 This conference will now be recorded. We're sharing this date with the birth of Sue. Yeah, so happy birthday and I guess it's an order many more. Well, many quality. Many more quality years. Okay, item two instructions on exiting the building in case of emergency and review of technology options. Thank you. So for those in the building, if we need to exit can go either door in the back and then to the left or right to exit the building for those participating in online virtually thanks for joining us. I will be monitoring the chat if you have technical difficulties or would like to speak. If you would like to be called on to speak. If you would like to do so, please indicate as such to me and I will have Helen call on you. Alternatively, you can just turn on your camera and turn on your mic. We will not be monitoring the chat for content. Thanks. Okay, thank you. Item three is the agenda review are there any additions deletions or changes in order of agenda items. Item one will move on to comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda. Are you here? Yes. So please come up to the mic. Make sure you turn it on so that the green light is bright. Okay, and then please tell us your name and my name is Rick Dahlstrom. I'm a member of the five Dorses Street. I made a bunch of notes over past week. And last night I decided to write a letter to you instead. Yes. I just don't want to take too much of your time other than to ask that you've read the letter and are discussing it. And I don't know if it's on your agenda. I didn't check your agenda, but I just want to make known that I felt that the LDR just was a little bit of an overreach as it applies to me as a private private. Property owner. I think the LDR was meant to for the developers. Maybe it's misunderstanding. I just like to. I get a permit approved basically to build a house on my property. That's all I don't want to develop my property. I just want to build a house on my property. And Mr Connor was wants me to follow the LDR, even though I'm not a developer. And I'm hoping that the city council can override him. Okay. Well, I think the Planning Commission is working on some retooling of the current ones. I don't know if your situation is. I just talked to him last week and he wants me to build a little home or else build it right next to my house. You know, I've got 44 acres and he wants me to build 100 feet from my house. I mean that's. I'm just hoping that the city council is a little more open to common sense basically. Right. Okay. Well, thank you very much. And I'd just like to ask is there any time frame that I can expect some sort of decision rather than just kicking the can. I don't know what the time frame would be. And I appreciate not wanting just to kick the can down the road. That happens with too many items. You know, I do have contractors that we need to, you know, you probably, you know, just a lawn mowing service. How far out are you doing? You know, lumber, how far out are you planning? So it's the same thing with builders. How far out are you planning? I understand. So, you know, I can't put them on retainer or anything until I get a decision. Hopefully I can get a decision. Maybe tonight would be nice. I mean, everything. Well, we can't make a decision tonight because number one, most importantly, it's not a warned item. And two, we haven't really had that conversation. Okay. But I'll see what we can do in terms of what are, if there are any additional steps, and I will let you know. Okay. I don't know the process. I'm not involved in the city government. And I don't know how long it would take. If it takes a couple of years, then I'll have to try some other avenue. I don't think it'll take a couple of years, but it, government does work a little more slowly than a private business, for example. Matt? Can I just ask a clarifying question? Sure. Yes. So is the situation, Mr. Doushner, that you need to subdivide your land in order to build? No. Or you don't want to subdivide your land? I don't want to subdivide it. I don't want to subdivide it because it's a family house, my son's house. And I don't want to subdivide. And Paul wanted me to subdivide, and I said, I don't want to subdivide. And because then that, I can subdivide once. I don't want to subdivide. So is this an accessory dwelling? Unfortunately, an accessory dwelling limits me to a third of the side of my house, which is less than a thousand feet. I want a single-family home for my son, which means that, you know, if the LDR applies to me, then that is the limiting factors. Also, he wants me to build 100 feet from my house, and the septic area is about 200 yards away. So I'd have to, you know, have a huge line to go to the other septic system. There's a lot of other things that, little things, but in my original letter before the first city council meeting when you voted on the LDR, I outlined that my property has a house on it, which the Planning Commission didn't, or not, yeah, the Planning Commission was unaware of. There's an airport in my front lawn, an approved airport, VT-25, Sky Acres on my front lawn. And maintain lawns and fields and a lot of landscaping. I mean, it's a property that unfortunately got pulled into that natural resource protection situation. There wasn't enough, you know, I didn't understand what was going on enough to get to them early enough for them to realize that they made a mistake. But it was, that's all hindsight. I just want to go forward. I want to build a house for my son and his family. Without subdividing, I just want to build a house. I asked Mr. Connor for a permit, and he said, I got to do a site plan and spend thousands of dollars, you know, on an engineer that we don't need. But, and during the Planning Commission, that was one of the concerns is that... You're not alone with having this channel. Private owners shouldn't have to spend $10,000, $15,000 for an engineer just to build a family home. Anyway, that's where I'm at. Thank you. Thank you. And he did send a letter to all of us, right? I did, yes. Yes, and it really explains it fully. You may not have had a chance to read about it. I reiterate a lot of the stuff that I sent to you the first time when I sent pictures of the property, a copy of the airport from the FAA designated airport. There's an endangered species study that's already taken care of that part. You know, there is no endangered species. The report was done prior to me purchasing the property by the previous owner. He wanted to put in a lot of developments in it. I live there, you know. I'm not going to build 150 units. Like, you know, I'm not going to put in a mega development, like you've approved down on the corner of Spear and Swiss Street. I just want to build another house. That's all. I understand that. Okay, I appreciate you coming in. And I'll follow up with you and see... Did you have a question or something? And specifically a house or would an accessory apartment meet your needs? I'm sorry, the extra house. Specifically a house or would an accessory apartment... His son is three kids. No, a separate single family home. My home's only about 25, you know. When I bought the property, I asked my son if he wanted the house. He said, no, it's too small. He's got three little kids. He wants a bigger house. I'm not talking about the mega mansions. He's not going to do that. And I don't want that either. He just wants a normal, you know, three, four bedroom house for his new family. The youngest is a year old. And again, I put that in the letter. But no, a separate single family home. Thank you. Normal, normal home. All right. Thank you very much. Thanks for listening. Is there anyone in TV land who will... Oh, please. Hi, I'm in TV land. My name is Roseanne Greco. I'm a South Burlington resident. I have a suggestion for the city council and I have a comment. And if you're already doing this, then just thank you very much. But here's my suggestion. I suggest that the city, all of the city councilors and actually all of the planning commissioners, at least one supporter drive around South Burlington. We never did that when I was on the city council. And whether it do by yourself or, or in a group, it's probably a great idea to have somebody driving you so you can look around. Because there's a lot going on in our city. And if you're not aware of what's happening and what it looks like, it's hard to make decisions on, well, in particular land use issues. But, so if you're already doing it, that's great. I haven't been driving very much in, in COVID. And I just this weekend, and this here's my, my comment. And I don't know the name of it, but I was driving down Dorset street south of, of the mill. And there's a car place there that looks like, you know, maybe 20 or 30 cars are in front and on the side of, of a garage. I remember many years ago, whoever owned that, it was a young man, as I recall, went to the planning commission because of restrictions to how many cars are in front and on the side of, of a garage. I remember many years ago, whoever owned that, it was a young man, as I recall, and he went to the plan. I remember he went to the planning commission and he told me, you know, he'd been driving in a garage because of restrictions to how many cars he could have there. And he assured the planning commission that this was going to be a very small operation three or four cars and anything more than that would be hidden behind the building. If you have not seen that, you really need to look at that. It looks like there is a junkyard. Right next to the mill and next to housing areas. zone for that or if it's not zone for that and the individual is violating current zoning but it just prompted me to suggest you drive around and look, not just at this area but the rest of South Grunge and so you sort of see what's happening and so you can make an informed decision going forward. So that's my suggestion and my comment. And I would hope you would maybe direct or ask the planning commission to check into this car. I think it's a repair place. I think I'm not sure. I think it's been there a very long time. It's been there for a long time but it has dramatically changed from the days that from where it had two or three cars and where the end of, and maybe it's changed hands. I don't know, but I know the individual was claiming you wouldn't see the cars from the road. There'd just be two or three, everything else would be behind the maintenance building and the garage, but that's not what's happening now. So anyway, that's, I hope you all take a look at it and maybe check to see if it's within compliance. Would you like me to respond to that? Do you know? Yeah. I have a few facts. Okay. Probably Matt knows some too. Can you hear me, Roseanne? Yes, I can hear you. Yeah, yeah. So the owner of that garage is a Chittenden and I've forgotten his first name and I apologize. Is it Robert? Okay. And he came to the planning commission because he wanted to sell some used cars there many years ago. And in order to do that, he had to get some sort of a change through the planning. He finally got it, but when he came to the DRB, he was told he had to have a site plan. Then when he brought in the site plan, there was some controversy over whether they had created some impervious surface where they shouldn't have. And there were a lot of conditions that Ray Belaire placed on that site plan in order to be allowed to sell used cars. And because of all those conditions, he abandoned the site plan and the application completely as far as I know. So that's all zoned ag. So he can, I mean, they can do whatever they want there because it's zoned agricultural. So, I mean, the barn went up without any permits because it's agricultural. So that's just the way that plot is right now. So I hear what you're saying, but that's a short history about some of the conditions there. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I thought that you could put cars on ag land, but okay. Well, it doesn't look good. All right, thank you. Is there anyone else who wishes to make a comment an item that's not on our agenda? Okay. Seeing none. We'll move on to announcements in the city managers report. Megan, do you want to start? I don't know if, other than I attended the planning commission remotely and it was, I thought, really positive to hear that both the task force report provided by Kim Robeson and the director of the Burlington International Airport's presentation or response to the report that night were in sync. And I am just really, really pleased that Mr. Longo, who clearly is showing that he is willing to lead on this, is open to working with the city and the neighborhood and finding a way for there to be a really comprehensive planning process. So it's just, it's super positive. It's exciting for the neighborhood. I think it's good for the airport as well, having spoken to several members of the general aviation community. So I just, I came out of that meeting feeling really good. Yes, thank you. Okay. Kim. So I saw some of you at the SBBA meeting last Thursday night at the double tree. Councilor Emery, she was there. There and it was very, great time, great refreshments and it was great to see everybody once again in person. That was nice. And here, a really interesting talk by PC construction. Didn't call it Pizzagalli, called it PC, which is very PC, call it PC. You are always PC. Helen, you had an article in the other paper and that's the early, that was supposed to be, it was, came out in May, right? Yeah. The first week in May. So I'll do the last week in May. That's okay. You can do any week. It doesn't matter if it's close. They don't care. It doesn't need to be four weeks apart. Okay. Okay. So either the last week or the first week in June. Anyway, Avalon was reminding me that I had so I'll do one. And I just want to point out that the first foundation has gone in at Spear Meadows market 2022 original application went in in 2009 for that development, I believe. Is that correct? Nobody here knows remembers? Okay. Yeah. I hit the DRB in 2011. It had gone through four revisions at that point. And so 2009 to 2022 to get the first foundation at Spear Meadows. It's still going after you left. Oh yeah. Still revising. Yeah, yeah. And it changed hands. It did. Eric Carroll started with it right and then gave it to Chris Snyder. So that changed it again. So just a little bit of background just making a point that sometimes things take a little bit of time. Okay, thank you. Matt? Yes, I was also at the SBBA meeting and that's it. Okay. I too was there, although I had to leave early because I had a climate task force meeting that started at seven. So I could only stay for part of the time. But I do want to announce they had a conversation with Nick Blanco. I had called him about