 let's call this meeting to order this June 22nd meeting of the popular planning commission first thing we can do is approve the agenda everyone received the copy electronically will you take a look we have a motion to approve I move to move I'll second okay motion by Arianne and second by Barb all paper recruiting agenda say aye hi hi hi sorry I was muted okay as long as we have four votes to approve the agenda all right uh moving on comments from the chair I mean I've got uh I've got no comments um although you know later on we're gonna be talking about something Mike has an update for the hearing for July 13th that's gonna be the big thing coming up um we're gonna be covering a lot of ground I'm not sure actually what Mike is to say for that so I'll find out uh so the next item the agenda is general business uh looks like we don't have anyone besides uh staff and commission members and workup is that true yes okay oh and Aaron's there okay good he was off screen for a second okay uh okay so with that we've got no general business so we can consider the minutes from June 8th everyone take a look uh the minutes were just in around like the email I wasn't here for that meeting but I guess I can vote yes or approve them if you need me to yeah technically you're allowed to okay so I think the final clarification on the motion I think that's correct basically said that Aaron went back to his original wording which we thought was to extend the eastern gateway to Pioneer Street is that correct I know it sounds good to me Aaron are you on I am I don't have a camera oh all right yeah that's my right collection okay yeah I think that's correct as well motion to approve okay motion by barb do you have a second second second by Stephanie all in favor of approving the minutes say hi hi hi okay post okay that brings us to Mike uh state for the on the hearing for us uh I just wanted to give you guys the I emailed the the draft map which just highlighted the two parcels that are being shifted um the hearing is in the process of being warned so it is all set to go for the 13th and that was really all I was going to say on that there wasn't any wasn't too much other than I'm going through the motions of getting it all approved again and not getting it all worn which is um always a large bureaucratic process so but we're doing more than just that zoning district change at the July meeting correct correct it's both the design review that we've already looked at in this new addition and we won't be I guess the other big important piece is we won't be looking at the on the record review I think that's just going to have to be tabled until we can get some time to get some staff back and when we do we can go through and have a legal review and work with the DRB and DRC to kind of take a look at things and and we'll revisit it we've got we've got that mapped out we just have to go and put it together now so this will just look at the design review rules that we'd already looked at and the uh and the change in the zoning district Mike you said you emailed that out that draft map I think I emailed the map out today today okay um I haven't pulled the map up yet but just just to make sure I understand Mike the map just reflects what the zoning would look like if we extended Eastern Gateway to Pioneer Street it just puts a cross hatch over the areas that are going to be shifted to Eastern Gateway so you can look through the cross hatch and see what exists today and the cross hatch identifies the area to be rezoned okay Mike just a question um that whole prop that's the whole property right that's just that that parcel and then the car wash on the end yes but then there what's the orange just above that is there another parcel there that's the river there that's just the river okay so that would end up being that's not like a weird corner it's just the river yeah I mean okay I can go through and have them remap so the other piece I think is the country club road so there's a little bit of the river a little bit of country club road and technically I guess these guys own a really tiny sliver of land on the other side of the river and we can go through and have them amend the map to to to show all of that in rezoned um this is what they gave me looking at it like this it just it looks like yeah I recognize that it's the river right now it looks like there's a piece that's going to stay riverfront right in the middle which is confusing yeah so I can I can ask them to adjust that um on the map because it hasn't been warned yet so all right so it's not just the parcel it's just the line goes all the way to pioneer street yeah I could have them put the river put the river and put the road in as well yeah that would help a lot all right is there another like sliver of parcel on the other side of the river between the river and old country club road that's still riverfront um that would end up being just a weird line it should stay it should be staying riverfront on the other side really it's a really narrow strip but I can't I'm not sure if that's actually like it's just inside of the road it's tough to tell whether that's the road right away or whether that's a separate but I can have them adjust all of that on that side so Mike is there some kind of an easement that runs through their property that's the railroad there's the railroad that goes through you kind of have these three long these two two long lines one is the railroad and one is the river well the cross hatch is their property right cross hatch is their property and in through through their property is the railroad bed okay we also have railroad on the other side of the river but that's that's colored green okay and between the railroad colored green and the river is old country club road and so if this change happened it would then mean that we would end up with the purple color extending further the purple is presently the eastern gateway yes correct okay correct right so this makes it look like we're just adding the parcel but I think based on our motion we're extending it all the way to Pioneer Street which would cover all of the part that's making it confusing for me which is the river and that little strip of land that I don't imagine is very much yeah which is actually the road so it's it's it would be clearer if those other if the country club road in the river we're also looped into that unfortunately I've been putting up hay and dealing with stuff on the side and this is what they sent me and so I figured well I'll get this out so this is this is what we have they didn't have time to get another revision through but yeah I guess I my understanding of our change was just to to the river and Pioneer Street not on the other side of the river because on that side it's not appropriate is eastern gateway right which is why I was wondering Barb how much of what that actually is because if we make everything across the river is all eastern gateway then it's just this little strip yeah I mean I don't think