 Okay. Carol here. And more in our city council rep. Welcome. You don't want to make a motion to approve the minutes. I move that we approve these minutes. I will second. All in favor. Hi. Any opposed. All right. Good evening. Good evening. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Okay. Getting the rest of them that the September meet first meeting was just Cameron and I discussed it. It was just the two of us. So there was no quorum and we adjourned. And so I can get that more. Those are off my desk. But. My goodness. No, thank you guys. So we left our last meeting. or a lot of, you know, meetings in the interim. Does anyone want to start with any report backs? Yeah, I think I actually sent them out. I thought I had missed the meeting. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I was away. I've been away a lot the last few. So anyway, I think you may have, does that send to everybody or just to you? Yeah, I think that was the rule, right? You have to share with everybody. Okay. So there's nothing, nothing new there. If you read them, you know what I have to say. If not, I can report it. Does anyone need me to go through these again? I think that would be helpful. Yeah. So I have telephone conversation with Kate Nicolay at CV, Central Monk Adult Basic Education, CVABE, about their LEP program. They're still doing English as a second language, only now at the Montpelier Center, but they do some classes live, a few classes live and they do some work on Zoom as well. They have an English language teacher in Montpelier. The program is available to anyone age 16 or over. If they're not enrolled in a school. So the focus is really on adults. They do some class small groups, but they do also a lot of one on one. And they may be doing more larger groups when if the COVID emergency passes. In addition to the teacher, they use hot tutors. And this is CVABE's way of working. They use tutors from the community a lot. And then those tutors are not necessarily trained as tutors, but they get, they get some in service, but they mostly supplement what the instructor is doing not to substitute for it. Currently there are about just, there are about 15 people enrolled. And again, that's low because of the COVID pandemic. Excuse me. Sorry, that's me coughing Michael. Sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. I'm just looking here in my notes. So. And the other reason that they're having problems with attendance is because a lot of people doing work. We're doing and I guess still are doing homeschooling. I have some connection with St. Michael's college in Colchester because say, Mike's has a program, the degree program in teaching English as a second language. I've forgotten what it's called now, but anyway, they do have, they do make, have connections there. And they say get students to come and serve as teachers in their own program and they get some students doing volunteer work. So as I said, there's, it's based on adults, there's no fee for any students. And looking forward to sort of picking up where they've been, where they had to leave off. And Kate was saying she'd be happy to have more conversation with people who want to, you know, to connect with them about from our group. That didn't seem to be anything more that they needed from us. Maybe to help with advertising. So that's my report on that part. Any questions on that or next steps that we should take. The only thing I can think of is. You know, as they're, as we explore. Making city services and information more accessible to non English. Speakers LEP folks. Would they be a resource for. How to do that with this community of folks, whether it's translation services that we might need or. Best practices for. You know, producing material in different languages. So I don't think there's anything too specific, but it sounds like they might be able to be a resource to point us in the right direction if we need it. I guess so. I mean, in one respect, they're under staff. There's one, one teacher. I don't know how much we would want to lean on any one person to do this. But obviously they are. They know how to communicate with people who have limited English. capability. I mean, that was not, there was no, no suggestion from Kate, you know, come to us if you have any questions. But if you need some help, but she certainly invited, you know, further further discussion. So we could do that. So what's the most common foreign language. She didn't tell me that. Okay. And I didn't ask so. Yeah, maybe we can start that. You know, what is the first one, second one. Because Jeremy suggested translation, which is I think good idea. So if you know which other languages are being spoken in Montpilers in addition to. English, maybe we can find volunteers. Who know like good English and help us to translate. I can get back to her about that. I definitely have reached out to the schools as well to try to figure that out. And it's interesting because there isn't any one like overarching other language, like second language, there's a lot of like smaller groups. And so that gets a little tricky when it comes to translation in Spanish. I'm not saying we can't do it. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying it's not like. You know, in North Carolina, the second language is very clearly Spanish. Everyone speaks Spanish. Most everyone speaks Spanish. And so here it's a little different. And I think that it's going to take. Work and I think that getting them to be a resource would be really helpful to me to, you know, as staff to try to like. At least make posters of like, if this is the language you need to speak, you know, I think it's going to be really helpful. Right. Cause that, that's step one. Like those are the kind of things and signs that we need. Cause we do have a call, like a translating service that we pay for. But it doesn't help me if I don't know what language they speak. Right. So that would be really helpful if we could get like. Signs made with the most common other languages in this area that say like, if this is the language you speak, that would be really helpful. Yeah. That's, I think that's, that's a great comment. I know in Burlington. So the medical center has a pretty robust translation. Service. And there's like. A list of 18. Commonly spoken languages in the Burlington area. And it's, they're not producing materials and translation and all those languages, but they're in those languages. Like you said, Cameron offering. Like. A brief like statement to get folks to a translation service that can help them. So. Yeah. All right. Thanks all. Um, should I give my report back on talking with Essex about. Group stipend. Um, board commissions, committees, stipends. Okay. Um, so, um, the city of Essex also worked with Kaysha and Tabitha. And creative discourses, and they're kind of continuing that process. Um, to, uh, with for, for, you know, creating, you know, working on equity. Um, in the town. Um, they also said that Vermont League of cities and towns is working on an equity toolkit for towns. And that, um, oh, they, and they're like, Cameron's probably involved in that. Okay. Nevermind. So I guess it's a subcommittee of the, of their board. And so, um, that, or like that bill would, bill would know, or, you know, but that that's, that's in the works of staying tuned. So, um, they came up with this, um, plan. Uh, you know, not that long ago. And so it hasn't been implemented yet. Um, they're going to be implementing it in January. But it's instituted for the FY 22 budget. And so starting in January of 2022. And so what they did is they asked all of the boards, committees and commissions. Um, to let them know how. How many people there were, how many seats there were. And then how often they met. And excluded from this were the select board, board of trustees, village zoning board, village planning commission, because they already see, receive. And then they calculated that out by $50 a meeting for each person for all of those meetings. And knowing that they've been cancel those meetings, people aren't going to fill out the form. People are going to opt out. Not all of the seats are going to be filled. They've over budgeted pretty significantly. Um, wrecking, you know, recognizing that all of those things were going to happen. So overall, the total figure was 32,200. And they kind of took that in the same budget line item as like the select board stipends budget. So it was just kind of all in that same, same line item. Um, and so it's a basically a one page form that people need to fill out. That's basically their address, their contact information saying that they opt in for this, the stipends, or that they opt out of the stipends. And like that's it. So that's basically what they did. But they did not get the, they did not get the details of the stipends or that they opt out of the stipends and like that's it. There is a certain threshold. One of the complicating factors here, though, is that there's a certain threshold for reporting to IRS. And so some folks who are multiple boards that meet really frequently, they might go above that threshold. And in that case, so it's just, it, it is more administration that they had originally anticipated. Um, for some of these, you know, key, key people. You know, filling out this form, people become like staff of the town. And then once they kind of go above that level, then they need to fill out their like 1099s and kind of all of those official more, more tax forms, but most people aren't going to be rising above that threshold. Um, so, uh, I believe those are the main things that's going to be paid and lump sum in the first and third quarter. Kind of same thing as how the select board members get paid. Um, and it's like recognizing that, you know, maybe that means that people are going to be, you know, get an honorarium for a meeting that gets canceled. And they're just kind of working that into the budget. Any questions about that? It really seems like something that could, you know, 32,000. I was like, that's a significant amount of money, but also it's not going to be that amount that much, or it's not going to be the amount that it's budgeted. It's going to be less than that. Um, and it definitely seemed like something that I felt that we could do. Um, are they going to advertise this stipend? They're doing it mostly through the committee chairs. They're kind of putting it on the committee chairs to make sure that everyone fills out the form. Well, I mean, um, So as a way to recruit new people, and there's the stipend. Yeah. I didn't talk to them about that. And that seems really important. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I haven't been instituted yet. It's going into effect in January. Yeah. But yeah, that should be important part of it. Can I ask a question too? I'm assuming that it's for appointed boards as opposed, as opposed to other volunteers. So in, in our situation, you know, we have our advisory board. Um, which I'm thinking that might apply to, but not our volunteers, not the other 45 volunteers that we use for our programs. Um, I don't think they have a list of boards committees and commissions. And, um, I don't think they have a list of what that includes. They just have a list of what that doesn't include of the groups that already have the stipends. Yeah. So that would be a good, yeah. You know, the purpose is to compensate people for their time as well as offer assistance for childcare, food, transportation and other needs in order for volunteers to be able to attend meetings. Cool. Um, I don't think they have a list of what that is. Um, I don't think they have a list before handing it over to Marty and as I'll head out, but I'll read the notes very carefully. Um, so I just talked to Kirby in planning. Um, about their, um, a work with, uh, with, I think with housing task force or, and wanting, you know, engaging housing task force around the zoning process. And I think there's kind of two main takeaways from that conversation is one, they've had this long, um, long term, you know, a lot of people have this, um, the, um, the statement of having adequate supply of housing for current and future residents that is safe, affordable, resilient, et cetera. Um, and then they want to add a second one this year for the first time that's a little bit more focused on equity. So if housing for all and, you know, affirmatively, um, and diversify housing kind of have a goal in here more for like transitional housing, could fit in here. Um, that end of, of, you know, working. Um, you know, Um, I'm kind of more affirmatively saying that housing is a right for, for everyone. Um, there's, you know, obviously a lot more in, uh, housing in the planning team that people would like love our, you know, perspective and input on that they're working with, um, the housing task force on, you know, parking requirements for rental units, AB and Airbnb's and short-term rentals, local developers, redistricting rezoning or redid zoning, sorry, and just other changes of zoning in other parts of the city as well. But those are where the main thing is over the next few months, they're going to be more looking at these goals and would love our input on that. So I wanted to invite us to those meetings when they do happen. Cool. Are they going to are they going to share that? Are they going to proactively reach out or do I need to make a mental note to track those? I think Kirby, it sounded like Kirby wanted was going to reach out, but maybe if you are, if you're the point person for those, if you could keep make a mental note, okay, no, okay, let's not have Kirby to reach out. No, obviously I can talk to folks, so. Yeah. We'll count on Kirby to reach back out. Cool. All right, Marty, how was they? Yes. Well, I think what I was asked to talk about were the, I don't know what you'd say, the things that are on the table sort of and to tell you that none of these are actually in the pipeline in process. A lot of I'm amazed at how much there is of pre-planning and consulting and revising and all of that. So, but I'll tell you the ones that we have the one is this one, I don't know about three units on Ewing Street, which is over runs off of North Street. And I assume that's in addition to somebody's current, current dwelling. So I'll say that we also have ADUs, accessory dwelling units, and where someone can add on to a house, divide a house up into apartments, built a little cottage in the yard, just in any ways to put more housing in their space. The zoning laws were changed about that, I think a couple of years ago, so it's more possible, but there hasn't been very much interest so far. I think there's an effort to make people aware of that. Thinking, for instance, that older people who don't want to manage a whole big house now might be interested in building a, you know, dividing their house, building a duplex, building an apartment. And also, and I guess that they found that some people just don't want the hassle of renting all that goes with renting, so it hasn't really taken off very much. The next one is a multi-family unit on Northfield Street on the former Brown Derby property. And that's been in process for a long time, but they still know, there are no contracts out yet, but that, and I didn't find out the number, I think it's something like 40, 40 dwellings would be built on that property. The last phase of Stonewell Meadows condo, and I don't know about that, Stonewell Meadows is up, I think, off of Hebert Road. Habitat for Humanity Northfield Street project, Christ Church project, and I can say a little bit more about that in a minute, because I know more about it. Vermont College of Fine Arts, they are not proposing to do anything, but they're open to have, they have a lot of unused space up there, a lot of buildings that aren't being used, and they would be open to somebody developing a project there and perhaps working in partnership, but not being the planner of that. And Elm Street next to Community College of Vermont, up on the rise up above there, there's planning about or thinking about units built on that rise just above the college. In Washington County Mental Health is interested in their Heaton Street building, which is not fully used anymore. They're interested in developing some of that or all of that into housing. And about the Christ Church project, they were sort of well on their way before the pandemic and the difficulties with the parking lot there, that Mr. Brishara's parking lot. And what holds them back now is that they have to have some kind of agreement about parking because you can't have an apartment building there with no parking. There's lots of parking there, but the church doesn't own it. And their plan was to build a four-story building, one story for their own use and the other three for affordable housing. And I know they're discussing it, but I've