the cemetery. And so they purportedly are planning to put up new fencing and this summer. I don't know. We have a meeting this Wednesday and I don't know whether they're, they put in and the airport has requested from, I guess the DRB, the plan for redoing their, oh, I don't know, landscaping and stuff around the corner of Airport Drive and Williston Road. I think it's the DRB. Maybe it's the- Yeah, it's part of the landscaping master plan. And that was one of the first priorities was to fix that intersection with Beautify. But I'm going to ask and find out if it includes the cemetery because it's just a little further down the road. But he assured me they were going to do that. And at the same time, he let me know two things. One of the commissioners, Jeff Munger, died sort of unexpectedly. So we're down, well, after tonight we'll have four because the Winooski will be adding their new member. So we'll at least have a quorum and be able to meet Wednesday because we haven't been able to meet. And then they have sent out a request I guess, an RFP, an application for a permanent director. And Nick is, told me he was applying. And so we'll see what happens with their selection. The commission will not be part of that, I don't believe. Which fence are you talking about that they're going to reply to? On the Eldridge Cemetery, as you're driving, I guess it's north. The first corner, there was an accident. Oh, so the airport's going to replace that? Yeah. Oh, are they going to try to? Well, they took some of it down when they did some other repair and never put it back on. Oh, okay, okay. So, and we, and somebody got money, we believe for the accident. Driver, we think, I don't know. You're going to do it. You know, I think there's some interest in being good neighbors and good partners. And I also told them that, you know, it's a state law to have a fence around a, I thought that's, I'm sorry, to have a fence around a cemetery. So, but although I went by cemetery in Williston and it did not have a fence, maybe it's an electric fence, I don't know. Are they going to try to recreate? Just keep dogs out of the apartment. Are they going to try to recreate the black cast iron nature of the original fence? You know, I will get more detail. He said he would send me the details. They're not like swimming pools, you know, with having to have a fence around it. You know, it's not exactly the same, but there's a joke. Well, keep the spirits in as I understand. So that's why you want the fence around it. I suppose, I heard a lot that there's supposedly a requirement to serve cheddar cheese if you serve apple pie in a restaurant. And if not, then you have to serve milk. Is that right? Really, it's like to support the dairy industry and the community. Interesting, huh? All these laws that I have to admit, I've never had apple pie in a restaurant to know if they actually... Yeah, I don't think I have either. Maybe I'll order it and take them to order something. Yeah, I should get a lifetime supply of apple pie. Yeah, exactly. Well, they'll probably have milk. Cheddar cheese. But anyway. So I think that's all I have as an announcement. So I have a couple of announcements for you all tonight. One happy birthday, Sue, from on behalf of the staff as well. Yay. We should sing. Yeah. Are we gonna sing? I'm not gonna sing. Sorry, Sue. If you break out, I'll join. So a couple of other announcements. May 26, just as a reminder, is the last date of file candidate consent forms to be on the August primary ballot. We have had a very hard time, or I have had a very hard time scheduling our FY23 policy priorities and strategies retreat. So I am recommending to you all that, we're throwing it out there that right now on the books, we have a July 5th council meeting scheduled, which is, I think, very close to the holiday. So I would suggest we move that to July 11th. And the only items that evening would be setting the tax rate and doing our policies and strategies conversation. So we'd love to know if folks are available that night. And of course I'll reach out to Senator or Councilor Chinden as well. And then we would also invite the council to a planning commission meeting to kick off the comp plan. Do you want an answer to that now? I mean, you did send that out in a notice earlier in hopes that people would look at their calendar and we could actually nail this down. I am available on the 11th. Oh, I can't go into this. I am as well. I mean, Tim, does that work for you? Would we meet July 11? Would you guys ask, Justin, would we meet the 18th to the 25th then if we met the 11th? So we would likely still keep the 18th meeting because that's a regular meeting and we're going to have other content. So move the 5th to the 11th and then keep the 18th. Exactly. I just want you to know, I'll have to come off file and to attend, but I will because we've had a terrible time finding a date. So it is my vacation with all my children and grandchildren, but that's okay. We will, while it will be an official council meeting, of course, and we will warn it, we will try and make it a little more of a treaty and have dinner for you and what not. And the leadership team will be here. So I mentioned a couple of meetings ago that I had applied to be on the superintendent's search committee. So I was put on the interview committee, which is complimentary to the search committee, I guess. We had our first meeting last week. Dr. Boyer is doing a fantastic job on behalf of the school board facilitating that process. We are interviewing interim superintendents in early June for appointment for a year and then the full process will be from August to December. So I will try to represent our interests well in that process. Just a reminder to the council that we have put out wide call for folks interested in participating in boards and committees. The deadline for those applications to be in is May 26th and then you will interview all of those candidates on June 6th and June 20th. You look quizzical. Okay, we're gonna do it all into two nights. We're gonna do it all into nights, we'll power through. You got it. There won't be as much on the rest of the agenda. Keep things off the agenda. But May 26th, if you would like to encourage folks to apply, that is the deadline. We are, as you know, reaching the end of our reappraisal season with a setting of tax assessments as of April 1st, reappraisal notices will go out on June 3rd and that kicks off the grievance period if people are interested. The Swift Street will be paved on May 19th. Traffic will be reduced to one line commuters that morning may be impacted. So just wanted to let you know that. And then Kimber Ave near the Wilson border, the new Colbert, will be milled on the 17th and paved on the 19th and 20th of May. That's also when they will be paving the recreation path that's over the Colbert. That project will be wrapping up. Thank you to Tom DiPetro who is on the call for coordinating all of that. And then fun events, just a reminder that food trucks that park kick off this Thursday and will be every Thursday from five to eight through the end of August. The Memorial Day ceremony will be on May 27th at the park at 10. We have a touch of truck on June 4th at Central School and just mark your calendars for the great American camp out on June 25th and 26th. And that's all I have. What time is the Memorial Day ceremony? 10 a.m. And what day? Did you say 27th? 27th. It's a Friday. Yeah, okay. This usually is a Friday, right? Right, right. Thank you. Okay. Consent agenda, item six. We have disbursements. We have minutes from April 18th and May 2nd. We've received the April financials and there was a request to approve the application for a Department of Libraries grant to increase the inclusion and diversity of our collection. I'll move that we approve the consent agenda. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? All in favor? Signify by saying aye. Aye. If it passes four, Tom isn't with us yet, right? No. Four is zero. I forgot to mention to the people at home, Tom Chinden will be joining us, we hope, later by phone, he's in Root somewhere. Okay, moving on to item seven, opportunity for counselors in the public to share information and resources on climate change. Before, if there's anyone in the public who would like to make a comment, they can. I just want to say that Roseanne Greco did speak at a class at UVM at the very end of the semester. And I think she sent us all a note about, or at least she sent me a note, that during that class, they all had to write as an assignment, sort of a personal editorial or something about climate change. And she suggested that they send them to the task force and the city council. And quite a number have come in. And you can, we can have, they're all put together in one file, I guess, for the climate task force, but we could certainly share that. I think most of you have gotten them by mail. But I think this is a really important, I mean, they didn't have to do it, and they opted to let us know, none of whom had ever been to a city council meeting in their lives. And they thought, oh, this is great, you can show up and you can write them. And so I think we'd be well-served to acknowledge them, read them, and think about what the generation that is going to inherit sort of the mess we're in, and hopefully will help make the changes that are necessary to really have the carbon reduction that we need in order to have a livable planet. So I just want to acknowledge that. And they're not real long, but they're pretty well written and kind of a lot of different opinions. So I would encourage you to read them. And if you care to respond back, let them know that, saying things at a city council, raising issues, lots of times gets answers or makes a difference in our thinking. Any other comments about climate change? Megan. Yep. This is obviously a topic of conversation, not only here in our country, but in many countries, and I also stay in touch with the conversations going on in Europe, and listen to a philosopher who very much speaking like a Sunni, oh, darn, Syracuse University maybe, professor who's of indigenous descent speak about the need not only to think about climate, but also to think about life, that we need to respect plants and animals. And the woman who was, this is on Sunday mornings on being with Krista Tippett, and I have heard it's Professor Wells, I believe is her last name, and she was saying that in her native language that she has to learn because of the policies of the United States that separated children from their families, that they treat animals and plants not as it's, like we do in science, they are not things that we act upon like objects, but they are subjects. So they actually have a personal pronoun, like he or she, and so I thought that was a really fascinating kind of view on how to view the plants and animals that make up our natural world, and that our lives depend on. So her name is Robin Wall Kimmerer, the intelligence of plants, and I just secret my husband's not online, bought for Father's Day, braiding sweetgrass and gathering moss, a natural and cultural history of mosses, two books that she's authored, and that have been New York Times bestsellers. So I just wanted to share that, yeah. Any, oh, any other counters, Tim, and then if Matt doesn't have a comment, Rosanne Greco. Okay. Well, the warmer weather is upon us, and I have resumed my e-bike or partial e-bike commuting to work, which is working out well. And the warm weather also, if you own a pluggable or a fully electric vehicle, you'll find out that the warm weather is extending the mileage that you get out of it just because of the battery chemistry, it's more efficient, so you can drive further on a charge, which is nice. I did purchase an electric lawnmower last week, two weekends ago. If you didn't know and you buy an electric lawnmower from a local vendor, I don't know if there has to be a specific one, you can get a $50 rebate from GMP. If you're a Burlington Electric resident, I think it's $100. That's for a push, right? If you buy a zero turn one, it's even more, but those are like $4,000. This one was $400. So, and I was able to mow my entire lawn on one charge. I'm not the first in the neighborhood. There's several people that already have gotten them and it works really well. And so I just wanna push that out there. They have both, you know, push and self-propelled. There's like three models of either the cobalt or the ego down at Lowes. I'm sure Home Depot has some as well. And as I've talked to people at work, I'm getting them interested in it because it's just a lot quieter and you don't have to wear hearing protection. You're not, you know, combusting gasoline to mow your lawn. So it really is the way to go. And I think that the technology's improved enough with the lithium ion capacity that you can do that. The battery does weigh about six pounds, which is pretty cool. And your neighbors appreciate it. They do, they do. But it's funny because I went out and mowed my lawn and then I went back in the house and sitting on the deck and I went one, two, three. And then the cacophony and the symphony of all the gasoline lawn mowers started up about 40 minutes later, which looks like there they go, you know. But, you know, you're gonna see people making that switch little by little as they see other people. And, you know, and I was gonna wait till my lawn mower died, but it's a craftsman. I can't make it die, you know. So I decided just to go ahead and my wife just kept pushing me to go do it. I also inquired about adding some more solar capacity to my property. I've got some on the roof now. I'd like to add some to the ground. I have somebody that's gonna give me a quote, but one thing they clued me into, which I didn't know. My water heater is about 10 years old. And if you replace your water heater with a heat pump water heater. We're gonna do that too, Tim. You get a dual benefit that that heat pump water heater acts as a dehumidifier. So if it's in your basement and you like a little dehumidifier action, you can get that from there as well. I did not know that. You should do that. Also wanted to announce that if you're watching the news, Maine approved a 700 acre solar project. It's one of the largest in New England. It'll be able to power 30,000 homes and it's an investment of about $200 million. And I think that a lot of these projects are kind of riding on the cusp of, they're waiting for the Biden administration to determine what they're gonna do with the tariffs on solar because the two companies left in the US that make solar panels like really need those tariffs to compete with the Asian manufacturers. And they're trying to not be victims of dumping from other Asian countries other than China where