it's appropriate to be across the river because that's really completely different and characteristic after walking down there it's and seeing it from the river side I see what you're saying yeah that's probably the more appropriate zoning designation on the other side would be rural because old country club road doesn't have sewer and water and that's why those other areas are greens because they're zone rural so it would probably be the question is what color do we make the river itself it looks like farther up it's going down the middle of the river so if you see how it kind of jogs in as you're going up you see how it kind of steps in that's it looks like they were going down the middle of the river in other areas so maybe what we'll end up with is continue down the middle of the river above that would all be green north of that and the south of that to the riverbank basically the the middle of the river to the riverbank would be purple eastern gateway what would be cross hatched for the proposal that makes sense and yeah a little sliver property that they have that's across the river is just in the rural that would be in the rural correct which I think we tried to avoid parcel like we tried to avoid cutting up parcels but that's such a weird piece anyway that I don't think that should make a difference I don't even think they probably know they have it and I don't even know if technically they know they have it it's just how it shows up on the on the grand list so I'll have one set of cross hatched to identify river north to rural and then continue this the other cross hatched to the center line do we need to make a new motion for that probably you can probably make it as simple as proposed by Mike or what might just or maybe just that Mike will have the the proposed map modified to reflect our discussion which would put the big the border boundary in middle of the river is that right Mike yes it would move the eastern gateway boundary to the middle of the river and make the northern portion to be proposed to be changed to rural okay so they'll be a vote at the hearing right I mean that'll be when we can make the appropriate motion yes and that one can be easy because the map is presented okay so we don't need to make a motion right now no I think we're good okay all good thanks I will I'll get that to Pam and we'll get that adjusted okay so friendly reminder though that uh you know we still have the discussion ahead of us on the the wisdom of making any changes there that foreshadows how my views are going to be well taking another look at it curvy yeah I can see that this at the property I can see that that will be an interesting discussion yeah I mean I think I think there needs to be a buffer between between the eastern gateway and and that far into town um we can talk about it next time so okay so that might that was that your that was your update for us right so then all we've got left to do today is to talk about the economic development implementation strategy for the city plan okay everyone have that document I think we can go through the mic so this one um we had gone through a version that I had put together with the previous mdc director before she left and afterwards you know we had had a lot of discussion about various pieces of it so I just wanted to jump back in and take another stab at it so I went through and grabbed um the city council had been doing a lot of work on their strategic plan so I wanted to take a bunch of their elements and when I looked at their strategic goals as it applied to economic development a lot of the pieces didn't appear in in our document so I wanted to go through like things like um this the city council really values um jobs that pay a livable wage and when I looked at the one I'd given to you guys there was really no discussion of living wages or other other things like that so I tried to go back through and you know I kind of reconfigured how things were laid out to try to better match what were the city council strategic goals and get a little bit away from how the mdc had formulated the economic development strategies so that's but a lot of the strategies in there haven't changed they may have moved places and moved around but the strategies themselves seem to be there I thought this one was laid out a little bit better than the previous one but I guess that's where I would just kick this conversation off by saying this is why I made the changes and and try to capture some of these other ideas that had been out there like when were those ideas under discussion by the city council they've been going for past year or two a lot of what was in the previous edsp and other economic development planning were all under the previous city council and by previous I really mean you know the global previous under the former mayor um there was a big watershed change in what 2018 maybe and the council really turned over a number of seats and they they took a different course as it applied to economic development and so I think the previous version kind of matched the previous maybe the previous administration more and this one I tried to adjust to the newer the newer one well well I'll jump in here um the whole way that this reads is as if we are going back to business as usual and I'm just not getting that um I don't think it addresses COVID and the chain economic development changes that will have to happen as a result of that um and the changes that have already happened in terms of of grant funding and things uh like that so I'm just really concerned that um if if this were to go forward to the public they would be saying you know do we have our head in the stand um how does this address COVID okay this really wasn't wasn't drafted with that specific case in mind it was mostly written as I said April 7th is the date on the top even though I've made a few tweaks afterwards but yes it hasn't gone into specifically address that situation what would you be thinking of um I hate to say it I mean I know that you've spent time on this and um a lot of time on this but it sort of seems like the ground has shifted and um that what we need to be looking at is is maybe a different kind of economic development plan and I'm not clear if the city council is addressing that um I'm assuming that they are and there are you know there's grant funding that has addressing some of the economic recovery issues that are coming up for businesses um but I really think we have to we have to address that um in some way because I just don't see that we will be returning to business as usual sorry I mean we're welcome to to adjust this as we see fit you know I've explained how I adjusted it and why I adjusted it um sure yeah I think and yeah and you did do it you know in accordance with everything up through that you know uh beginning of April perhaps because we didn't know what was going to be happening through April and May um and now into June so I think that um and do we have ahead of the development corporation