Trustees Meeting 7/8/24

Web version

 SWANTON VILLAGE BOARD OF TRUSTEES

SWANTON VILLAGE MUNICIPAL COMPLEX

120 FIRST STREET

SWANTON, VT 05488

REGULAR MEETING

Monday, July 8, 2024

7:00 PM

PRESENT: David Winchester, Village President; Eugene LaBombard, Trustee; Suzie Kelleher, Trustee; William “Bill” Sheets, Village Manager; Dianne Day, Village Clerk; Duane Couture, Electric Foreman; Edward Daniel, Chevon Cooper and Ch. 16. Via Teams: Adam Paxman, Trustee.

To watch this meeting in its entirety, go to Northwest Access TV on YouTube. Unless otherwise noted, all motions carried, unanimously.

1. Call to Order:

David Winchester, Village President, called the Village Board of Trustees meeting to order at 7:00 p.m.

2. Pledge of Allegiance:

Everyone in attendance stood for the Pledge of Allegiance.

3. Agenda Review:

None.

4. Public Comment:

Chevon Cooper said she had a question about the Board going into executive session at their last meeting regarding 124 First Street. She said she attended part of that meeting virtually and said if she hadn’t read the meeting minutes she wouldn’t have known about the executive session. She said she was led to believe that if an action was taken during executive session it needed to be included in the recording. Dianne Day, Village Clerk, said that wasn’t necessary and that if the board goes into executive session anyone in the room has to leave and all recordings need to stop. She said a lot of the time the board will let the videographer know it’s ok to leave and if there’s any action taken it will be in the minutes. She said it's not necessary that the camera always stays. Eugene LaBombard asked about some changes in the open meeting laws and asked if that affected us. Dianne said yes effective July 1^st they now have to post a recording of the meeting on their website as well as a few other changes. Chevon said the action taken was to sign a contract with Weimann & Lamphere for $325,000 for architectural design and services for 124 First Street to be paid for by the electric department. She said she assumes the plan moving forward would be to build a new electric department over there. She said she thought there would be more information and discussion on that like they did for the public safety facility. Bill Sheets, Village Manager, said this contract covers all the architectural design from beginning to end on the electric department building and it’s at least two to three years away from happening. He said there will be public information sharing and things like that. He said the first step is the contract and design and he said they have about 80% of all the civil work done on that site because of the Public Safety building. He said they will need them to design anywhere from a 12 to 14 thousand square foot building. He said once they start to get the design down and the Trustees approve it then they can start having public informational meetings. He said people are reaching out and saying that’s a lot for just design, he said this is for everything from preconstruction management until the project is done. Chevon asked if something happened, and they didn’t move forward, how much would they need to pay the architects. Bill said only up to what they’ve used. Adam Paxman said the open houses for the public safety building were very poorly attended. He said he would like to hope that once they hold public informational meetings for this people will actually show up and not just complain on Facebook about it. He said he would prefer a face-to-face discussion. David Winchester said that is a good point, but people are doing everything now through the internet. Chevon said some of the meetings had pretty good attendance and said she uses social media for information sharing as well. David Winchester said he would have liked this topic to have been included on the agenda so that the public could attend. Suzie Kelleher said they have discussed in the past what they would do if the public safety facility didn’t pass. She said there is still a space issue that needs to be solved. She said they discussed moving the electric department to the asset they already have because it wouldn’t burden the taxpayers. She said the ratepayers will be affected and that is a much bigger pool of people, 4000 ratepayers versus 1000 taxpayers. David said he agrees financially that having ratepayers pay is a better deal than the taxpayers. He said he still isn’t sure that needed to be in executive session and they could have just discussed it openly with the public. Bill said that is the Trustees call on whether or not they want an executive session. More discussion took place about having public informational meetings and presenting the public with as much information as possible. Suzie Kelleher stated the conversation they are having now should have been warned properly on the agenda so other interested parties could have attended. She said they are now doing exactly what they had an issue with. David said he thought they agreed when they came on board that they put off doing anything with 124 First Street for a while. Suzie disagreed and said they agreed to look in house to see what they thought was the best plan to move forward with and then Bill would come to them to say what he had decided with department heads. She said that is what they agreed to. Chevon said it would have been a good idea to have held a public meeting to talk about what they planned on doing next door. She said that’s why people are getting upset. She talked about the bond vote that would be needed for this. Bill said as of 2019 the electric department would not need voter approval for a bond on this project. He said it would be an electric department expense. Bill said once they have a little bit of design work behind them, they will present it to the public.