they're being channeled through. So that'll be interesting to see how that affects the cost. The federal tax credit this year. Availability. And the availability. Right, right. Well, that's another whole problem with supply chain and lockdowns in China, right, but. Just be aware, because it takes more fossil fuels to develop the solar panels in China than the solar panels actually save, conserve. I've heard that quote before and, you know, I mean, China has a lot of coal powered, you know, electricity and I'm sure we could argue back and forth about that forever, but the point is that if you wanna make the conversion, you're gonna have to make a sacrifice somewhere. And so the whole point of that was to get an estimate and find out because it'd be nice to eventually be able to not have to use. So if I convert my water heater to electricity, no more natural gas for the water heater, right? And, you know, believe it or not, Vermont gas is promoting conversions to electricity because they're close to both companies or owned by the same parent company in Montreal, right? And so they both benefit and they have money to help either through rebates or education for, you know, these conversions and stuff. So also, if you didn't know, I hate to go on on. There's an excellent documentary on Netflix right now about Three Mile Island, which, I mean, I remember when it happened, I was in college, but it has a lot of really great footage and review and I had forgotten so many things and, you know, it's one of those really interesting, you know, problems, the dilemmas that we have where if you don't wanna create carbon dioxide, nuclear is a really nice option. But when you look at the history, you go, Fukushima, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and you wanna ask the questions about new technologies and can they be cheaper and safer than what we've done in the past, right? And, but it's just, I just wanna recommend that documentary because it's really interesting. So that's all I had. France does quite well with nuclear and no accidents. Who does? France. And it's because they don't have other natural sources of energy except for water, hydro. So they have to import their oil and their gas. And so it's, you know, they have the wind turbines and they also have hydro turbines with the tides. But it's really a success story. They were forced to by kind of, you know, the accidents of geography, but, right? Yeah. But Germany went the opposite direction. Yes. It blows them down. We're fortunate in Vermont because our green mountain power sources are, they're very low carbon, right? Cause it's hydro-cubec, right? Which is hydro and then it's Seabrook nuclear energy. So that's almost like 55% of all the power comes from those two sources for all the contracts. Okay. Roseanne Greco wanted to make a comment. Yeah, I'll try to make it quick. But just to piggyback on what Tim was saying, by the way, we've had battery powered lawnmowers for 15 years and that's all we use to cut our grass. And our batteries are only about a pound. So I don't know what kind of monster you got, Tim. But, and we also turned our rented gas water heater gas water heater to Vermont gas back in 2013 and got a heat pump hot water heater. And it's absolutely correct. It is a cooling dehumidifier as well as heat pump. But we have solar panels, so we produce enough energy to accommodate all of our electricity needs. In fact, we're at net zero. But anyway, but I wanted to just give you a little bit more about what Helen had mentioned about the UVM students. I was invited to speak at their class. It was a class on climate change. And one of the things I was trying to say is because I've been hearing from many people how young people are depressed, despondent, feeling hopeless about their futures because of climate change. And one of the things that the science tells us or psychologists tell us is the best way to get out of a depression and that kind of feeling of hopelessness is to do something. So I was encouraging them to do something and they had been given an assignment by their professor to write an op-ed that they could submit to a paper either in their local area or here. And he allowed them, if they wanted to, in addition to that or in lieu of that, to write something to send to South Burlington. I told them what South Burlington is doing, the Climate Action Task Force has shown that actions are being taken. And if you want to weigh in on it, this is your opportunity to do something. None of them, well, maybe that's maybe not correct, but most of them had no idea what city government was about, what's the city council, who's a planning commissioner or a task force. So as you read their things, sometimes that comes through. But the professor did tell me it was so unusual that so many of them actually did it. By last count, there were 24 of them that sent in and they were sending them to the task force, the Climate Action Task Force and copied, I think, Helen. So you may or may not have received them, but it would be wonderful if you would be able to respond back just briefly to encourage them and to foster their involvement in the democratic process and city government as well as climate change. So that's a little bit of a background, but they were not tasked to do this. There was their option if they wanted to. So anyway, I hope you do take it seriously. And I've heard many of you say you want to hear what the young people have to say. Well, now you did. So anyway, I hope what they say matters and that you take action on it and tell them that too. So thank you. Thank you. And I appreciate you speaking to their class. Megan, I wanted to piggyback on what Roseanne said. Just met with my dean. I am a professor at UVM this morning and he and I were talking about how gardening is really important and community gardens, both for community, but also for food security and just keeping the earth safe. It's a sustainable source of food production for people. And so he was really encouraging me and I think I spoke about you, Roseanne, so your ears were ringing this morning. To reach out to the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences as well as the programs in Rubenstein and maybe even Professor Biermann, whose class you spoke in, to have students actually help if we were to, for instance, look at developing community gardens just adjacent to the airport in the Chamberlain neighborhood, that those students could join residents there as well as perhaps, you know, we have Carol McQuillen of Common Roots who's working on this, along with Alicia Laramie who's with the Association of Africans Living in Vermont who I've invited and she couldn't come, but last summer she gave us a very nice response to a questionnaire I had sent out for the Land Use and Equity Forum. And so anyway, there is definite support and including administrative support and not just the students and the faculty for UVM, you know, that to be a resource for us. Great, so just wanted to share that. Cool. All right, any other comments? Good, thank you. Let's move on to eight. Receive an update from the Chittin and County Regional Planning Commission on recent efforts related to South Burlington and specifically the I-89-250 study. Charlie, welcome. And I think Chris Shaw might be, yes, he's on our screen, he's right next to you. There he is, now he's below us. Yeah, and also joining me tonight are Eleni Churchill and Jason Charest from our staff and David Saladino from the consultant team at BHB, who I think BHB is also a South Burlington resident. So I've got a presentation if it's okay, if I share my screen. Apologies for not being with you in person, but I'm just getting over a little about with COVID. So. Oh dear. I'm sorry to hear that, hope it was mild. Yeah, a few days, right? And do I have, can I get that permission to share? Yeah, there we go, thank you. And is that coming up on the screen for you? Thank you. All right, great. And sorry, just adjusting my screen to try to see you a little bit better. So this is a thank you for giving us time again. I know we took a lot of time on your agenda's last spring and we really appreciated it. I'm really reviewing a presentation that we're reviewing with the advisory committee is having what we think maybe their last meeting on Wednesday. And sorry. And so, and really we're looking at kind of these quarter bundles and an implementation plan is really kind of that the last stages of this study and effort, finishing up with a report over the summer. And I'm gonna give you just a quick overview. Some of this is repetitive and stuff that you've seen, you may not remember it but you saw us up with this a year ago or so ago or two years ago. Just one statement at the outset here is that we know there's a lot of uncertainty at this point in time right now. Speaking of the pandemic is one little thing but just technology, demographics, other dynamics who knows what will happen with the economy and other things. And so one of the themes that you'll hear mentioned is just the need that things aren't certain in the future. And so we're not pretending that they are as we looked out to the year 2050 here and we're gonna keep monitoring things. And you see the division statement there about safe, resilient, reliable, efficient and the resilience really speaks to some of the climate conversation you guys were just having. Goals, you've seen those before safety, livability, mobility, environmental stewardship, the economy and preserving the transportation system. And then just to give you a sense of where we are in the process. As I mentioned, we're kind of nearing the end. And just to remind folks that may have not participated in this process with us, you know, we started off with a vision and goals. We did kind of take a pretty long tangent and just focusing on interchanges and we really do appreciate all the time that South Burlington gave us to talk about 14, exit 14, exit 13 and potentially exit 12B. We spent a good amount of time a year ago talking about that. And then since then we've been trying to, we did a deeper dive into transportation demand management strategies in large part to address the climate challenge that you were just discussing. And now it's all kind of coming together in this implementation plan. And again, we're hoping to wrap up the report, the reporting of all this over the summer. And so just to kind of remind you, we looked at the whole corridor. We looked at this funnel of interchanges. We started off with eight interchanges and the 89 corridor does encompass the entire corridor in Chittany County, not just those interchanges that I mentioned. And then we were also, you know, very large focus on multimodal, you know, transit, bike pad, HOV lanes, all those kinds of other ideas. And what we have boiled that down to is five bundles and I'll review these in more detail. And then, okay, what are we gonna do? We've done this study, we've come up with some ideas about what should happen. We're now clicking that into an implementation plan. So the first bundle was just kind of what we call the base bundle. And apologies for the acronyms on here, but the tip is the transportation improvement program, which models and mirrors the state's capital program. And the MTP is our metropolitan transportation plan, which is part of our long range regional plan. And we already had some things that were pushing smart growth and addressing climate change in terms of having 90% of household growth in our centers where we have existing sewer, water, transit, bike, pet investments, transit investments, TDM, and also that we needed to also electrify the fleet. And this was work that we did back in 2018 in combination with doing an energy plan about how to meet the state's energy goals by 2050, which was, I think the time was a big focus about being 90% renewable by 2050. And so bundle two, I think even with that base, so we realized we were not gonna meet all of our challenges. And so we took a dive into what we ended up calling bundle two into a more aggressive program of transportation demand management measures, if you will. And we brought on, added to the consultant team, really digging into how to get to that behavior change. Transportation demand management, getting to other modes besides driving is really about behavior change. The consultant team borrowed this publicly available model that's out there was really developed more on the West coast. It's more of an econometric model. So it's, what influences behavior is often pricing. And so we looked at, as you can see in the small print here, 431 scenarios that were modeled. And what we ended up selecting was the ones that had the lowest vehicle miles of travel. So the lowest amount of driving and the commensurate greenhouse gases that go with that driving. And so I think, so that's, I'll come in and give you a little bit more detail about that TDM in a bit, but that was bundle two. Bundle three is doing the TDM that's in bundle two plus exit 14. And hopefully this looks a little familiar to you. We've been kind of working on, you know, tweaking this a little bit. They probably need to dig into it a little bit more. But it does look like this exit 14, kind of pulling in the clover leaf to a diverging diamond and getting better bike-ped connectivity through the interchange, pulling traffic lights closer to the main line of 89, actually make things flow a little better through there. And I'll come back to that. Bundle four is everything I just talked about, the TDM exit 14 plus 12B. And bundle five, of course, is everything I just talked about, but not 12B, 13 instead of 12B. And of course, as you can guess, that's really where we left our conversation with you last spring was 14 and 12B still need to get looked at. I'm sorry, 13 and 12B, if I misspoke there, sorry. Still need to get examined in more detail in an EIS process. To give you a little sense of results from some of these bundles, this is the base bundle here on the left. And this is really what kind of caused us to dig into this further. We get very close to capacity out in the long-term future if trends continue. That's what this red segment here between 14 and 15 on the main line. Now, turning the page, if we look at bundle two and those TDM investments, we get to a much more manageable level of volume to capacity ratios more closer to what we have today. And sorry, just we'll pick it up some of these little details here. Here's what a bundle three, well, just the exit 14 without the TDM doesn't do much with the TDM. We get some significant reductions in congestion and traffic on a bunch of segments. And again, that's really the impact of the TDM package. And Charlie, that's putting incentives in place to do alternative modes of transportation. That's what