we don't right now right no okay so that kind of leaves you without anybody to work with on this no we still have still Dan from Montpelier live right right but sorry wasn't there someone hired to help with COVID recovery does that person have any economic expertise or does their role extend to economic recovery I think that's what I think economic recovery was specifically that role yeah she was she's a recovery officer or something like that but she might be a good person to move in right yeah to to really see what she thinks about this I think that's a good idea Stephanie I mean I think one of the questions is we're looking at an eight-year plan um you know COVID for all the issues that it is going to present over the next year perhaps too it's the question is how is this going to change fundamentally you know as we said we're laying this out as you know um basing our economy on you know sense of place high quality downtown being an affordable place to live um you know um supporting quality private developments and ensuring projects of access ample infrastructure you know that's how we make these projects happen how do we make savings happen how do we make the Grossman's Lot redevelopment happen these are all things that's how we help those projects happen right but I think the changes are going to extend for the eight years at least if not more and so maybe the way we approach development may actually change it's it's true that some of those goals are going to be remain the same we certainly want to increase housing um we want to increase the vibrancy of of the downtown um and but I think that it may take a different approach um and something that we haven't considered yet so I guess I would be reluctant to go forward with this uh assuming business as usual without uh looking at it more with people who are maybe on the ground right now like the the recovery officer Dan Grober any other people uh who um might be able to weigh in on this can you give us some specific examples Barb of the this sort of thing that you think's going to need to change um well for example um certainly the MDC receiving a hundred uh hundred thousand dollars a year in funding from the city that could substantially change um and so if we're depending on that that's the issue that could really come back to us is that because you expect that there's going to be like less funding to go around like think oh yeah you're hurting okay yeah yeah way less funding and um also that in addition to that that you know the strategies for the tax I mean a tax stabilization program is great our tax tiff program is great but I think that we need to be looking at um something a little bit more active under aspiration b um about Montpelier will maintain a robust local economy um and by supporting quality private developments I think that you know that that whole issue needs a new look and um you know I'm not a development specialist but I think that at least you know to to perhaps uh sit um Kevin down with so Kevin's involved was involved with this as well right Mike yes yes okay so sitting Kevin down with the recovery officer assuming that she's still under contract and um and Dan Groberg and maybe even you know a round table of other people in in the community in order to make this a more viable document now that the ground has really changed under our feet so this is all good work based on with the way the world was before um I just don't see the world's being the same place that it was then so I guess my confusion is whether the the issue is with we're we're moving towards a different vision or we've got the same vision and we need to adjust the strategies we're using to get there we may have a different vision but I don't know that there has been an in-depth discussion about it even and I don't know where the city council's discussion has been in terms of economic development either um it seems like you know this is sort of one of the most critical pieces of the city plan and I think it's going to take a new look from all of the parties that are involved in order to know is this the appropriate way for us to be moving forward and maybe it is just strategies in terms of achieving the same goals and the same aspirations but that would be nice because that limits it more I'm just not certain yet that that's all it would be I think it's also it's highlighting for us what how hard it is to be a local business in a small town it was already hard and now it's highlighting things like this the significant need for a really strong online presence and an ability to be adaptive and so I think that the way that we support our businesses is changing and I think making sure that they're able to survive through things like this I think there's there's different potentially different support needs there for the sustainability of I would agree with that yeah and we also don't really know how we haven't really seen the full impact in terms of what businesses we might lose from downtown that's true so yeah Barbara I'm broadly broadly I agree with you I think generally the aspirations are probably still the same but some of the approach or some of the focus might need to shift slightly or just at least would benefit from considering this as a significant component yeah I mean so so Barb you mentioned reaching out to others to look at it I mean is it worthwhile for us to discuss this discuss things as well like uh I really like the idea that just developed between the two of you about having some aspirations or something in there that addresses the city helping fill in vacant you know vacant storefronts is that something that we need to include that we maybe wouldn't have before well that is certainly a piece of it but I think if I'm understanding what Stephanie said it's more broad in terms of supporting businesses in a in an ever-shifting climate and not operating under the assumption that the climate will go back to where it was before and before it was a struggle for our businesses and you know and she's right that we don't know at this point who's who's gonna survive um we hope everybody does I'm just not sure so I think um I think I guess I could agree that the aspirations are appropriate um the only questions you know is is how do we get there how do we how do we support how do we achieve those aspirations because I think it's a different approach now right and I think it's also worth it's looking at worth looking at um businesses that have figured out how to make this work a little bit better than some of the other ones have and I think um like a Bailey road comes to mind that Sarah is a phenomenal business owner and she's done a lot of um a lot of work in this in between time to try and figure out how to have a better online presence or do she's been doing like facebook live events to sell things and it seems like that's going pretty well for her but it's I don't know what that looks like longer term will she keep doing those things in addition to having her storefront and is are those