Selectboard Minutes
Regular Meeting of Monday January 23, 2023 at 7:00 PM
At South Hero Town Hall and via Zoom
Board Members Present: David Carter/Chairman, Skip Brown/Board Secretary, Ross Brown/Vice Chairman (arrived at 7:04), Chuck Hulse, Anne Zolotas (via Zoom)
Board Members Not Present:
Others Present: Kim Julow, Treasurer, Naomi King, Town Clerk and Martha Taylor-Varney, ZA. Also see sign in sheet of in person and Zoom attendees. *Attendance SB 2023-01-23-2023
1. Called to Order:
-The meeting was called to order by Chairman David Carter at 7:00 pm
2. Adjustment to Agenda:
-Change NRPC Contract to NRPC Letter in New Business A.
3. Minutes:
-Chuck Hulse made a motion to acknowledge the minutes of January 9, 2023. The motion was seconded, all in attendance at the meeting so voted and the motion carried.
4. Public input:
A. none at this meeting
5. New Business:
A. Martha explained that the contract for the scoping is premature. VTrans needs a letter first that the Selectboard approves Greta Brunswick of NRPC as project manager for the Scoping study. Chuck Hulse made a motion to approve hiring Greta Brunswick of NRPC as project manager for the sidewalk scoping study. The motion was seconded, all in attendance at the meeting so voted and the motion carried. Once the letter is accepted by VTrans, then Skip Brown will sign the contract in for the Selectboard.
B. Treasurer Kim Julow reviewed the Road and Town budgets. The final figures have now been approved and these budgets will be included in the Town Report and will be voted on at Town Meeting.
6. Administrative Assistant Report:
A. See the written report filed with these minutes (Below on the website or in Town Hall).
7. Old and Ongoing Business:
A. Possible articles to include with the Town Report were discussed.
-Petitions from a group of citizens about reducing the size of certain zoning districts were presented to the Selectboard. David Carter read the articles on the petition as presented. See attached *Zoning Change Petition 2023. David Carter made a motion to include the articles in the Town Report to be voted on at Town Meeting on March 7, 2023. The motion was seconded, and then there was discussion about these articles:
The Board has reviewed the petitions and has sought legal council from VLCT and received a determination from the Town attorney about whether they would be binding or advisory. See attached * Dinse Letter to South Hero Selectboard The legal opinion states that public hearings before any votes on zoning updates are necessary, so that the articles will be advisory only. Bob Fireovid thought that the Planning Commission (PC) should hold public hearings before a vote. The petitions were presented to the Selectboard, not the PC. Therefore, it is up to the Selectboard to decide on a vote. If the vote is affirmative, then the PC and Selectboard will hold public hearings about these articles. After the discussion, all in attendance at the meeting so voted and the motion carried to include the articles on the March 7, 2023 vote. After the vote, the chairman of the PC, Sandy Gregg, read a letter stating that the PC is not in favor of the articles. See attached *PC Letter for SB.1.23.23. There were comments from people in the room and the chat function from the Zoom attendees. David Carter read the chat comments. Note that the chat comments are basically directed to and about the PC, but this is a Selectboard meeting. The comments were copied, but unfortunately some comments are missing. See attached for the comments that were copied*zoom chat comments partial 1-23-2023. Note that the meeting was filmed and that the meeting can be seen on www.lcatv.com.
B. There will be a special Selectboard meeting on January 30, 2023 at 7:00 pm to finalize the Town Report and to sign the warrants.
8. Announcements and Communications:
A. See other business
9. Other Business:
A. Ross Brown made a motion to approve and sign orders 23-14 and to pay the bills associated with the orders. Plus David Carter presented a bill for approval from Donald Hamlin for work on Kibbe Point Rd. The motions were seconded, all in attendance so voted and the motions carried.
B. Town Clerk/Treasurer updates: The Town Report is being finished up. The informational Town Meeting will be at Folsom Educational and Community Center on March 4th and the Australian ballot vote will be on March 7, 2023.