the TDM, okay. Yeah, and incentives in the broadest sense of the word. So it might be putting in a bike path, right? If that's an incentive, but making it easier for people to choose other modes of travel. And then some just observations about what come out of that or out of our analysis. And this is kind of stepping back big picture, doing nothing. So if we just kind of keep on our trend line and don't take more aggressive actions to bend the curve, we're gonna have a 28% increase in VMT over the next 30 years, which is almost a percent a year. And this is a county wide number going from 4.2 million miles of vehicle travel a day, what is what we have today to 5.4 million miles of travel per day. What we had in our long range plan reduced VMT by 4%, which thought, okay, that's an improvement anyway. But with this really aggressive bundle too, reduces VMT by another 20%. And that is huge. And I think we've been looking at what's been coming out of the climate council and some of the work that's been going on statewide. We think we only really need to get to about a 10% VMT reduction to meet our climate goals. So this is an even more aggressive scenario, if you will. And I don't want anybody to walk out of this thinking that we will get to a 20% reduction. I think this is really posing a challenge to us as a community broadly. And I mean, community as in the state, the county, all of the towns, all of the residents to see if we can get to that kind of reduction. Bundle three, when we start to add in the exit 14, we still keep that 40, I'm sorry, that 20% reduction. And I think that was all I wanted to make points on that slide. And then if we did look further out, if we get to a point of looking at 12B and 13, and if you remember, they did have some benefits to parts of the network, right? One of the reasons to still kind of keep them on the table is that they did have a benefit to exit 14 traffic volumes, 18% reduction from 12B and a 27% reduction at exit 14 if exit 13 were enhanced, which really helps to make it much friendlier for bicyclists and pedestrians going through exit 14. And then you remember 12B and 13 have different trade-offs on Williston Road and Doorsett Street compared to forecasted conditions, and which was part of why there were trade-offs that there wasn't really a clear sense. Although, and I apologize, I hope we don't take that the wrong way. The city council did vote three to two in support of exit 13, which is factored in, but we really cannot resolve that issue at this study stage. It really needs to go into an EIS, which brings me to the implementation plan. And I think this is really, excuse me, a framework for implementing the recommendations. We've divided them up into three timeframes, short, medium, and long, and also for some of the bigger things, have some metrics or triggers and cost estimates who's leading each effort and next steps. So here's an example of relocating the northbound off-ramp. So this is the off-ramp that comes in from your right, right at this picture here on the right, you're looking on Williston Road to the east, right? The CVS is right to your right here. One of the recommendations is to pull this ramp further away from Dorset Street so that those tightly spaced lights can get some more space between them and function better as a system. So that's one thing that's in there as a medium term project. I'll kind of go through all of these in more detail. The first action we have in the short term is convening a corridor monitoring committee. And this is really to follow up on that theme I mentioned about things are going to keep changing in our future. So let's periodically, probably at least once a year, look at what we're seeing and decide if we need to make some adjustments in what the game plan is. The second big piece, and this is a big lift that needs to happen in the next 18, 24 months, is really digging into the TDM work. We had some really aggressive TDM measures as part of that 20% reduction idea or objective and one is increasing teleworking by 50% compared to what it was pre-pandemic, doubling trips by bicycle, tripling transit service, doubling participation in other TDM programs and then some more financial based things increasing cost of parking in our centers and mileage based user fee, which is kind of a little bit of a pickup on well what needs to happen as we kind of wean off the gas tax as our fleet converts from gasoline based cars to electric fueled cars. We're going to need to switch to a mileage based fee over that time. And so that's kind of the package of TDM. But what we don't have is exactly how do we do that? How do we double is it? And how far can we get towards doubling trips by bicycle for one is a really good example, which we need to dig into that some more. And I'm sure we will come back to, not just South Burlington, but every one of our municipalities because that's a high bar to get to as it's tripling transit. Sorry, was there a question there? Yes, Megan has one. Yeah, and I had raised this not at last week's meeting, but the prior meeting and I also received an email that I forwarded on to the climate action task force from a member of our bike and ped committee talking about income sensitivity with regard to the user fees. The member of the bike and ped committee, Maddie Larkspur, she also suggested various, could be if you get a traffic ticket that there could be some kind of income sensitivity or it could be based on the weight of your vehicle. I mean, she had a lot of different ideas about ways to just make it more equitable, but also with regard to the wear and tear, right? The heavier the vehicle, the more wear and tear on the roads. So anyway, I just wanted to know if you were including this kind of thinking in your planning. I think that's, ideas like that is, I think you're trying to get towards, how do you actually make this work and work in an equitable way that doesn't punish people that don't make as much money? Right. I mean, there's a lot to go into and you're just picking on one example, but I think the same could be said for a number of these. And so yeah, that is the kind of thing that just needs to get dug into more. And we're hoping that this work is helpful to our municipalities, but also to the state legislature as they're wrestling every year with how to address climate change. That was your response, thank you. It's a state issue. Yeah, okay. Will. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. The third piece in the short term is to follow up on the concept that we developed and that you looked at last year at exit 14 and really dig into that with a supplemental scoping study to get to a preferred alternative and then see to what level it needs to go through the NEPA process. And for those unfamiliar listening at home, NEPA is a National Environmental Protection Act where you do environmental impact studies or environmental assessments or sometimes it could be a categorical exclusion. So there's kind of three tracks that can happen under NEPA. We need to kind of dig into exit 14 and get that on track. But so far that seems like that is getting some pretty good support across the board and would make a big difference in just the livability of exit 14. And so we'd like to dig into that further and move that along. The next two projects are things that were kind of underway already before we started this exit 16, of course. I think it's gonna start construction pretty soon. Exit 12, they started clearing. If you've driven down the interstate, you saw the clearing right south of exit 12. That's for the parking ride lot that's going in there. So don't those are started? I'm sorry. The floor is gone. Yeah. There's a parking ride lot there. Yeah, or it will be coming anyway. And then also keep in track of what's going on with the electric vehicle, the market present, the penetration, excuse me. We know that we have to get to a high percentage of EVs to reduce greenhouse gases from transportation. And then also traffic count loops. So those are just sensors on the ramps to track what's happening at the individual ramps at particularly at exit 14, but all the ramps as well. And then medium term, we're just gonna keep monitoring the implementation of the TDM work. I'm sure those programs are gonna have to adjust as we go. So we'll be doing that really every year. It's just here as a medium term is just a reminder that we didn't forget about the TDM work, but some of the, in the medium term, this is six to 15 years we're envisioning, maybe making some more changes at exit 14. Maybe exit 14 is getting completely redone in this timeframe, hard to tell at this point. Additional park and ride and transit intercept facilities along 89. We are working on the regional park and ride study right now, exit 12 improvements. There were some planned as part of the CIRC alternatives process a few years ago. We'll take a look at that and then just more changeable message boards information. And then this is really the big one at the bottom here is if there are certain triggers met that we would start a NEPA process to look at 12B or 13. And of course, always do nothing is a possibility. And it may not be the exact versions of 12B and 13 that you saw through this process. That would be run by VTrans and have more, much more engagement from federal highway. But to kind of look, and again, that's if certain triggers are met. And I'm trying to remember, oh, here are the triggers, thanks. I was going to look at Dave Saladino and say, okay, wait, where are the triggers? Charlie, can I just ask the changeable message boards? Are those the kinds of things that says it's 15 minutes to the airport? Or, you know, you see in other cities or? Yeah, yeah, or it may say there was an accident. Or an accident, okay. All right, that's what that, I just wasn't quite certain what that meant. Thank you. Yeah, so the kinds of triggers we were thinking before we would start this interchange EIS in South Burlington was number one, making sure the TDM work was moving forward. Number two, making sure exit 14 was moving forward. And then what we come up with so far, and this is all still can be flexible as we move forward here, but was as a kind of a surrogate for what's happening at exit 14 and the impacts on Williston Road and Dorset is that intersection in particular, getting really near capacity for two or more hours a day. And it's kind of at that level down, maybe for like one hour a day or less, but does it, does the congestion that's happening that are spread over time and at a high level and is the crash rate get really significant? So those were those were the four triggers we were looking at before starting that EIS. And you can think about that. Well, you know, and again, this is can adapt some as we go through over time, but happy to have more conversation about this. And then moving forward into the longterm and this is more corridor wide across other interchanges in Chittin County, particularly 11 and 13, there are some ramps that are probably not ideally designed in terms of their safety. And so as our opportunities come up where like a bridge needs to be replaced or other preservation investments are made, this is some ideas for VTrans to consider as a look at improving the system there. And then the final thing that is left on the table here is that we may eventually get to a point and there's so many ifs lined up here that I'm even hesitant to talk about this stuff at this point. We actually had some debate about whether to even leave it in here because I personally, professionally don't see us getting to this kind of place. But we did leave it here just as kind of the worst case scenario. If traffic volumes, we don't succeed with our transportation demand management and we have a very poor electric autonomous vehicle future that has even more driving in the future than we do today, that we might look at studying what should we do with the main line of I-89? And you can see some triggers here. We're talking about 70,000 vehicles. I think we're at about 54,000 now. So that's a pretty significant increase. Again, we're thinking 15 to 30 years out. Peak hour congestion, again, spreads for more than two hours during the peak. Again, the crash ratio goes up over one and the travel time reliability, which is a federal performance measure that's required. It gets to be less than 90%, which I don't think we're too close to that right now. I think we're over 95% reliable. So anyway, those are the, this is kind of the thinking now is kind of monitoring and moving forward on things. We're asking the advisory committee to move forward with these investments with this core implementation plan and the monitoring committee. And this is just a little bit more discussion about kind of the importance of monitoring things because things are gonna keep evolving. And the kinds of things that the committee will be reviewing is how are those TDM measures progressing, what's happening with volumes, crashes, reliability, mode shifts, are we getting more people to bike and walk, et cetera, or use transit. And then we're asking them to approve the formation of that committee also. So that's, sorry, I threw a lot at you very quickly with a lot of words and a lot of phrases that probably weren't comfortable. But that's where we're at and we're hoping to wrap this up this summer. Thoughts, feedback, anything you want me to go back to? Matt? Charlie, a little crystal, mid-matcota here, it's crystal ballgazing, but will we have a built diverging diamond interchange on exit 16 before you have to make it, we have to make a decision collectively on whether to implement one diamond interchange on exit 14. That's good, thanks, Matt. I think that's, Eleni may know this, is that a two or three year construction cycle for exit 14? I believe it's a three year, sorry, I believe it's a three year construction, but I think we are starting construction next year. So the answer is absolutely yes. We are gonna have an exit 16 DDI diverging diamond before we actually move forward with the exit 14 because we still have to do scoping and go through permitting and design for that, so. So Colchester, can I get him to take it? Yeah, there's no way exit 14 would get built before you, got to test drive, exit 16. Okay, thank you. So unrestricted hours of Costco gas pumps in three years? Is that right? Well, I'm pleased that you've really, included in this implementation plan, this kind of constant monitoring, because I think it's really hard for us to have any firm assumptions and make decisions based on them, especially, I mean, even five or 10 years out, and then you have all the climate change, both from the state and potentially the various communities that may or may not impact all of this. So I think that was really