strategies or are there other strategies that we can that mob pillar could be helping businesses uh adopt that would help make the business more robust even if things could go back to normal because it's still all of those things are still helping it be more sustainable if they have a better online presence etc I don't know that much about business but that's how I'm thinking about it so I guess some of the questions will be what are the ones if there are ones to be removed or is it just a matter of adding more strategies to the to the pile um because there are other things to do um you know a lot of these focus on you know um making a good environment for what I would call the the the the built environment of the the private built environment so the ability to do projects requires good services so we've we're we've got programs laid out in this to help us improve our sewer and water and roads and you know make sure that the infrastructure is there but there is less talking about helping the businesses directly it's more perhaps the commercial landlords that receive the benefit and if somebody like Caledonia spirits owns and operates their own building they'll receive those benefits too um but well a lot a lot of it seems the strategies seem to focus on continuing programs that were appropriate in the past and I guess the question is now are they are they still appropriate or are other programs because of the emergency um because of of the changes are there other programs that we should be including or that might take more precedence even um and like Stephanie I can't address every you know business business concerns because I feel as if um maybe we don't have the information so that was why I was suggesting some kind of a a new approach looking at it with a broader group of people yeah we can certainly go back and uh address or readdress these um with the new um with the new folks I mean it seems to me like yeah based based on what I've studied before about economic development and economics it's it's not a great idea for us to try to like decide where the market is going to go so you know and I don't think any of us are looking at in that mindset I'm just bringing that up is to like just to post it with something else it seems like you know the appropriate thing for us to plan for is to just try to make it easier for all businesses to do what's going to happen some you know stuff we're not going to be able to predict um and I mean for instance I think transitioning from retail stores to restaurants in the downtown is something that I think was going to happen in the next 20 years maybe it happens in the next five now um but to restaurants well yeah I mean yeah something where like you know the internet doesn't affect that that is still with local business you know um anyway I I guess I guess what I'm getting at is like what's what's the scope of what of what we have in mind or this recovery idea so I agree that it's it's what we can do to support the businesses I would actually disagree about that we're going to become more restaurant oriented since we were 10 years ago we were a lot more restaurant oriented and those are the places that are having the hardest recovery so you know that's the kind of thing that but we don't have the knowledge to be able to kind of propose that but what are the strategies that at this point given this you know the way the earth is shaped has changed um what um what are the strategies that would support the businesses and actually help them move forward that's the same thing I was saying yeah I think that's what we're missing yeah so we'd like to go real quick I'd like to double see a little bit off of what Kirby just said I and I agree I think that you know number one a lot of what's going to impact businesses in Montpelier is going to be the result of larger market forces that are well beyond whatever it is that we codify and plan as an aspirational document going forward for the next eight years and you know the other issue is you know when push comes to shove you know it looks to me that this document contains you know aspirations that I think are supportive of any impact that COVID might have to extend beyond just the economic portion of this plan I mean the COVID impact is going to is going to impact all facets of the town plan you know throughout so that's going to be a thread that binds and we're going to have the same concern um with that being said is I think Mike has done a very good job of identifying decadism that the town has at its disposal that we have empirical evidence that shows that are effective and you know creating efficacy for those aspirations that he has laid out there now well you know when revenue and funding you know changes because of COVID is that going to impact the ability for like the tax stabilization program or the TIF program to be dysfunctional there before sure absolutely but I don't know that that's a reason to say that those that we should not try to continue with the program even though they might not be as viable and more to the point I think a lot of these strategies that Mike outlining here are flexible enough that I think in airframe in such a way that it gives flexibility and they can still be viable things like that doesn't get a downtown program um the uh what was it there was the unified unified development regulations I mean there's a whole host of things in here that I think while things are going to certainly change because of the pot of money that the town's going to be able to draw on I don't think it's fundamentally I'm just trying to look through this I don't see how any of the goals and strategies are really undermined by that funding issue um you know there's I think no matter what we do in this plan given me that we're faced with going forward there's just going to be portions of this town plan that just aren't going to be you know they're going to they're going to fizzle it's just I think that's the reality of it and instead of sort of mining every component of the town plan going forward to try to figure out if how we get a better handle on it I don't I think we just need to sort of I think it would be a good idea right now to just I'll just say this like I think we need to uh be able to admit to ourselves that we're not going to be able to know the impact of COVID and if we're just not going to today we're not going to next year we're not going to fight for that um so I do think that while we should be mindful of the COVID impact I don't know that we want to get a club wrapped around the axle of how is this going to impact every facet of the town plan because we I don't think any of us have the expertise to really know that and um more to the point you know if the town plans an aspirate call back to it I don't know if the aspirations change that much it's just our ability to sort of effectuate those aspirations. What was the last time? I don't think the aspirations change because of COVID. I think that the the funding was that may come