C. Recreation Commission (RC) update: none at this meeting.
D. Road Department update: Kudos to the road crew for the work on the roads during the snow the last 2 weeks.
E. Old South Hero Meeting House (OSHMH) project: The committee met with congressional representatives for a walkthrough of the building. The meeting was informative and the committee learned a lot of information (see the minutes from the committee on southherovt.org). After the meeting, it was decided that if a bond is voted on at this time, the certain grants will be ineligible. The consensus of the Board is to authorize an advisory article be voted on at Town Meeting for a feasibility study about moving the Town offices to the Old South Hero Meeting House property. Final wording of the article will be available at the next meeting.
F. ARPA fund updates: The Selectboard should plan on beginning public hearings after Town meeting about the use of the funds.
G. Wastewater update: Letters have gone out to see if test holes can be dug on certain properties to see if there are areas for small community septic capacity. Test holes may be dug in the spring at approved sites.
10. Adjournment:
-Chuck Hulse made a motion to adjourn 8:20 pm. The motion was seconded, all in attendance so voted and the motion carried.
Respectfully submitted, Approved by,
_______________________________ ________________________________
Graham Brown, Secretary David Carter, Chairman
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Administrative Officer’s Report to Selectboard January 23, 2022
1. I have contacted Jon Kaplan of the Vermont Agency of Transportation for additional information and an
application for a Vermont Bicycle and Pedestrian study for the Apple Island/Featherbed Lane area of
RT 2. The applications for this grant are due in April.
2. I have confirmed with NEMRC that South Hero has agreed to purchase their zoning module and am
scheduling a meeting with their rep to begin the process of training and converting data. The one-time
charge for the module is $1795. Estimated costs to convert data will be $145. Additional training of 1 to
2 hours will be $145 to $290. NEMRC told me that the training and data conversion could be paid now
and the cost for the module billed in July 2023.
3. I received an email today (1/23) from Stephen Hilfiker of VHB saying that they were able to successfully
test 7 of the 10 supply wells on Thursday, Jan. 19, and had sent the samples to the lab. They Have
been unable to secure permission form 3 of the landowners but collected samples from “spatially
representative locations” base on the results of the geologic survey. They anticipate receiving results
from the lab in the next month and will be reporting to the Selectboard soon after that.
4. I attended a virtual seminar on Thursday, Jan 19 about the updated FEMA maps that have been in
development for the past several years. South Hero is currently still using the paper map from June
1978. Updated maps will be digital. Areas in the southern and middle counties of Vermont have
already been updated and are available online. Maps for Grand Isle county are tentatively scheduled to
be ready for review during Winter 2023. Once the maps are released, FEMA asks that communities
hold work map meetings to review the maps and provide feedback. I will let the Selectboard know once
the Grand Isle County maps are ready for review.
5. There will be a virtual On-Site Monitoring for the South Hero Bayview Crossing Implementation Grant
that I will be attending in February (no confirmed date yet). This is a final meeting to make sure that all
policies and procedures pertaining to VCDP Grants have been fulfilled. The Town’s responsibilities
include policies related to Civil Rights, Equal Opportunity Employment, and Fair Housing. Also
included will be Financial Management policies, including Internal Control, Cash Management/Draw-
down Procedures, Accounting Records for CDBG expenditures, Accounting records, and audit reports.
I believe that these policies are all included in the Town’s Financial Policies?
6. I have received 4 letters of interest and resumes for the Town Administrator position. Deadline for
application is Feb. 1. A selection committee made up of Town Office personnel, a Lister, and a
representative from the Selectboard has been proposed. Recommended participants are Town Clerk
Naomi King, Treasurer Kim Julow, Selectboard member Chuck Hulse, and one of the Listers.
Planning Commission
2023 Town Plan discussion – NRPC presented a Town Plan Draft of the Table of Contents, Introduction, and
Land Use section of the Plan to the PC at their Jan 18 meeting. Time restrictions due to the meeting time limit
of 2 hours (PC Rules of Procedure) prevented the continued discussion on the proposed “village
neighborhood” district. The agenda for the Feb 1 meeting will include time limits for discussion to allow for all
agenda items to be presented. The workplan for the Town Plan is on a strict timeline to allow for enough time
for review and edits to the document and required public hearings before the August 2023 deadline for
adoption.
Development Review Board
There are no hearings scheduled for the month of January. The deadline for hearing applications for the
February 8 th meeting was last week.
Respectfully submitted, Martha Taylor-Varney, ZA and Asst. to the Selectboard.