smart to not sort of do the plan and this is what we're gonna do and sort of walk away from it, but to sort of continually test the theses and see if we're really making the right choices because this is hundreds of millions of dollars. And then, of course, the impact on our climate. So there's a lot in this. I see two requested motions. Are those from Charlie? Those motions aren't for us, though, are they? No, those are for the advisory committee. I'm sorry. Darn it. I mean, you're certainly free to whatever action, but I don't think we advertise this as an action item. No, thank you. I didn't see the price of gas anywhere in this study. Is that a variable in there somewhere? And that certainly affects people's behavior. And I think it's one of those variables that has been more of an issue the last few months than it was two years ago, right? And so that's definitely an impact and it's just something, it's not an outcome we measure necessarily, but it's certainly kind of an input that affects a lot of different outcomes. All right, I'm expecting to see transit usage go up as it did the last time we saw gas prices rise. So that's the kind of thing that can have an effect. And frankly, when we were doing that strategic modeling exercise, it was very consistent with, you know, the more that you increase the cost of driving, the more that changed people's behavior to pick other modes or you make other choices. So that is a factor. It's not something that we're directly trying to control because we can't, but. Okay, any other questions or comments? This is great. Thank you. Good work. Helpful. Thank you. Well, I really thank you for all the time you guys gave us last spring, because it was, I know it was a lot of time with us last spring, but it was really helpful to get to some decent points and also to know where we don't really have closure also, right? It was helpful too. So thank you for all that. Just real quickly for the members of the public who would like to send in some comments, what's the deadline for that and where can they send them? Yeah, there's a comment section on our website, this www.envision89.com. It's probably the easiest place online to send them or they can email me or Alaini or David Saladino. So happy to get comments. And in terms of a deadline, I think any comments we get over the next month or so, we can try to incorporate in the final document. So anything is helpful, appreciate it. Great, thank you. Well, thank you. This was, this is monumental work. That was the agony and the ecstasy. Yes, thank you. Well, and I hope you continue feeling better. Yeah, thanks. I definitely get there much better today than I was a few days ago. Great. Thank you. I'm going to stick around for Chris's section, but thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Is Chris on? Did we, Chris, I don't know if you want to make any comments? I don't have anything specific about the Envision 89 project. It's been quite an undertaking. I think we have enough else on our plate to worry about and I haven't really delved as deeply into it as I could perhaps, but it's a very comprehensive look and Charlie did a great job on it. Okay, thank you. Okay. So we move on to item nine, which is approving appointments to the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission's Board of Directors, to the Transportation Advisory Committee and the Clean Water Advisory Committee. So can I do it? Do you have a table setting here? Yes, you may. So just as you all likely know, the way CCRPDC does their two-year appointments is half the community's on one year, half the other. So this is our South Burlington year. You can see on the agenda how we are recommending appointments. So traditionally, my understanding is here in South Burlington on the Board of Directors, it's always been community members or counselors. And then on the Transportation Advisory Committee and the Clean Water Advisory Committee, we've had our professional staff serve in those roles, which many communities do. So you'll see who we're recommending. Tom DiPietro for TAC with a alternate of Adam Cape in Clean Water is Dave Wheeler and the alternate of Christine Gringus. Chris Shaw and Megan Emory are our current representatives on the Board and Alternates. They have both expressed an interest in being reappointed. Chris, I think actually is about to be in a leadership position if reappointed. So this is our set of recommendations, but of course it's up to the council to appoint whoever you would like. I move that we appoint the slate that you just recommended. Second. Okay, any further discussion? When did we first appoint Chris? I just want to recognize how long he served. Chris, how long have you been on the commission? Do you know? I was actually just asked that by CCRPC and I don't have that off the top of my head. It's either 2014 or 2016. And I want to say it was probably 2014. So it would be years. Eight years, good. And I could be mistaken, it could be 2016, but it's a slow-moving gear process. And as you can see from Charlie's presentation, the acronyms are mind-boggling almost as much as the 387 land development regulations that we have here in South Africa. Only there are about 50 threads there. Okay, well thank you for agreeing to continue your service. And I think we talked a number of years ago how important it was in our opinion for South Burlington to eventually get to a leadership position and as a large community and clearly involved in affecting a lot of the regional planning projects, I guess. It's nice to see you moving up the ladder and being willing to continue that. Well, Charlie and our chair have tolerated me as the vice chair for the last two years and I hope to get voted in as the vice chair next month. And then hopefully when our chair from Jericho Catherine McVaines decides she's had enough, perhaps I can be the suitor in waiting there, but we'll see. Well, good, well, we've been vice chair. Yeah, and our work is definitely made up of the committees as is the council's work here in South Burlington is made up of Planning Commission Development Review Award and all the many committees that we need volunteers for and people who can put in that service. The tack is vitally important. Paul Conner puts in work that all bubbles up to where we are and I think all the recommendations, as you can see Charlie recommending to his committee on the I-89 study, all that work is done well before it gets before us. Okay, well, great. Well, thank you, because I know it's a lot of time, but you're retiring, so that's what you have, right? Yeah, I'm told I must retire. All right, got plan. Okay, we have a motion and seconded. So if you're ready for the vote, all in favor of approving this slate, signified by saying aye. Aye. None opposed, so it carries for zero. Okay, thank you. Okay, item, whoops, 10, is a discussion on Veterans Park with Holly Reeves. Is she on the line? Yeah. Welcome, Holly. Hello. Hello. Hi. So do... Sure, I can tell we'll start this. So you all received some comments from community members about Veterans Park recently. So Holly and Adam Kate put together an initial memo that we paused at the last council meeting and then Holly provided an updated document as well for this conversation. So really, we wanted to make sure that the information that Holly and Adam put out into the community was received in the council and an opportunity to ask any questions, but really commend Holly for the quick work she did to get that information out as quickly as possible. So she is here to present or answer any questions you have. Would you, I mean, it's a lot of material, but do you want to present some highlights or what does the council want to just ask questions? No, sure. I'm happy to just do a quick review for anybody in the audience as well. So some concerns bubbled up several weeks ago from some participants, specifically for South Burlington Little League, that there was a lot of hard compaction in the soils at the ball fields at Veterans Memorial Park and having a year last year with a broken irrigation system was really compromising the fields further. And so really just concerned of, you know, making sure that we're taking the proper steps in and where do we go from here? So I have met several times with a couple of different folks from baseball and they have generously donated their time now that we have irrigation to work on some of the mounds and improve those. We do have a full plan for replacement rehab of the baseball mounds at the end of the season. So we didn't want to compromise the season by doing it now but we've gotten them some supplies so they can kind of fortify the pitching mounds which makes it safer for the pitchers for sure. And with the irrigation system now fully functioning, that means that the fields are getting saturated as they need to be and are as soft as they can be. It is still, you know, hard soils there. So we're not going to change that but there are things that we can do to improve it. So we have gotten quotes from professional landscapers that do this fine work. And so you'll see some of those in upcoming CIP presentations but for now I think the takeaway is that, you know, we're in concert with the Little League group and meeting with them regularly and, you know, great group of people to work with really passionate and really trying to impress upon their next generation the importance of pride and taking care of your space. And so there's always looking for ways to include the kids in, you know, in preparations and in closing the field after games as well. So I think we're in a good space. I feel like baseball feels like we're in a good space. Sometimes these kinds of things happen when we go from, you know, 30 degree weather and then the next week is 70 degree weather. So some of the issues with water now that the system is metered and on, you know, we have to wait for the grounds to thaw and sometimes that happens in April and sometimes that doesn't happen in May. So when you get a stretch of weather in April that's 70 degrees but still 30 at night, you know, there's this confusion of we wanna be able to play we wanna be able to get on the fields we're still waiting for the fields to green and to grow. So there's always some initial frustration with all user groups when there's a sunny day and everyone's ready to play and the fields just aren't there yet but we've now crossed that threshold and I think are in a good place but I'm happy to answer any questions anybody might have about communications or where the fields are or, you know, next steps with other enhancements. Okay, Matt, did you have a question? Yeah, I have two water related questions here. First, drainage, is this just for the baseball fields or for the soccer fields as well or all the playing fields? The drainage quote is waiting for it. Yep, so the irrigation is on all three baseball fields and then two of the soccer fields and in terms of drainage, so that's kind of a bigger project but something that we're diving into. So working with Tom DiPetro, we have highlighted the areas on the ball fields so any playing area, not necessarily open space area but any playing area that has limited drainage that's compromising safe play or compromising the fields from being open and taking a look at that, I think we're gonna end up getting numbers back, definitely before the fall to plan and budget. I anticipate that will probably be a pretty big ticket number but I don't know but we are gonna have that looked at and get some numbers so we at least have that Yeah, my thought was that it was gonna be a big ticket number and whether we need to prioritize which fields should receive drainage work first if money can't stretch far enough. And my other question was, I know it's not veterans but across the way how are we doing in the wetland area on the dog park and permitting the dog park? Yeah, so we got some preliminary reports back. Tom DiPetro is working with Tina from the state around some permitting questions. The hope is that we can do some underdrain around Farrell and also provide a crown on that space which will require materials. So we're back and forth with her, hypothesizing some fixes that we would have the supports internally to be able to do just trying to follow whatever process is needed. So I know last week we got the results back so even today Tom and Tina were back and forth just trying to get some clarity. So we hope to be able to provide an answer for that soon. Thank you, Holly. I'm talking about the dog park at Wheeler. But we also have a drainage issue in Farrell as well, so. Yeah, the dog market at Farrell, yeah. Ken, are you done? Yeah, I'm done, thank you. Thank you, Holly. I have a couple of questions. There is another, my kid's didn't play baseball, so I don't know where all the fields are, but there is one at Farrell Park, correct? Isn't there a baseball field? Yep, there are two. Yep, there's two. There's upper Farrell and then lower Farrell. Are they in okay condition or was it just this league that was interested in the ones at Veterans Park? So I think there is a desire to obviously have every field that we have be at an exemplary standard. The JC Park field is going to be skins to be an actual softball field. So that will happen this summer or fall. So that will check a box. I think the upper and lower fields at Farrell are primarily used for practice. And so there is a little bit of a different standard for practice than there is for league play and district play. So I think the fields at Veterans are used for those primary purposes and the soils at Farrell are different. So we're not having the same hard impaction that we have at Veterans Memorial. So I think that's a little bit of where the attention is focused there. Okay, so I have a question in terms of usage. Is the public can use the Farrell Street ones whenever the, and JC whenever they want, right? I mean, if my family wanted to play softball, we could go to one of them and use it, right? Or not. Or they all reserve. If somebody's not scheduled, mostly they're scheduled for evenings. I would say, you know, Monday through Friday and then some Saturday morning games, traditionally not on Sunday. We do have some backfill for JC and Upper Farrell. They're the only two that would be large enough to allow for adult softball. So we do have some backfill of adult softball leagues. So anytime they're not scheduled, of course they're open to whoever wants to be on them. But the league play itself, you know, I think Little League has, you know, 250 families or something like that. So there are a significant amount of teams that are utilizing those fields. So most nights they would be booked from five to seven. Okay. And what about the ones that Veterans Memorial Park? Are those exclusively used