with COVID impacts our ability to um to implement those goals and some of the programming that we have thought about that might you know fulfill those goals that might go away but I think we're going to see a lot of that across all kinds of facets of the town plan things that we thought that the town could rely on are going to fall by the wayside and there's going to be alternatives that come to the fore that are able to do that I mean for all we know there's going to be like and I mean I'm just spitballing here but there could be significant federal funds coming our way through a stimulus pool they get I mean we just don't know and so I think the measure I think Mike's done a good job of taking a measured approach using the tools that we know that we have available to us today and that are best situated to effectuate the goals in your outline and so I do think for keeping COVID in mind it's helpful I just I'm wary of really digging into it really deeply because I just think it ends up being a rabbit hole that we never we'll never get out of it but it might be the new phase of economic development I think that this particular section is going to be one of the hardest yet obviously you know yeah it'll impact all sections of the plan but some much more than others and this is kind of a prime example of what will be affected and that it may need a change in emphasis in terms of what we're trying to achieve with the plan or how we're going to to what strategies we're going to use but until we look at it until we see if the city council has a plan for moving forward from this it seems as if we need to address it and within this document well thanks Mark for bringing this up I mean I think it's got us all thinking deeply which is I guess the point of our meetings anyway so thank you very much for for providing that what do you think about I don't know I mean I've heard of all the things you've said about what we could do I mean what do you think about including a section like would that be something that like like a COVID recovery goal section I know that you you know I know you're saying that needs to be a holistic approach but just just run that out there is a question right I mean I guess um oh I really wanted to jump into this um I guess uh you know what I might want to see happen is to look at the aspirations and actually talk to people who are on the ground who are living through this now and say okay these are the aspirations we're looking at for our city plan um what do you think what are we missing and how can we what's dreaded you know how can we support this um best support this and help you build back out of this significant deficit that you've been thrown into um and you know I really think not every section will have to have that kind of a look but I think economic development does so I guess what I'm volunteering to do is to um uh be in contact with some people some of the people in this within the city and if you want me to if you don't want to do this as a whole commission um to kind of see what they you know what their thoughts are I'd just like to get more thoughts on this than just the just the commission um and the city staff right now so does that work for you I mean it's up to you it's up to you guys for what you're thinking I think a lot of what you're talking about is in aspiration C and so it can always be a reshuffling of order of which is A which is B which is C we've done that before um but a lot of what you're you're looking at because aspiration C goal C so under that aspiration goal C is many maintaining the success of local businesses through retention and expansion programs is really looking at where how do we retain and expand you know these COVID programs could special special ones could end up within that goal and in aspiration well also within aspiration B in terms of how do we um how do we attract new private development um given given the way um the world is now it's not going to be in quite the same way and we may need to I don't know provide more hand-holding provide more uh direct assistance if we're serious about wanting to get new private development because once we've done so far you know it hasn't resulted in a lot of new housing for example um some some for sure but um so it seems to me that um it touches on each of the aspirations the place that we are now is is sort of affected has affected each one of those aspirations because it's all about a strong economy how do we get back to a strong economy um and there would be those you know those who argue that we were tenuous at least the downtown was tenuous before and now it's even more so hey mike where where are the points in the process for public input and the normal courses developing the template we the way we've laid out this process is to start with the the committees and the interested person so the energy committee developed the energy plan and and so on um the idea is these would come back to the planning commission which they are right now and we would be able to review them and then and then we would be once we've got them pulled together then we would be starting to go out to get public comment um and that process would take could take months to go through and have a have a thorough discussion of all of the the points that are in there really depends once we've got a draft together um then I think we start to to find out where the the conflict points are where the support points are where are we not doing enough um you know where did the committees and and planning commission missed the boat on um and I think it's not all that different than the zoning you know we wrote a 300 page zoning regulations and spent you know the better part of a year and a half in hearings probably talking about you know less than 10 pages of it um and that's I think the way this will play out as well if when we did the zoning I think you know we found we learned a lot of lessons through the whole that whole process and I think if we had jumped out and gotten more public input potentially earlier that might have helped but the zoning was a much more um complex document it wasn't aspirational in the way that the the city plan is the last time we did a city plan um I think they got input from over 600 people wasn't that right Mike do you I mean I know you weren't here but um when the when um the previous plan was put together yeah the the previous plan is kind of the the kind of the other side of the point of how we're doing it this time so the previous plan really went to the public and said you know what should we be doing um and kind of had the public develop the strategies that we should be working on and not all of them were viable strategies not all of them work you know um because they aren't the public isn't an expert in the field you know the public knows a very you know narrow amount of let's let's say affordable housing everybody may think they know oh I know how to fix affordable housing we'll just do this and it's like well when you talk to