been surprised at how much pre-discussion has to happen and how much planning and how much research and oops, we're almost there, but we had to stop and change to something else. So that's really all. I'm glad to answer questions if I can, but that's really all the information I have. Except of course to say that we're really aware of how much pretty desperate need there is for housing in this town and how hard it is to find anything. I have friends who've been looking for rentals just looking and looking and can't find anything. And buying is probably even worse. It's really hard to buy a house in Montpelier right now. And many, many sales are to people from other places who are willing to buy things sight unseen and buy things at well above the asking price, kind of prices people here out of the market. Michael, you got a question? Yes, a couple of things. Ewing Street is over here near College Street. Right off of Main Street. But a few years ago, when the bottle redemption building was torn down, you remember that? It was a plan to replace it with a three-story building as I recall. One was going to be a replacement for the bottle redemption and then two floors above, I assume were going to be either office space or housing. Does anyone know what happened to that plan? I mean, I know that the bottle redemption folks pulled out of it, but I was on the planning, no, on the development review board at the time. And the preliminary plan for that was approves. I haven't heard anything about it since it's now the grassed over, paved over and grassy lot. Is anything planned for that space, you know? I don't know. I haven't heard it discussed lately. No, you haven't heard anything either. I've seen it. I think it's on upcoming council agendas. We were presented, I don't know, maybe two years ago with an analysis of different ways to use that lot. And that consultant, it was definitely seemed to be like the preferred one would be to develop it with mixed use like housing on the upper floors and then that particular thing kind of fell apart. And then other people of course want it to be like tied into Confluence Park or something, so there were, my sense was like doing some of the park, having it as an open space for now doesn't preclude development later. And so it's like just an ongoing possibility, but nothing is like really in the works as far as I know, but I could not be in the loop about something. But that was the last I'd heard about it. Marty, thanks for joining us and sharing about those projects. I think if I could kind of speak for the committee, this came from, so we did this big kind of survey of the community around equity issues. I don't know if you saw any of the presentations or materials and housing and equity definitely came up as a concern from the community and something that council's been thinking about. A lot of us have been thinking about and I think in inviting you, we're looking for thoughts about how this committee focused on social and economic justice could play some kind of a role within this larger set of issues around housing and equity and accessibility and the community. So I'm wondering if there are any real needs, other than we need people with capital who can come and develop more units, housing units, are there any needs you're seeing in your role where we could be some help in advancing the issue and getting people together who need to get together? So I wonder what thoughts you have about that. Oh gee. It's not something that I've been directly thinking about, but so much of this depends on funding from different pools and streams and people applying for their own grants in some cases for things. So maybe better publicity to people, a diverse group of people who might be interested in either an apartment or a house. And I read your statement online that you sent around and I think, I think not everybody is aware of what's available and aware that they might be included, is that they might be kept in mind when things are being planned. So I think getting better information to people, to a variety of people who could then participate in what's, and then better publicizing various grants and services, their incentive grants sometimes so that someone could start to work on something, but just making sure that they go to a diverse group of people so that people know it's for me too. Mm-hmm. Do you think this funding, it's, I don't know what type of funding this is, but it doesn't cover folks who are seeking housing as well as people who maybe want to develop housing, become landlords in some way, is that the range of things we're talking about? I think so. One resource to really tap is Down Street Housing, which is based in Barrie, but they have control of or operate a lot of different grants and programs and could really sit down with people and give them information about how to do that. Is that there is a program to help people with who are looking to build accessory drawing units at a incentive program. So there's sometimes that people can get loans that have to be paid back or grants that don't have to be paid back for both things can happen. But yeah, and we might be better in touch with them Down Street about is they own lots of properties but they also do a lot of education and for new home buyers or new home builders. I'm wondering if for our group, does it make sense to invite somebody from Down Street? If we want to learn more about some of the things Marty is mentioning. Yes. I can do that for you. You have a pretty strong contact. You could reach out to your camera. I think that sounds like a good next step. Anyone have any other questions