by the league? No, I wouldn't say anything is exclusively used by them. I would say they're certainly a primary user, but there are other folks that use them. And certainly if it's, you know, two o'clock on a Saturday afternoon or anytime on a Sunday afternoon and a family wants to gather and play with a ball or, you know, they wanna have a catch, you know, they're more than welcome to utilize fields just like anything else. You know, if there's a permitted user group, they're required to show that permit to somebody if, you know, a member of the public is coming to play and a group is utilizing that. So if that's helpful. Final question is, do we charge any of these leagues for the use of the fields? And if so, what kind of revenue or income do we get to potentially offset? I mean, these are pretty big numbers. And it's a, you know, a limited amount of people that use it. So cool. We do charge user groups. There are a couple of different scales. So a private user group, let's say like a far post has a different rate than South Burlington Little League because South Burlington Little League is all South Burlington participants and families. So we do recoup some money from South Burlington Little League. I could get those numbers for you, but essentially we recoup any supply costs. And also we recoup the time of our seasonal employee that it takes to maintain the fields and then a 10% capital improvement on top of that. And this is not just coming from baseball, but from all the user groups, whether it's soccer, lacrosse, you know, baseball, anybody using the fields, those rental fees go into a specialty fund. And that specialty fund really depending on the weather, but can generate anywhere between, you know, 40 to $65,000 a year. And out of those funds is where we pay for the seasonal staff member to maintain the fields as well as, you know, reinvestments into, you know, nets or reinvestments into, you know, goals or anything like that, as well as the supplies it takes to specialty line and paint the fields. Okay. Well, when we get to, you know, the CIP for the next year, I would kind of like those numbers just to give us a sense of, you know, the, what kind of income comes in and user fees as well as understanding, you know, how many people use the fields because these are big numbers and they are, you know, important facilities for us, but we have to prioritize and balance everything. And I was happy to see that you included in this, really having a parks plan, like all the parks, because I think that's really important for us as a council to make decisions about spending, you know, $380,000 on this versus, you know, some other park demand. So it'd be good to have a real good plan. So I appreciate that. Are there other questions for Holly? Tom came on to answer a question about the dog park. So Tom, you wanna bring us up to date with that, please? Yeah, hi, can everybody hear me okay? You're a little low to my ears, but. Well, hopefully you can hear me, I'll try to turn this up a little. Okay. Okay, great. I just wanted to clarify, Councilor Coda had asked a question about wetlands and we were talking about the Feral Dog Park, which is in a class two wetland buffer. So any work in that dog park would require a state permit. And as part of that, you have to look at alternatives. So what I've been going back and forth with very recently with state wetland staff was other options other than drainage and installation of underground drainage. I appreciate some concerns with that related to having that in a dog park. So it's all very recent. We haven't determined anything yet other than we have to get a state permit for any work. Kind of improved drainage in the Feral Dog Park. Okay, but not on Wheeler though. Wheeler, you don't need any state permits. Wheeler, I believe we're all set. We've got fence ordered. I don't have an update on that one. Holly might, I don't know exactly when that's coming in. I just know it's been ordered from Middlebury Fence, but I don't have an ETA. So we might have a dog park there this summer. Fingers crossed. We're gonna say definitely the late, let's say late summer, late summer. Late summer. Are there gonna be play structures, Holly? Like climbing structures? In the Wheeler Dog Park? Yes. I think the only play structures that are being envisioned right this moment are natural play structures. So there have been, there was a tree that came down and the request was to leave a stump and then larger logs for play area structures. But I think in phase two, there will be some potential sponsorships and fundraising for other elements. Okay, we like the logs. The logs are good. Yeah, that sounds good. Any other comments or questions? Yeah, so just to your, thank you both, Holly and Tom, for being here, really appreciate it. Just to your budgeting question, and it's really helpful to understand the data points you might wanna see during that conversation. Just wanna remind the council that right now in the CIP, if we think about getting the CIP, Andrew and I and the team are working on this to kind of a steady state plan where we're investing the same amount or an increase amount in each of our different types of infrastructure each year to make sure we're doing the correct preventive maintenance. Right now for products and recreation, we have $100,000 a year in there. So that's the tax capacity we currently have in the CIP. For all the parts. Right, so as we think about building up to 380,000, we are going to have to prioritize that against other infrastructure. So I really appreciate the forward work, Holly, and public works have done to put some dollar figures to things so we can start weighing those and looking to your point, Chair, at the users and revenue streams and whatnot. Yeah, yeah, and a comprehensive planning process. Well, exactly, especially the comprehensive plan for the parks would also reflect, I think the half cent that we dedicated was in a half cent from open space for the parks. Right? For certain parks. For certain parks, but I mean, but if you have a whole park plan, it would include those and we'd have those revenues at least to do some of that infrastructure. There are also certain things, I don't talk about a term here, there's certain things that you can solicit money from beyond the tax base, dugouts, for instance. It's hard to do that when you have playing areas that won't drain, right? It's hard to get people to get interested in sponsoring that, if we have wet fields, kids can't play. That's soccer, that's lacrosse, that's all sorts of other non-team sports as well. So I mean, that's what I'm interested in knowing is what are the biggest problem areas and what would it cost to do, how would you prioritize money in terms of drainage there? Oh, I too, I just, yeah, and I think sponsorship of some of the little dugouts, maybe, I mean, there's a whole slew of ways we can find, or someone, we, the proverbial we, I guess that's you, Holly, to find funding from private sources that would enhance the parks and recreation fields for the city. Thank you very much and thank you, Tom, for coming on. Appreciate all your work. Good night. Okay, good night. He looks like he's still at work, right? Yeah, he does. Yeah. Okay, item 11 is review and approve the final survey for public outreach on the use of the ARPA funds. So just to do some, Oh, Andrew, it's not Andrew. Yeah, sorry. Just do some table setting as Jesse likes to say on this. So just a reminder, this is the next phase in our community outreach efforts for councils final determination. I think we're slated for September to sort of talk next steps in terms of what we're going to use these funds for based on the feedback we receive. We have received 5.6 million in federal economic relief. We've already, councils already allocated 2.6 million of it. So the remainder is 3 million. So I circulated the survey in the packet. There are sort of several kind of broad questions. There's also some questions related to count planning, the city's current count plan and to sort of reaffirm some of the values that were made back in the 2016. Any differences from that? Just a couple of minor changes, question two, batting it around a little bit with planning and zoning. Instead of having one question for overall, how do you feel the city has done on these four priorities? Identifying out each one. So affordable and community strong, sort of that similar metric, one very successful to three not successful at all. How successful do you feel the city has been over the last eight years? And these are for members of the public, Andrew? Correct, yep. Yeah, I find it to be a little bit abstract for members of the public. And I understand that we don't want to just spend money. I'd sent to Jesse earlier today just an outreach email I had received from Citizen Lab. When I got feedback about COVID and the experience of some of the residents, just really concerned that there was not a place for families to have their children go. That there were families really stretched in and that our recreation and parks programming wasn't able to provide a safe place for children. And I just don't know where in those four big goals except for community strong, but even then an affordable, but even then that is just that seems abstract to me. And so, and I'm not, I mean, I'm not here with a, this is what I would do in the place of, but I'm thinking that, yeah, we need to give some more specific, what needs did COVID, the experience of COVID bring out or highlight for your family, right? And how could the city respond to those needs? Those kinds of questions I think would be more, like approachable or accessible to just your average resident who hasn't studied the comprehensive plan and can't see how all of these big goals really do have real world concrete solutions attached to them. So that's just, that's my biggest feedback. Yeah, so there is, and it's not embedded in the document, but we do have sort of like a survey monkey and do like a break breakdown. So for more information, click here, have sort of a link for that, because I agree with you, are kind of those four main goals are just a sentence written about, you know, and it's sort of our opportunity oriented, you know, you don't think of the work that we've done in city center, but that's combined within that. So that breakdown hopefully will provide a bit more kind of burrowed down information that's not quite as abstract. But to your point on the ARPA question, I mean, I think there's a question, I think it's question. Question four, ask some of those things. Some of those things, but yeah, the two and the three, I just, I don't know how people can really, really grab onto those things. I think they're kind of, you know, just too esoteric. And I'm not a, you know, I'm not a pro at this either. Yeah. So, but right, number four, I agree that there was, that there was more, there was, yeah, more specificity there. I would almost lead off with number four. I think starting from just from my teaching experience, you start from the particular and then you go to the kind of universal or the bigger picture that that's just, it's a nice point of entry for people who are just trying to, you know, feed their kids and get them to where they need to go and, you know, finish their work and, you know, I mean, just it's, so really having something that they can kind of put their teeth into and then, okay, now that I've kind of thought about this a little bit, I can see how this leads to clean and green or this leads to affordability or things like that. And I think that's a good point. I also think relative to your suggestion, Megan, about trying to elicit more specific feedback from a family, more specific, that maybe after question four or somewhere in this, there's a place to write in, these were my personal issues that might elicit what were the negative economic impacts of the pandemic. I mean, that's pretty broad. Are we supposed to answer that with, well, nationally, this is what happened or this is what happened to me and I'm not the only person. So maybe a little bit more of that. I know that's harder to compile and figure out, what do we do with this information? But it could be important granular stuff that sort of helps you understand better. You may not be able to pull one idea out. You mean like list the top three or four ways that you were negative will be impacted by the pandemic? On a family basis, individual or family basis, like one, I couldn't go to my work because I was sick or two, I couldn't get childcare because the childcare closed. Three, I whatever, you know. Yeah, that's true. I mean, even now we're talking about baby formula right now, right? I mean, and I think on top of that, just come off of the meeting with Charlie here, trying to get people into multimodal, what would it take for you to take the bus? What would it take for you to use our biking infrastructure? I don't know, there are just ways for us to kind of feed into our climate action plan that's being developed, the Vision 2050 for I-89. I mean, they're just, I don't know, again, thinking about that comprehensive look that we're trying to gain with regard to our parks, with regard to the airport district, how can these funds really serve? And it's the language to it. Like some of our residents don't speak English, Andrew. And so, how are we gonna get to them? Yeah, absolutely, and that's something we've had a lot of conversations about at the staff level because this is one of many sort of community outreach feedback that we're trying to get at this phase, and climate action is certainly one of them. The COMP plan is kind of the big one. This is just the, you know, the three million dollars. This is ARPA funding. But we're having the same conversation for all of those, is how do we have the most equitable community outreach we can do? Our retired sociology professor I happen to know, talked about, you know, you're only as good as your sample size, or your sample, and whether that's an equal distribution across the demographics that you have in your community. So that's something we've, again, we've brainstormed a lot about at the staff level, have some ideas that we've seen work over at the school district, as well as a lot of our regional partners are also wrestling with the same questions and nationwide people are wrestling with these questions now. So trying to use those models, I think one thing that we identified is really important in sort of getting the word out, particularly on the survey, is to not sort of invite folks to an ARPA discussion at X time and X date. I can't imagine a ton of people want to do that in the summer months. But what can we do to actually get out into community, you know, in these events or other opportunities that are out there so