affordable housing and housing builders and you know you get you may get completely different answers they're like well those really aren't the barriers um you know if you listen to the news it's all about the zoning you know zoning is why housing is so expensive and zoning is why housing doesn't get built and then you go and ask well these 15 towns don't have any zoning and they're not building anything and they don't have an answer for it because zoning isn't the reason why housing isn't getting built it's economics but if you were to go and ask the public how to fix the affordable housing problem you may come up with a solution that you know and I think a lot of that 2009's plan as as as much as there is great value in getting public input I think there's important um there the public has an important role in establishing certain um goals and visions and really going out and reviewing and understanding how we're going to go through it but I think the development of strategies and the task I was given was really to develop a more strategic plan the previous plan was 500 pages long without you know as much um substance you know a lot of encouraging things a lot of things that said we're going to do x and it's going to be done you know um we're going to get more demand management for um to to reduce the number of single vehicle occupancies um we're going to get businesses to to encourage carpooling and that's it you're kind of like well that's that's not a strategy that's just that's just an outcome we would like to see but that's not a strategy we had a lot of those in the current plan so this one was really meant to be let's start thinking about all right what are what are we going to do to make that happen and um so I think that's that's a little bit of the difference that's why we're starting with the committees and the experts to say okay we know what the goals are let's talk about the strategies and when we've got that we'll go to the public get that input and yeah I was totally on board with that tell me I'm wrong no you're you're right and this is you're right that this is the other side of the coin from what was done before and I was totally on board with that um until COVID um now I'm I just think that there's going to be a need for more public involvement earlier and especially because many of the committees as far as I know are not meeting um and so it's not as if there's sort of that continuity with all the committees who are have been putting together these plans these sections of the city plan and I'm just worried too that we might get into a situation which we did with the zoning is that we end up with a document that we take to the to the city um and the the residents say this isn't but you didn't get public input um and um at some point it's I just feel that maybe because the conditions have changed we might need to get input earlier but certainly at this point my feeling about this particular section is we need to get input from more of the people who are on the ground and actually seeing what's happening well my understanding was that the next step for all these chapters was going to be public input I mean we're doing our first review right like this is the the first step in the process is the subcommittees the second step is us taking a look and kind of organizing things further and then the third step was going to be the first round of public input is that is that correct Mike? Yeah we're gonna we're going to keep moving together on getting this the things together and then start to get the the public input and start we were supposed to have somebody come on board to help me this summer to draft some of the chapters um which wasn't going to be as hard as it's not they're not going to be as long as the previous plan chapters were so I don't think it was going to be as hard unfortunately we've lost that help but um yes that is still the plan to then get public input on the goals and strategies and start drafting chapters yeah so um I would still like to get a few more of them under our uh okay does that sound okay Barb? I mean I'm sorry just what sound okay? We put some of the chapters out for public input soon well yeah but I don't think this chapter is appropriate to put out for public input at this stage because we don't have enough input right now from the people who are actually doing economic development or trying to recover from the economic catastrophe that's happened um so it uh so you said you were gonna reach you were gonna do some outreach and and talk to some of these the people you have in mind and you'll come back and report back to us like well if I have if I have support from the commission I will do that um but um I think it's great anybody else uh have opinion on or doing that I support that I think that's a good idea I don't quite understand if the next if the next step in the process is to solicit public input on the chapter and the argument is that we're not ready for public input yet the proposed solution is to go and try to solicit input from members of the public no from from people who are knowledgeable in the field the people who are actually doing the economic development in the city right now in the recovery effort so no I'm not just gonna go you know I would not just go out to the public in general um because I just don't feel that right now this this um this particular chapter could is quite appropriate yet to send out to the public why can't we just solicit their input during the public comment phase it's too late because we're talking about something that might happen six months down the road we've got a lot of other chapters in the way right Mike yeah I mean there's gonna be a lot more um you know and I mean that that's where some of the question comes up about COVID we we just don't know how this is going to play out over time I mean this plan won't be adopted till you know 2021 at the best and you know we have no idea sitting here now whether COVID runs its course and things bounce back we lose a couple of businesses we gain a couple of businesses and you know it's not as good as it was but we're back to to moving forward we or is it really there's a there's a fundamental shift that needs to happen in economic development and we need to start applying our resources in a different way and I don't know that and I don't think we'll we'll know that for for some time I do know a lot of there's been very limited amount of work that that so far the city as as via the city council has done other than to loosen up some rules when it comes to parklets and doing some sidewalk stuff but most of the other issues and things have been addressed directly through MDC fundraising and those types of initiatives um right so maybe maybe a way to move forward is to move on to some of the other sections I will do some background on this and get back to you next month but if you if we can put this on hold for right now I know that there are other other sections that you have ready to go right Mike not not