright, good afternoon. Tucker Andersen Legislative Counsel. We will go through these in order. That is alright with the committee, starting with six ninety three. For each of these, you'll note that section one is exactly the same. It states the general assembly's approval and the date on which the charter proposals were approved by the voters of the town of Bennington. I will not go over section one again for the next rebills. Section two of h six ninety three amends section three zero three of the town of Bennington charter, which relates to the powers of the select board. In addition to the powers otherwise conferred by law, the select board member shall also have power to, in Subdivision 9, delegate the responsibility to review video footage, transcripts, other materials following an investigation of a complaint against the police department to the existing Community Policing Advisory Review Board or to another board established by the select board to replace the Community Policing Advisory Review Board. Based on some of the discussion we had earlier, just wanna clarify for future purposes because it's not a legal issue here that whenever the term existing is used in statute, it points to a specific place in time when we are talking about entity. It is talking about exclusively the entities that existed at the time that the act was passed. So if it was intended, this would also allow the select board to delegate this responsibility to successor boards. This could have been drafted just to state that this could be delegated to the CPARB or its successor. Again, there are no issues here to my legal lens because the clause that follows says that it can be delegated to another board established to replace the CPA RB.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: So does this advisory review board, do they have disciplinary authority? Is strictly just like opinion offering as the process processes?

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: I am not certain. I can look that up and I don't believe based on work that I did for June before that there's another place in the Bennington Charter where the CPA RB is referred to. So that would likely be a matter of, ordinance or, policy at the local level. I saw the member.

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: Representative Bennington.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Remind me your question, because I can answer that. Is the Community Policing Advisory Review Board, like, do they have disciplinary authority with this process, it's just advisory? It's just advisory. Okay. And then they defer that to the town manager for review? Or So the police department

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: would do an internal investigation. Town town manager would oversee it. I cannot quote you exactly what the Slack board. I believe the Slack board goes into private, deliberate Exactly. Okay.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Gotcha. I think that clears up my question. Anything for Tucker on this one? Seeing no hands.

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: Moving along to 694. If you're looking at page two, in section two of six ninety four, section four zero six of the Bennington charter amended to allow the town to include in its contract with a particular town manager, the ability to modify the general requirement for ninety days written notice from the select board prior to removal without cause. So already the town has authority to remove without cause, but that requires ninety days written notice. The new language that is added allows the contract with the town manager to modify that notice period. Okay.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: So, it would just sort of expedite

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: departure if all parties agree. Depending on how the contract is modified, lengthen the notice period. Yep. It's up to the bargaining between the officer and the town.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Any point of contract provisions in a charter?

[Rep. V.L. Coffin IV (Member)]: Any questions for council on that one? No. Just yeah. Please represent Coffin. Making sure I have that clear that it would be less it's modified in the contract, they would have a ninety day based on the charter.

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: That is correct. Okay. That's Something that is perfectly unclear about, some of these official positions at the municipal level is, how appointed officers are treated from the perspective of whether they are truly, officers or whether they are employees, given the context. So this clause, as the chair pointed out, seems to point more in the direction of this is an employment provision, not a statutory requirement for a removal process for an officer. If you recall, this has come up in a few other charters recently, including the town of Waterbury, where the question was posed, are we dealing with an employee of the municipal corporation, or are we dealing with an appointed officer that has certain security around their removal and the removal process. Is this officer being removed or are they being terminated? It's an interesting legal question, one that is not resolved elsewhere in Vermont law right now and certainly not within the four corners of the charter proposal before you.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Seeing no hands. None. Alright.

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: Okay, next one. Six ninety five on page two, section five eleven of the charter is amended to allow the select board to impose a 1% tax on non owner occupied short term rentals. Something to note here is that, the local option tax procedures require majority vote of the town before there is the imposition of the tax. Something to understand procedurally about how this would be implemented in the future would be contingent on a vote to approve. This would likely be interpreted as an additional tax if the rooms tax is already being applied to these rentals. Another thing to note about the way that this is structured is that the language is not precise as to whether this is being applied to the rental fees that are collected by the owner or the total value, like what the consumer pays for the rental or biggest option, the way that this is phrased may be ambiguous enough to indicate that it's a 1% local option tax on the actual rental as in the unit. Something to keep in mind is that anywhere where the charter is not specific in controlling, it will be backfilled by general law. So, it might be of value to the committee to take a look at the title 18 provisions that define what a short term rental is and what the state law requirements are for short term rentals.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah. I think that's a good point. Just giving you these other conversations around that that are kicking around. So yeah. So I mean, you addressed it, but the note I took while the member was there was how does this request because we exempted local option taxes and municipalities, but this looks like it would fall into the above and beyond existing category. Okay, I just wanted to clarify that. So,

[Rebecca (Unidentified Committee Member)]: is this only if this was approved, this 1% tax on non owner occupied short term rentals, would only be approved because they already have the 1% sales tax? So another tenant couldn't come in and ask for this without having the 1%?

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: They certainly could, but it would have to go through the charter.

[Rebecca (Unidentified Committee Member)]: Right, through the charter.