we can be, a part of that, places where people are already gathered. So that's sort of the second half of this, Megan, in terms of what we're thinking is, yes, there's the survey itself and absolutely translated into other language and our outreach on it available in other languages to try and get that, you know, equitable and what's the word I'm looking for, proportional. And those are big words for people. So, you know, like improving broad brand infrastructure. I know what that means, but does someone from Nepal know what that means? So can you access the internet? Do you, you know, just simple. I don't think we'll just say only poorly. Yeah, you know, I mean, there's a little bit of tech speak in here that, you know, that looks good in a grant application, but for the everyday citizen who, you know, doesn't work with the level of, the level of administration that you work with, you know, I mean, neighborhood improvement grants, like what the heck is that? It's what I would hear people say, you know, what will that do for me? Right? What's microtransit? What are microtransit initiatives? You know, I mean, that there are things that, you know, we kind of use as our lingo, but it doesn't mean anything, right? And we're really just people are just like, I just, I can't even start. Yeah. Right? In some ways, I think this is trying to do too much because I'm not certain even I was thinking about using the ARPA funds to necessarily link up with our fork all goals in the comp plan. I was thinking of how would we use them? I mean, as they're required to be used, I think, in helping assist the city to make improvements that we identify as a result of COVID. And not that we want, you know, a green community and you know, the four principles in the comp plan. I mean, I know they're connected, but that's the micro, that's the macro look. And I mean, the title is almost misleading to me as a individual who hasn't sat at these, listened to our conversations. What are we talking about? You asked me about, are those the right goals for the next comp plan? Or are you asking me, how should we invest these ARPA funds in things that will improve our community? I mean, you've already listed ones that kind of connect to those goals. So you've sort of done that for them, but we're kind of asking them to start big and then get down. So. I think like a planning commissioner, which. Yeah. And I, you know, I think you should flip all the questions around and then maybe make a statement or something about along with, you know, investing this, these monies and things that improve our lives. Our comp plan has identified four categories. And so how do you think we're doing? And then maybe you can ask, how do you think these ARPA funds may or may not support those goals, you know? I don't know, again. And they'll probably leave some blank, right? But at least give them answering questions with those easy, you know, it's sort of the easier. The low hanging fruit questions where I understand that question, I can answer that question. Whereas if you get further on, gosh, I mean, it's intimidating for people to respond to this kind of questionnaire too, you know, that. So that's why I sent, it just happened to be in my inbox over the weekend. I sent to Jesse citizen lab out of Oregon, how to get just more, you know, that's the word, diverse response, you know, responses to and input and participation. And I don't know the cost. I did, he said 15 minute, you know, just have a 15 minute conversation. I don't know if you even want to take it up as, you know, or let me see what he has to say over 15 minutes. And then you can then maybe decide if you want to take it up. But I mean, it just seemed when I looked at the brochure and I forwarded it to you all, but I'm not sure you looked at it, but it looked really good. I mean, it really looked, you know, this is the way to get people who usually don't come to the meetings, who usually don't run for office, who usually are working two jobs, who are, right? Living, you know, more challenging lives in many ways, how to get them involved. Jesse, you wanted to. So I just want to remind us of the conversation we had in the past about this. Oh, we're reversing ourselves. So, you know, three, I did get your email and I sent it to Andrew and that we, I think all of us got that sales email. The three million, the conversation we had previously had was that this, that we want to go to the community and ask for ideas and feedback and $3 million is actually very little money for a big transformational project. So one of the concerns we had was going out and soliciting all of this input over the summer to fund one or two or three projects and people feeling like they'd given all of this time and effort to provide feedback that went nowhere. And so our intent was to link it to the comp plan process to say, even if we're not funding with this small pot of money right now, your idea, that idea is going to be integrated into the comp plan discussion, which is why it's framed this way around our citywide goals. I think the order we do them in, I think, you know, simplifying language, we can certainly, it's all great feedback. We can certainly come back with another draft if you want to push this off a little more. But that was the intent, was to directly link it to the comp plan so people felt like their feedback was heard when we were only going to fund a few things out of thousands, hopefully thousands of data points. I'm not sure it comes through the way it's written. I was just reminding you of what the council comes in. Yeah, I know. That was brilliant of us. But you're very smart. I'm just thinking about how we get this. Information from the public. And I mean, I guess I would ask that you sort of reorder it and think about however few sentences you need to link that to the comp plan. And all the, I mean, we dedicate lots of dollars to in our budget to achieve those four goals. So it isn't like we're not gonna do anything unless we have more than, I mean, $3 million is not all that we do to achieve those things. So it's really kind of where do we need to focus that one-time money to kind of make a difference to advance those goals. And so I think that's what's missing is that, at least to me, the connection of, so what are you asking me? Okay, here's the ARPA money. And then this is how it's connected to the comp plan. And are those goals still, we're sort of asking them to those resonate with you still and have we made any progress? And then, you know, maybe you end it with and the $3 million is potentially gonna enhance some of them. But it's not gonna do all of it and make that really clear. Yeah. Do you think that's doable to turn it around? I mean, something that I would bring back to the council and to the staff is, I just met a new family and moved into our neighborhood. They have daughters who are almost four years old. The husband works nights, she works days. They can't afford childcare. And they take care of the kids when they're not at work. So when do they sleep? And when do they see each other? I mean, this is the life of a lot of people. My husband and I did the same thing when we were young, you know, a long time ago. And it's hard, especially for the one who works the nights. And that was my husband too. And I just, I heard the cry during COVID. You know, where was the city? You did nothing for the parents who had the children at home. You did nothing because the schools didn't have, they have to school program. They weren't in school, right? And there was some anger. I received some anger from residents. You did nothing. And this is because I was campaigning. And, you know, I'm the messenger and the representative. So I bring that back to you. But that was a real, real hardship for people. And it will continue to be. I was stunned. It's not a cheap thing to have children these days. And so, Tim or Matt, I'm sorry. Did you want to ask a clarifying question? No, no, that's fine. Tim or Matt, do you have- No, I just said earlier that, I mean, I think in some conceptual way, if you start by asking, how were you negatively impacted by the pandemic? Right? I'm sorry, I can't understand you. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought of it. So the dollars are supposed to be spending, responding to the pandemic in some respect, right? So if you ask people, how were you the most negatively impacted by the pandemic? Right? Right, give me your top three. No childcare, you know, poor broadband. I couldn't do remote work. I couldn't, my kids couldn't attend school efficiently because we, you know- I'd use internet. Whatever, you know, I mean, so I mean, and I mean, I know that some of these pressures are releasing now and kids are back in school, but not to say that this couldn't happen again. Right? Right, you know, to some degree. So, or I mean, our lives may be changed for years because of this, you know, among other things that are going on, right? So with that in mind, right? Then take it from that perspective because that's what I think that the money's trying to be focused on. And then try to, I mean, I don't know how you pull that back to the comp plan, but I mean, it is only $3 million, so. And then I would follow it up with and which of those needs were not met because I think that Vermont did an amazing job getting meals to people. You know, I mean, the school buses were delivering lunches. So it was, so I wouldn't just leave it as, you know, what were your three top needs? It was which of those needs were not met, right? We need to know that too. That's the follow up question. And I hate to like bring the school district into this as well, right? But they're kind of partners in this in some way, but they have their own. They have their own money and they've done their own. They've done their own thing. Okay, well, then I, and where there's no overlap there and no opportunity to send the survey out to the parents. Oh no, we'll use all those. You can do that? Okay, all right. So I mean, using their resources to get the message out would be great. Yeah. We've already had those conversations. Yeah, okay. Thanks. So I would, we can certainly set it up that way. I would just frame for the council that at some point you're gonna have to make allocation decisions. And I think the question of those, for example, those three, how are you most negatively impacted? The state just approved biggest budget in history funding all of those things. What is core municipal government? What are we supposed to use local dollars to impact? That's why we've tried to give some examples in question five about what we're... How about an indoor recreation center? Well, that's one of them. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Right. I mean, that's where you send your children, right? Well, and people did receive childcare bonus, not bonuses, but checks and, I mean, the federal government sent out, okay. Yeah. So my point is just, maybe it wasn't enough, but it wasn't as if nothing was done and we certainly don't have the tax capacity to say, oh, okay, we'll subsidize X, Y, and Z. Right. That's not a city. No, but we could really put, you know, lots of money towards the indoor recreation center. Right. If that's, yeah, that could be one of those responses for my kids could do some, although it wouldn't have been open during COVID, but no, but for the future. I mean, that's the idea is, right? We can't go back in time. Build community space, yeah. Okay. Does that give you enough to watch? It's a lot of, sorry. Yeah, no, it's okay. That's great. I think, so come back at the next meeting, I think with a revised draft and play with the order a little bit, simplify. I would even. Some of the language and add a couple of questions that have been identified tonight. I would put it before our four state legislators, you know, our house representatives who are really in touch with the public too, you know, and maybe the senators as well, and just have them, I mean, I can imagine that they'd have some good input if, you know, we really do want to do it in-house instead of having, you know, we're reinventing the wheel perhaps here. And so, and that's a good way to do it. I mean, we definitely have talented skilled people here, but I would put more eyeballs on it. And, you know, I think more heads are better than one, you know? Okay. All right, are we ready? Okay, we're ready. Item 12, approving the lease of 577 Dorset Street to the South Brongton School District. And Colin, are you gonna, I'm always amazed when this is sort of a, within the city agreement, and it's 18 pages or something. I mean, I know you have to do that, but it's- It gets paid by the page. Exactly, but it always- One more. One more. My question about part 13E with the leans, the mechanics leans, can we get down to the brass tax on that right away? Absolutely. The fact that it's 30 days and most contract is 29 days. I really just can't. I can't. Well, we want to be generous. But anyway, it just always amazes me. I know it's- Good evening, councilors. So before you is a lease for what is now 577 Dorset Street. It's a former city hall building. This is largely, it's a lease to the South Brongton School District, that it's largely a lease that was negotiated back in 2018 with an agreement for a land swap that allowed us to build this building and get some easements for this building from the school district. And this was kind of a component of that in exchange due to some, you know, just time and some, you know, things we've learned since that time. We had to make some minor changes to it from that version that was in 2018, but it's largely the same document. It's a original term of three years. It's a not very expensive rent arrangement. It's $10 a month with, there is a renewal period of three years and then another one for another three years. The building has to be used for school purposes only. And it's only a chunk of the property that's going to be leased. So it's essentially the city hall building, not the fire station. There's essentially a line drawn between those two buildings and there is a circle around the property kind of enclosed within the property that city still owns that will be leased to the school district, essentially the paved parking area portion, a majority portion of it. The utilities will be mostly that can be divided up will be mostly in the school district's name. Those that cannot will be prorated based on their portion of the use. The city is still using some of that building. We use it for a city vault and we have a space in that building that we're using for the recreation department that we're still using that for. So I think it equates to about a little over 16% of the overall area square footage of the building that we're still using. So of course