that many we've got a bunch that are closed but I can't move them on because you know transportation committee is almost done but they're not meeting I did meet with the parks commission last week and so I'm going to be putting together part which is a part of the community services so I'm going to start trying to put together community services which is going to be a big a big chunk because there's a lot there's senior center there's recs there's park there's I know we have most of a draft for natural resources but again I gotta do conservation commission start meeting again you should have most of a draft for energy right and I think energy is actually done I think you guys approved energy didn't you think so oh I guess I think housing energy and historic resources are done I thought we had some adjustments to energy but go ahead right so I don't think I didn't think any of them were done well specifically but right they've been given the first review like this got it because I also think I think if our intention is to have something that's presentable for public consumption so that they can provide feedback I think this format's going to be a really hard for people to digest and so we've talked about I don't know that we've really figured out how these chapters are how the strategies are going to look so that they can actually be much more digestible and to figure out how we talked we also talked about looking at all the different chapters together and figuring out where where we had specific junctures of things so where certain things that come up a lot like housing and affordable housing specifically and being able to find what those key things were looking at all the chapters together and highlight that those are the things that we're most interested in doing so I think that the presentation is going to be challenging and I don't know that we've really figured out what that looks like so actually I take that back looks like energy still still it's been completed so energy would be the next one we would take up as a planning commission the energy is done you guys haven't seen it so so we could move forward on those and and I agree Stephanie it seems like so long ago but we did talk about trying to create a sort of more digestible format for public consumption right John Adams might have had some ideas about that too and we have a discussion about a website yeah we have approval to do the the the storyboards we we have stone environmental has been working with us we've got a bunch of the materials to be able to do these storyboards for each chapter we're going to digest them down to about 1500 words most of that conversation is to kind of discuss and lead up to why our aspirations are why why is this our aspiration for housing or for energy and really to kind of give people nobody reads these big long plans but what we want to be able to do is to create a web format that people are willing to go in and look at and be able to read and there'll be a number of links that will let them if you're interested in more here's the the barriers to housing report here's the um you know here are a number of different reports that you can link on and open up but in general we're going to talk a lot about you know we're going to try to tell everything that people would want to know in about 1500 words and that would fit on that one storyboard web page with graphics you know try to be graphic rich try to be um have those types of links um to try to get people on okay so for for time management purposes let's um can can we sketch out an alternative idea here i know i hear what you're saying barb do you you think that it's possible that things could get blown up given new information that you that you bring out i mean i think we're this is all we plan for tonight it's all mics ready for like i think that we should go through and at least give our ideas of the draft that's in front of us and and also i you know we're in favor of you going into and getting doing further research in general to the planning commission by the way i i have a perspective that it's never bad idea for any of us to go out and solicit more information from our community i think that's a transparent thing and i think i always don't i don't like it when i hear in government of people thinking that that's a bad idea because of you know legal stuff or bureaucracy or something like i've always been you know against that so i think we should all go out and talk to the community and come back and report that stuff i know i've done it if you remember the arts and culture thing i went and spoke with a couple of artists to get some ideas about how we can proceed with that and you know i just did it um so i think it's great for anyone to feel free to to do that and report back to us and to know that we're always going to be open to hearing you know feedback that you gather you know this isn't a scientific process where we can follow some particular you know format or something so um so with that yeah it'll be great if Barb does that i think that we can go ahead and look at what what's in front of us now to see what people's reactions are uh with the you know understanding that there could be impacts especially in the next few years from this so uh what do you think Mike should we should we walk through it or uh what do you think yeah i mean it's helpful to walk through it certainly you know if Barb's going to be out chatting with people about it it's helpful to you know to understand this this is a this is a draft we've put things together i put things together knowing that it's going to get pushed and pulled and as long as people understand this is this is not a plan that we have together that we've put together that we're looking for public input on that it's more it's it's a little bit softer than that this is just these are the things this is what we've come up for aspirations and if this is our aspiration we've broken them into goals and this is how we plan to accomplish those individual goals through strategies now if somebody goes through and says that shouldn't be a goal or that should be a lower priority goal um that's that's what we want i just don't want people to get a sense that this is our proposal or this is staff's proposal this is i'm putting things together so that way people it's easier for people to react to something than it is for me to go to the public and say help me write a plan a lot easier for me to put stuff together hear back from the public that goes that was good this should be changed um and and so i think from the standpoint of us going through it right now yes i think it's valuable for us to go through it so Barb has a sense of where their support on the planning commission of i think these areas are in the right direction maybe these areas need more work okay so what are what everyone's thoughts about um the aspiration a and the goals uh before we before we get there um the description up above as a fiscal 2020 this includes and then it says to be filled