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: For this specific application. So local option taxes have been allowed to be adopted generally under 24 VSA section 138. That was a change that was made last biennium. The Department of Taxes has discretionary authority to cap the number of municipalities that are allowed to adopt a local option tax in any given year to five, but that's discretionary. And I can provide you with more information on how this may or may not apply, to certain types of shorter term rentals and thank you for bringing up one of the clauses that I didn't touch upon, is non owner occupied. So this won't apply universally to short term rentals, but only those where there is not a, homestead owner residing on the property in the property.

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: Bringing back on memories, house Wow,

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: that's a flood. Alright, yeah, let's definitely do that one on that subject matter. That'd be fabulous. Yeah.

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: Alright. Six ninety six amendments section eight zero seven of the town charter. It's all new language and deals with the priority of municipal liens. Start by throwing out that there's a lot of different liens that can be applied to real property and what is being dealt with here are judgment. And I know that there are few other proposals that are either on the wall or that the committee has heard related to, tax liens that can be applied to property within, specific components of municipal authority under 24 BSA section 2,291. So specifically, when you have uninhabitable property that has been impelled to be repaired, it's attached to title 32 tax lien authority. That's not what you're dealing with here. You are dealing with a fine or civil penalty that has remained unpaid and then goes through a court process similar to other debts where the court issues a judgment lien, often given lower priority than other encumbrances on the title to real property. Alright. Filing of a notice of lien resulting from a judgment by a court of confident jurisdiction for fines. They're calling out specifically fines. I will note that because there is a distinction in 24 VSA section nineteen seventy one and throughout 24 VSA section twenty two ninety one between fines, which are criminal and penalties, civil money penalties, which are civil. In an enforcement proceeding under the town's land use regulations, property maintenance ordinance, or housing, building, and life safety ordinance shall have priority in law over any other lien having priority in time. So these move to top of the pile. The underlying enforcement lien shall remain a valid and subsisting lien upon the property until the fines are fully paid or otherwise discharged, but not longer than eight years from the date of judgment unless it's renewed pursuant to state law. When is this triggered and when does it become important? It's triggered and becomes important when there is a foreclosure or potentially a tax sale on the property. The reason being is bankruptcy, foreclosure, or tax sale, creditors are going to be paid out in the order of priority of their liens. So if the municipality moves us to the top, they get paid first. Takes priority for example, or over, mortgage lenders. There are some specific provisions in state law. I can point you to one example under special assessments where municipal liens are deprioritized expressly to fall below, mortgage liens. I was curious about that. So I can share those with you and point them out. I can also point you to the title 12 provisions around, judgment liens broadly, which this would fall under. Okay. Well, if

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: we take this up for further, I would definitely like to educate myself more so on the process for business.

[Rebecca (Unidentified Committee Member)]: I can see the logic behind this, but I'm curious to see what the banking industry says.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: You're going to be both.

[Rebecca (Unidentified Committee Member)]: First spot, the first place to go. I definitely think it should be above mechanical liens or anything, any lower liens. But when it comes to the first mortgage, have a hard time giving it to the bank to get that spot up.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I was just going to say, is this going to set a precedent if we pass this? Are there any other towns, municipalities who have done this Representative Gruj shaking his head now?

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: Not that I'm aware of, but I will remind you, second time in the session, pure, strict, Dillon's rule state, there is no such thing as precedent that would be binding on future committees. Just because one municipality has authority under a special law that does not bind you to humor requests for the same authority in the future, it is at your discretion to provide special powers and authorities to individual municipal corporations.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: K. Mine was more just like we can bring someone in and testify to answer some of the questions we're bringing if we just if you knew, like, Lyndonville does it this way, whatever. Sounds like no.

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: I'm not aware of that. No.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Never mind. Yeah. Like, you know, like, precedent versus pattern recognition.

[Rebecca (Unidentified Committee Member)]: Right, yeah, We return next year with 20 different charter chains. Okay. Just curious if either of you know how much money this would mean for the municipalities or how often this happens, I guess.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: I guess it's like a muni question if we go that far with this one.

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: One informal comment? I'm waiting. Three or

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: four of the record,

[Unidentified Bennington Representative (charter sponsor)]: if I'll get back to the camera. We've got an estimate of what the legal fees on those $2.50 estimated properties per the town. Can't the number off the top of my head. I believe it was 6 figures for our town budgets

[Tucker Andersen (Legislative Counsel)]: It was maximum enforcement under current law. It could be potentially out there for any municipality, not just Bennington. The fine could be up to $800 per offense, which could be broken down particularly when you're talking about certain forms of bylaw infractions on a per day or per period basis. So multiply that by the number of violations and interest accumulates on judgment liens as well when you have a judgment from a court.

[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Anything else, counsel, on this? Conscious of time with the floor creeping up on us. Alright. Thank you for that, Sorry for proposals. Wrapping up for the day after the floor. We'll just call it a little bit more study all the time to work on assignments people. And then we're back at it 9AM tomorrow. And that is, I think, the identity verification conversation. We have a bunch of industry coming in, and have impacted me a member of the impacted family. So with that, that's a wrap of MidiWare, folks. Well done. Thanks. You can dig us off.