we'll have to pay some utilities based on that and continue to do that. And that's part of this lease agreement. Andrew, do you know what that a ballpark figure of that would be? I was just curious what the carrying costs, the monthly carrying or the annual carrying costs for us with the fire department and the vault and. For both utilities and insurance? Yeah, I mean, what is it gonna cost us? Yeah, I mean, if we look at the square footage breakout, I'm trying to round, round numbers here. I mean, some of the maintenance costs, there's one on your disbursements actually in this last warrant for some upgrades to the HVAC systems. Those will obviously be kind of those ongoing maintenance costs. I can't think of a direct number off the top of my head, but happy to come back on that. All right, sorry. And that's essentially it, that the lease is in front of you. I can walk through all the terms if you'd like to, but answer the lien issue, because that's. I am curious how much we pay for property insurance. That would be, I'd have to turn to our finance people on that. Yeah, so for the building itself, overall, our general liability city-wide is in the 800,000 range, that's including workers comp and everything. And I don't know what the specific schedule amount is for the building itself, but I could certainly get that for you. I mean, so if they were to purchase it for the $10, they would take over the property insurance, right? Absolutely. Yeah, except for the stuff that we maintain, the vault in the fire department. Right, there are some components of the building that- And the rest of the land. It would be very difficult to split at this point between the fire department and we'll have to work something out if they are able to purchase it. I think it would be right now for some of those terms, we're going to be paying the bill and they're going to pay us back based on their prorated use. If they were to purchase it, they would pay those bills and we would pay them based on our prorated use. So it would just be a swap. Yeah. And that's for those utilities that can't be separately metered. Exactly. All righty, that's a $10 million in coverage here. You ready for a motion? Yeah, are we ready for a motion? Yeah, so in terms of a motion, I would recommend, and I can give you the wording if you'd like to, but I would recommend I have some component where you authorize the chair to be able to execute these documents and all other related documents. If you'd like, I can approach with some recommended motion. The chair or the city manager? Me. Yeah, it would be the chair. Oh, okay. So I'll make the motion that we approve the lease of 577 Dorset Street to the South Billington School District and how does it empower our chair really to assign and execute all of the documents? Second. So any further discussion? Okay. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Carries 4-0. Thank you. Excellent, thank you very much. And one thing I left out is that the school department did approve this lease, I think at their meeting last week. Good to know. All righty. Great. It was a time when I never thought we'd get here. So that's great. Item 13, discuss and possibly appoint council liaisons to committees. So at your last council meeting, you adopted a set of bylaws for committees and part of the change in that those bylaws was to have council liaisons. So now coming to you, asking you to appoint yourselves or each other to be those council liaisons for committees. We, you don't need to take action on this today. Obviously Tom's not here. So he should be part of that conversation as well, but want to give you some time to talk about that in advance of the start of the new committee year on July 1st. Okay. I'm happy to start. I've been asked to nominate myself for affordable housing and I would be very willing to do so. Okay. I'm already on the climate action plan test force. So I'm happy to continue that. I certainly would love bike and pad, public arts, rec and park, common area for dogs, economic development. I realize that's a lot. I mean, those are the ones I've interested in all five of those willing to share, but. Oh, good. That is a lot. What are your top five? What would you like? Can you say those again? Right. Bike and pad, common area for dogs, economic development, public art, rec and park. Those are my five preferreds. Can you repeat those again? Oh, bike and pad, common area for dogs, economic development, public art, and rec and park. I'm just throwing them out as if you had to give me a chose fog. I don't think we'll assign you fog. That seems like an enormous amount of it. You can add me to city charter. I like energy. You like energy? One energy. But I could be made to like other things too. They're not enough to go around so. Your name is the next, the climate action plan task force, Helen. It should be. I mean, it's just a mistake. So I asked her to. Did you hear city charter for me too? Yeah. That's an interest to me. I would be happy to do natural resource and conservation and that kind of. I'm also interested in economic development. What can we give Tom? We plead for Tom. We have a housing trust fund. I'll do that too. I mean, there's three there. Yeah, that's connected. Let's see one, two, three. A big one is rec and park. Seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 13 divided by five. That's two or three per counselor. Well, I have three already. Tim, you have pension. You said you. Energy and eco. Energy and economic development. That could be three. You willing to give that up? Oh, yes. So it would be your top three. Top three. Dogs, art, bike and pet. Okay. And so that leaves. Recreation still. Well, recreation too. Boy, that's hard. I like that one too. Actually, I bet Tom would be good at that too. I mean, just because, you know, his kids use stuff. And he seems to. You met dog and rec and bike and pet. Yeah, that's exactly. All right. Well, I think this is a good start and we'll bring it back when Tom is here and maybe with some proposals of what we've heard you say. We'll just give Tom everything. And then that's right. He only has it till March. So. Okay. Thank you. Uh, reports from counselors on committee assignments. The climate task force met and, you know, we're really steaming along. So, I mean, I just, I think they're working in a good way and having good conversations. And we'll come up with some recommendations. I mean, they really do want to work on recommendations for the building heating codes and get that to us sooner rather than later, but it really, we've, one, we need to know what the legal consequences of that are. So that's been Paul Connor is going to ask you about that. And we're looking to, we've been looking at, or there's a little subcommittee, we've been looking at what Burlington has passed. So we don't, you know, reinvent the wheel. And there's sort of two issues. One might be having our own building codes that are enhanced, but there's also Burlington went for a charter change. So the committee needs to find out what that entails because that would require a vote by the city. So they're working on that, but they're passionate about this and really want to get something to us sooner rather than later. So it's a great committee and airport doesn't meet till Wednesday, so it'll be the next time. Anyone else did pension meet or how about? Yeah, GMTA is big meetings tomorrow morning. Big meeting because they decided on the fair policy for FY23 for the urban areas. And not for local, but the link, St. Albans link, the Montpelier link, the Middlebury link and to reinstating fairs. There's a couple of reasons that the arguments for reinstating fairs seem to be carrying. Well, we'll see what happens tomorrow when we discuss it. One is there's a federal match that we have to come up with. So now I'll just grant money and money. They have to come up with their own money in order to get the federal money. You're leaving money on the table if you don't institute some sort of fairs. You know, there's the rising cost of diesel fuel. Yes, we do have electric buses. There's two pro-terra buses, but the vast majority of vehicle miles traveled by our buses are diesel fuel. Diesel fuel, if you've seen the pumps or if you drive a diesel truck or car, you've noticed is, yes, and there's lots of reasons for that. I'm happy to go into that and talking to the press mostly about it, but suffice it to say, there's not a whole lot of relief in sight for diesel fuel in the next six months. So I think that the sentiment is to reinstate fairs on July one for the Link Express, but to keep it fair-free, thanks to federal ARPA funds for local transit. Oh, wow. I think, I don't know. You think? We're gonna hear all the arguments tomorrow. Yeah, yeah, well, good. Indefinitely or just for the fiscal year? Fiscal year. Okay. Was there any sentiment on the council that we can share with us? Yeah, I'd love to hear it. Because you're a rep on that. Is there any? I just, I love taking the bus. I will say it again and again. It's the most convenient, you know, stress-free way for me to get to work and I can truly respond to emails. I can grade. I can read. I mean, it's just a- So in terms of the fairs, that's the question- Oh, that's the, oh, the feedback. The idea is, if you did it with the link, I mean, the people that get on the bus at Shaw's and go to Montpelier, they're doing it because they have a job at Montpelier, right? Or they live in St. Albans and they work at the hospital or at the school. So it's less, I need to get the doctor's office, right? Like, the less of that transit when you're talking about, that's more of the local. Right, right. And the local would stay free, thanks to federal opera funds. It's the, once COVID happened, we took away the money that you put in the fare box when you went to Montpelier. This would be reinstated in July. Any particular, I mean, that doesn't apply to you unless you want to go to Montpelier. No, I don't. So we're happy with it staying free locally and I don't have a problem with charging those links if that's how you can keep them. A lot of national life employees and a lot of state employees, take that. Yeah, no, no, I know those buses are full and I think that's really, is important. I'm glad they're reinstating them. I think it should be reinstated across the board, but like you've mentioned at the last meeting, there's a technology issue with the fare boxes, right? And it sounds like that they have to catch up with whatever you could do with a phone to pay by phone. Either like a prepay a card, like if you go to the metro in DC, like you load up a card and you just swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe until it's down and then if you can't get out of the station until you add a few more dollars to get out, you know, whatever it is, so. That's the initial investment that we haven't made. Right, so that's the whole, maybe that's something else that has to be done, right? Is to get the whole fare structure out of a cash box and onto a phone. But again, I mean, that's the interesting thing about phones is how you could use that to the advantage to plan, you know, the transport most efficiently that you can, right? And find out people where they wanna go and then organize the transport around that. But that's something else in the future, so. That's not on the agenda tomorrow. No, it's not, but I think everybody should have to pay something to get on a bus and go somewhere. I mean, where else they don't pay at all and it's all built into the whole, you know, the structure itself, so. But this sounds like it's a good compromise, at least for now. I think so, but we'll see. Okay, is there any other business? I just wanted to, Jesse's already, you've already received an email about the dumping that's gone on next to the airfield. I'm sorry, so yeah, Jesse has already received an email about some dumping that's gone on next to the airfield, next to the chain link fence and there's a gorge there. It's just by Dumat Avenue. And I've been by twice. It does look like some has been cleaned up but then more has been added. So it's just, it is a situation that is of concern to residents and I don't quite know, you know, I mean, there's a city sign that's actually sitting there. It should, now people say it should go on Duval. I don't know where the sign goes, but it just seems like, you know, there was gravel that was dumped there. A lot of the branches have been removed. Was this dumped by the airport? Well, that's the public using it as a, but that seems to also be some public, there was like a wicker shelf that was there last weekend that clearly the airport would not leave there, right? So it's just, yeah, just someone needs to kind of be watching and, you know, with these little critter cams, there are ways for us to, you know, keep an eye on things too. It just, you know, clearly we do not want people to use that as a dumping ground. Oh, for sure. It's a natural area. It's a gorge. It's a really nice wooded area there that, you know, should not become toxic or who knows what people could put in there, right? So I don't know. I don't know what the solution is, but it is of concern of, and I've received several, several emails and phone calls about it. So can you tell me, because I could raise this at the, so could I say what we've done? Yeah, I'm sorry. So yes, we've been talking to your neighbors quite a bit about this. At first, the neighbors thought it was the airport and we've had conversations with airport leadership repeatedly. They believe it may have been one of their staff initially and that has stopped. And we did site visits with them so they understand the real concern and understand where they need to dispose of their refuse. So now it's becoming a police issue. You know, they are monitoring and patrolling and trying to figure out who actually is doing it. Okay. So that's where we are. Okay. There we go. Any other business? When is Swift Street going to be paved again? Swift Street is going to be paved on May 19th. Coming up. Yeah, okay. Alrighty. So item 16, consider entering executive session for the purpose of discussing land acquisition. So I have a motion. I move that the council enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing the negotiation or securing a real estate for purchase or lease by the city of South, early on inviting in Jesse Baker and Colin Neal into the executive session. Second. Can you add Andrew? Can you add Andrew, please? And Andrew? Oh, and Andrew Bullock, sorry. Okay. Second. Okay, all in favor? Aye. And I would give this to... Is this one motion? Is it just one motion? Just two. Okay, can add your name into it. Is there a second motion? Oh, just one, okay. So we will not be returning. So good night all. We're on the... Thanks, sir.