for Marty or comments on any of this? Not really. Marty, when you talk about advertising like opportunities for a more diverse group, are y'all doing like is the housing task force doing any of that work or thought about how to do that kind of stuff or has that not come up? It really hasn't come up. And I would be really happy to bring it up when we meet again. I think it's a really good idea. Yeah, I mean, that connects to one of our other topics from last time is making information more widely available to make sure opportunities like this are more well known. So I think that's something we'll be keeping on our radar too, Marty. I mean, think about doing an article in The Bridge, something lots of people read. They're pretty open to submissions from the community, I think. I just want to say too that I know Capstone is an organization that does a lot with like housing vouchers for people. So that's what I'm thinking about getting information to people. Of course, I'm thinking about the population we work with and some of the folks that need housing that might have a criminal history or other issues around getting housing. So I know Capstone is a good resource too for people. So it seems like you might want to rope them into figuring out how to share information and get information from them. Because from what I understand, those voucher programs, they change all the time and they're really complicated. So I mean, I have no idea how they get used. I tried to learn a little bit and I just kind of threw my hands up because it's so complex. And it's Alfred's job really. So I think I can leave it to him. Carol, for my information, because I'm feeling a little in the dark, can you tell me a bit what Capstone organization is? Yeah, there's social service agency that assists people with all kinds of things. You can look it up online. They're located right here in Washington County and they help people with budgeting, family services, housing. Those are, I think they're the main things that they help people with. They'll provide education to people about how to do budgeting and help them with family services basically. I can add some stuff to that. They're a regional organization. They're left over from the great society, the community councils. And Capstone just changed its name a few years ago. It used to be Central Vermont Community Action Council. And this one is Central Vermont. So it's Washington County, Lamoille County, some parts of Orange County, some little bits of other places. But so they're pretty much working in a wide region but their headquarters are in battery. And they also do things like installation and food shelf and some training programs and things like that. Curious, that's a great recommendation, Carol. For us, what do you all think? Is it a situation in which we maybe individually, one of us reaches out to someone there or do we invite someone from Capstone? Maybe at the same meeting that we could have a downstreet person come in. I'm not sure what the best approach might be. I can also help with that. Okay. Does it make sense to have a Capstone person and a downstreet housing person kind of come at the same time? I think that they have very similar information. And also, I think it would mean a lot for y'all to sort of convene them together so that they can have a conversation together and maybe create inroads with them working as a partnership to get, they obviously talk that does it. I'll try to see also if there's some overlap that they have that we can plug into. Great, yeah, that sounds great. Thanks, Cameron. Okay, well, I think if we don't have any other questions for Marty, Marty, you're welcome to stay on as we kind of wrap up but you're also feel free to jump up if you've got other things you need to get to. Thanks for coming. Well, if you have more questions along this line, you could get in touch with me or with Polly Nickel who's the chair of the committee. Appreciate being asked, thanks. Yeah, thanks Marty. Okay, so let me pop back into the agenda here. This one, okay, next agenda was budget items for proactive priority work, which, do you know what that's about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Michael has been helping me work through the history section on the city's website, right? And he's found a local historian that could help us sort of flesh that out in a more equitable way. And he deserves payment for that. And so we needed a vote from y'all to use some of your funds to pay him. And Michael, it's not very much, right? It's like what? Well, 200 for the one stipend and I suggested putting in $100 in case we need to get permission, pay fees for new images. Actually, there are two people working on it. The state archeologist has promised to do a couple of paragraphs on the prehistoric period or meaning before the white folks settled here. And he's not charging any fee. He said that's part of his job. So he's not asking for any fee. And the other is Paul Carnahan, who was the co-author of a book about Montpelier came out under the history press a few years ago, mostly photographs, but with some introductory sections. And he's written a draft that he's given to me with permission to edit and make suggestions. So that book is underway. And he asked for $200 stipend. And then as I said, the additional $100 is in case the historical society asks for a fee. I think they probably would not, but can't be sure. They do definitely ask for small fees for using their budgets. So the total budget, and I don't know what budget would you would need from the city side for getting all this put together? Nothing, it would just be time, my