5. Ed Daniel, Past Village President and Trustee Presentation:

Suzie Kelleher read the following plaque to Mr. Edward Daniel: The Swanton Village Board of Trustees, Management and Employees would like to recognize Edward F. Daniel for his 12 Years of Service to the Village of Swanton as Trustee and 3 Years of Service as Village President. Thank you, Ed, we appreciate your many years of service to the Village of Swanton.

Village Trustee 1977 – 1989

Village President 1996–1998

Ed thanked the Board and said it’s been a good 45 years that he’s been involved. He said it’s been a good time and an educational time. He said he enjoyed working with the many youngsters at the school teaching local government. He said one of the girls in class asked if she could take an annual report home to read and he said of course. He said the next day her father came in yelling at him. Ed said he asked him what was wrong and he said look at this, my daughter was reading this book last night and my name is in the book for not paying my taxes!! He said they had a lot of good times and talked about the many organizations he has served on. The Board thanked Ed for his service to the community.

6. Approve and Accept Minutes from the Monday, June 24, 2024 meeting as presented:

Adam Paxman made the motion to approve Minutes from the Monday, June 24, 2024 meeting as presented. Eugene LaBombard seconded the motion. Discussion: None. Motion carried.

7. Approve and Accept Village Warrants through Wednesday, July 3, 2024:

Suzie Kelleher made the motion to approve Village Warrants through Wednesday, July 3, 2024 as presented. Eugene LaBombard seconded the motion. Discussion: Suzie Kelleher asked about the payment made to VMERS DB in the amount of $163,806.03. Dianne Day, Village Clerk, stated that was employee and employer retirement contributions paid to VMERS. She said she thought it was a quarterly payment but would find out for sure and let the board know. Motion carried.

8. Swanton Village Electric Department Update with Duane Couture:

Duane Couture was present for this meeting and began his Power Point Presentation. He first showed the Swanton Village Electric Organization Chart as follows: Al Mosher, Electrical Engineer; Duane Couture, Line Foreman; Daren Plouff, Lead Lineman; Marc Longway, Meters; Jody Benoit, 1^st Class Lineman; Tanner Benoit, 1^st Class Lineman; Paul Bouchard, Lineman Apprentice; and Nathan Parent, Lineman Apprentice.

He then talked about his departments responsibilities and supplying and maintaining power lines.

• Supplying power to roughly 4,000 customers and maintaining the substation and power lines for transmission and distribution
• Electric Meters
• Providing mutual Aid to local and non-local power companies during times of natural disaster, i.e. wind, snow, ice storms.
• Maintaining a safe work environment

• Maintaining existing lines
• Line improvements
  • Moving power lines to increase power reliability (moving cross country lines closer to roadside)
• Manage tree trimming to minimize tree related issues
• Building new lines as needed
• Creating Cost Estimates for New Customers
• Ensuring equipment is well maintained and in working order
• Ensuring a safe work environment by providing continuous safety training and ensuring working gear is in compliance with regulations and policy

Duane also explained how his department maintains their approximately 4000 customers electric meters.

• Maintaining the existing current metering system, physically reading meters for approximately 4000 customers each month
• Doing disconnects for non-payers as well as reconnects
• Swanton Village Electric is currently working to integrate a new smart metering system which will feed the data from the meter back to the metering system eliminating the need to physically read the meter. It will also integrate with the Mapping system which will allow for outage management.

Duane discussed Swanton Village’s Mutual Aid, Support and Safety:

• Swanton Village Electric provides mutual aid support to local and non-local power companies during times of natural disaster. 
• Currently Swanton collaborates with Enosburg for on-call responsibilities supporting both utilities.
• Maintains required safety training by providing monthly safety training sessions to include pole top rescues.
• Ensures yearly CPR certifications are maintained.
• Ensures work gear and equipment (rubber gloves, sleeves, bucket trucks) are in compliance with required regulations, policy and standards for electric companies.

Duane showed his upcoming projects to the Board as well:

• Continuing to upgrade the system by:
  • Replacing aged poles within the system
  • Moving cross country lines roadside to increase reliability and decrease repair time
  • Looking to put distribution lines underground wherever it is fiscally responsible
  • Implementing the Geographic Information System (GIS) to allow for the tracking of aged equipment and plan for replacements and upgrades.
• Installation of the AMI electronic metering system as well as upgrading the water meters to remote reads.
• In conjunction with regular tree trimming, we are addressing the impact that the Emerald Ash Bore is having on Ash within our system which has also increased the cost of the tree trimming.

He then showed some of the Challenges facing his department:

• Keeping the rates as low as possible while continuing to improve and upgrade the electric system keeping it reliable.
• Getting materials, equipment and services timely.
• Increased costs of materials, equipment and services due to inflation.

The Board thanked Duane for his presentation.

9. Swanton Village Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary Coin Drop Request for July 2024:

Dianne Day, Village Clerk, stated both dates in June that were previously approved for the Ladies Auxiliary coin drops were rained out. She said they are requesting new dates in July which are Saturday, July 13, 2024 with a rain date of Saturday, July 20, 2024, from 9 a.m. to 12 noon. Eugene LaBombard made the motion to approve Swanton Village Fire Department Ladies Auxiliary coin drop for Saturday, July 13, 2024 with a rain date of Saturday, July 20, 2024. Suzie Kelleher seconded the motion. Motion carried with two yays, one nay (Adam Paxman).

10. Village Manager Update:

Missisquoi River Crossing:  G.W. Tatro kicked off this project on June 24th, and they are making great progress in advance of the drilling sub-contractor arriving onsite around mid-July. They should have most of the work from Canada Street and then onto Webster Terrace completed by then. The boat launch is now officially closed.

Note:  We placed a flyer created by the contractor, G.W. Tatro, warning Foundry Street residents that access to and from Foundry Street will be difficult tomorrow, July 9^th, from 0700 to 1700 hours, while that crew works on the new water line. Public Works also went door to door to hand out those same flyers.

Dianne Day:  Dianne just completed 25 years of Exemplary service to the Village of Swanton.

B-6 Bridge update:  July 10^th is the start date for this project. All eleven variable message boards have been deployed. As promised, Public Works Supervisor Dean Ryan was able to ride along the detour route with Swanton resident Roger Ladieu with a 53-foot tractor trailer. We are moving one stop bar back as a result, but all turns can be made with limited difficulty. We have deployed flashing LED solar lights on the sharp curve located on South River Street. We are deploying three temporary traffic control signals for Beebe Road and Route 7, for three-way traffic control. Those will be operational on Wednesday morning. At 0430 hours on Wednesday our Public Works team will begin the process of getting the detour route ready for the contractor. Our Police Department will be supporting that initiative. You will continue to see equipment and barricades staged near the bridge to make the closure as seamless as possible on Wednesday. Our Police Department will have dedicated personnel throughout this project, traffic calming will be a priority. We are still waiting for L & D Line Striping to paint fog lines on South River Street. This was anticipated to have been completed by the start of bridge construction on Wednesday. Suzie Kelleher stated that downtown businesses will be open during this bridge construction and she urged residents to support them.

Note:  We did receive another structures grant for $200,000, not the $175,000 that we anticipated.

6 South River Street:  The Request for Proposals (RFP) was due back on July 1^st. We received one proposal from Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity.

Wastewater:  The apparent low bidder is Kingsbury Construction, pending final review by the State of Vermont. The new centrifuge is on site, we will make that portion of the project a priority as soon as we receive final approval.

Hydro:  We are still waiting for the water levels to go down before installing the new control ring on Unit 1. Our generation numbers are ahead of last year at this point. Handout:  We are over 1.6 million Kw’s above last year. Eugene LaBombard asked when the Hydro plant would de-water. Bill said he thought by the end of July or early August.

11. Any Other Necessary Business:

Suzie Kelleher gave an update on the Promote Swanton meeting they held on June 28^th. She said they are going to focus on making a brochure and will work with the Chamber of Commerce on a website. She said their next meeting will be on August 12^th at 5 p.m. Suzie also mentioned the Wear Blue to Remember 5K being held Saturday at the Recreation department at 5 p.m. She said this is in remembrance of all fallen servicemen and women. She wanted to remind everyone about the Block Party to be held on July 26^th and the Car Show being held in the Village Green on Saturday, July 27^th from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. She also mentioned the Corn Fest 5K being held on August 10^th at noon with the Corn Fest event taking place afterwards. Adam Paxman also mentioned the Citizens Band will play in the Village Green on July 29^th.

12. Executive Session to Discuss Contracts:

Suzie Kelleher made the motion, seconded by Eugene LaBombard, to go into Executive Session at 8:45 p.m. to discuss contractual issues where premature general public knowledge of the subject matter would place the Village at a substantial disadvantage. Motion carried with three yays.

Suzie Kelleher made the motion, seconded by Eugene LaBombard, to exit executive session at 9:27 p.m. Motion carried.

ACTION TAKEN: None.

13. Adjournment:

Adam Paxman made the motion to adjourn the Regular Meeting of the Board of the Trustees meeting at 9:28 p.m. Eugene LaBombard seconded. There being no further business at hand, David Winchester, Village President, adjourned the meeting at 9:28 p.m. Motion carried.

_____________________________________             _______________________________________

David Winchester, Village President                  Date

__________________________ ________         ____________________________________

Dianne Day, Village Clerk                                Date