time, because I can edit the website. So nothing. So it would just be a vote to approve spending $300 out of y'all's budget line for this work. Does anyone like to make a motion? I'll make the motion to approve a budget of $300 for the Montpelier history page of the city's website. My second. Okay. All right, all those in favor of passing this motion for $300 for the history section of the website? Say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Always feels good to spend money. Great, thanks Michael for doing all that work to get it organized and use your contacts. Appreciate that. Okay, you're welcome. Yeah. When can we start to review materials? Or do you want us to review materials? You just want to handle yourself. You let us know. I have a draft from Paul now that I put aside because I've had other things going on and he was in no rush to get it back. So I think by the, I'm hopeful that by the middle of October, I can really sit down. I've read through it once and made some suggestions, but I need some more time to work on it. And I'll work on it with him directly. And then once we get, and I haven't gotten back, I haven't heard anything back from the state archeologist. And I'll remind him now that we've got, we're going forward with this, that he's made that commitment. So I would say late October, I don't think there's any rush for this, but I'd like to get it moving and I will hope to bring it back to the, bring it to the committee in late October. I think it's a good idea for, since we're spearheading the change for the committee to read what's being offered. Yeah. Great. Great. Thanks for that. Later next month. Okay. Let's move on. Anyone else have any other business for this morning? Carol, did you want to talk about the cab at all or? I can, I was going to reach out individually to folks, but I'm sorry. So that's okay. That's all right. So with the transition of Yvonne Bird retiring from the justice center, and I think because of due to COVID, we, you know, a few people have retired from our advisory board and we're looking for new members. And so I thought about this committee as potential people who might be interested in learning more about what we do at the justice center and to see if that's a fit to serve on our advisory board. It's a once a quarter commitment. We have a two hour meeting once a quarter. And it's basically the way I envision the role is serving as an ambassador in the community for restorative justice, what we do at the justice center, helping people understand, you know, what it is that we do. And also advising in that, you know, helping us shape our strategic plan and forming our goals, maybe contributing to what our community forums should look like we're required to do two community forums every year. And it's really, I mean, that's what they tell us. So we can shape them in any way that we want. And for me, it's really tied to the social issues, you know, so I think what we're doing, moving things forward with restorative practices is successful only if we're making other changes, cultural changes, and really supporting the folks that we work with in other ways. So it seems like a really good fit. And so anyone who's interested in talking to me more about that or I might reach out to you and see if you're interested in sitting on our advisory board. How large of a group is it? Right now, I think we have six people. And we, you know, we're looking for both skills and diversity. So we have, we try to keep two folks who are under the age of 22 and a variety of range of interests and backgrounds on the advisory board. So we have somebody who works in the schools, we have somebody who as part of his job is a probation officer, Cameron sits on the advisory board. We will now that Dan Richardson stepped up to serve on the cab and now that he's gone, we're looking for another city council member serves on the advisory board. We have somebody who helped form the community justice center. So she's been on for the last 18 years. She's been on for a really long time. So yeah, we're looking for some diverse voices and people who live in the community who are interested in what we do. And Brian Pete also sits on the advisory board in his capacity. Great, thank you. Any other business this morning, folks? Okay, not seeing anything. All right, so next time we meet, do we have a sketch of an agenda? I know we've got some kind of standing things here. I guess some of it depends, Cameron, on when the two guests that we'd like to have can come. So I guess you'll figure that out and let us know. So your next meeting is scheduled for October 6th. October 6th, thanks. Yes, and some other stuff that we still have on your upcoming conversations include some of those public forums. So that might be an interesting sort of feedback loop with the CJC. Carol, this group had talked about doing some forums on housing, racism, like bathroom access or just, I was assuming that one had to do with folks experiencing homelessness. But I think, Jeremy, what I would pitch for y'all is the council's strategic planning process. They should have a draft by then. So I would add that, I would say, members of Down Street and Capstone and then start working on any feedback that you may have to the strategic plan. Great, that makes sense to me. I imagine we could predict a lot of our time looking at that strategic plan. So let's set those things as our agenda items next time. I think that is gonna take us out unless you see anything else? No, no, no, no, no, okay. Okay, well, I'll do it for this morning. Thanks everyone. Yeah, good to see you. Thank you. Thanks Carol for that.