in later so all the highlighted parts the highlighted parts have not been updated all right okay so those would definitely have to be since yeah um in fact even the level of funding we don't know what that's going to be so um that will change is what you're saying yeah we tried i tried to capture so people can understand the context of what are we doing already so when we talk about housing what are we doing already so we'll have a thing that goes through and says well we have a housing task force we have a housing trust funds committee we have uh kevin's position as community development specialist we have um the trust fund is funded at a hundred thousand dollars a year um it gives people a sense of okay so we are doing something and this is this gives a context so i haven't filled in these highlighted pieces and obviously yes the the hundred thousand dollars for mdc it was a five-year commitment and i think this is the last year they have that commitment the question is going to come up what happened 2022 and that's an open question for everybody but right now that's what mdc gets i also know montpellier live gets a number of funding sources including d id so i don't have those numbers specifically but they have some resources i mean considering it says that uh that mic's office is responsible for this chapter and then the other things mentioned the other entities mentioned are you know supportive i mean i'm not too hung up on giving detail because they're not they're not an essential part of of the chapter anyway based on the way it's written no it just should be accurate are you suggesting not including that part curvy no i mean i think it's i think it's fine for might to go in later and to get to fill in some details but um i don't think it's a very important part of the chapter though i don't know if we're moving on but i thought it would be nice to have actually aspiration c be the first aspiration to maintain a strong strong job market like these living wages um just to me that's a little bit more i don't know the fundamental sort of more exciting i guess aspiration because i feel like aspiration a is like we're creating this place that's attractive to come to um and you know aspiration b is kind of infrastructure but aspiration c to me seems like and i also noticed that they're just you know as with other chapters they're just strategies that are repeated for many different goals and how we deal with it yeah and the repeated strategies will get fixed when we this is a kind of a working strategic plan when we get to the final version it'll be structured differently so that way we aren't repeating them over and over again but yeah we certainly could move the aspiration c the aspiration a um you know as i said we i think we did that in the housing chapter because we felt that i think affordable housing landed in the last goal and people wanted that move to the first goal i i agree with that move sure seems to be fine by me it's kind of the cutting people up for us this way i see it so is there a hierarchy to these aspirations mike not technically usually they're talking they're just talking about different things um you know they're just a lot of different ways of looking at something as intricate as complicated as economic development we can talk about um you know even in a big picture we can talk about you know we can talk about economic development where we focus on on on labor or we can talk about management um you know there's just and a lot of economic development plans talk about you know businesses and helping businesses but don't really focus on employees you know um workforce training is economic development um but a lot of times you won't see workforce training and education and reeducation of of the workforce um so um you know this is a key component of the cities is to really talk about you know the impacts on on the employees living wages um and so i think that's that's a good place to start talk about talk about the people keep the focus on on the employee keep the focus on the people and talk about the other pieces other afterwards but economic development is also the you know the the the landlords and the actual physical infrastructure and and those pieces and then and then you get to kind of get up to the 50 000 foot which is why a was really there was kind of getting up to the more you know what what what is our economic strategy it's kind of more of a fuzzy fuzzy thing while ours is looking at the unique downtown in those and that can certainly fall second um and could could fall third if we want to adjust all three of the you know reverse the order of a b and c because b is looking at the businesses themselves and you know so that's kind of looking at the second layer and the 50 000 foot layer is is currently goal a we can just reverse the order of a b and c that's actually i was that's what i was thinking is reversing them i think in part because aspiration a is going to be the area where we're hitting on things that are in a lot of other chapters um b and c right now are the two that are most relevant to specifically just this chapter i think under a we're going to run into a lot of things that are also like the housing goals um and the sense of place sort of things i think those will come up elsewhere yeah and that's why a you see a lot of connections to other plans and that's basically because that's it's the really the visionary 50 000 foot view which is why it you know we support the community services plan and we support the transportation plan and we support the housing plan and we support the energy plan is it's just that level of of degree and maybe that's not the first one the best one to start out with so yeah we can switch those yeah it might be nice to get more immediacy to it by having um aspirations c be the first one that gives it kind of a more immediate business related emphasis okay i can make that that adjustment that sounds good uh does anyone else have any feedback uh we can go we can start going back well uh now the order's different we can go with aspiration c which is the new a uh so reading through that i mean there's quite a lot there there's quite a lot of um you know i don't have strong opinions on these things but i definitely have some i don't know i'm curious about some things such as like having a focus on living wages isn't that just like a different way of like just prioritizing different industries like some industries like just don't pay living wages very well like retail and that's that's the trick and that was the hard part i had in putting this together is i was looking at what had been the goals and what are the goals of city council and they had a strong emphasis on wanting to create more jobs or to have more jobs with living wages and so the question is all right as a city how do we do that you know um seattle or these other larger metropolises can come in and establish their own minimum wage you know we can't do that in Montpelier it's it's not in our charter we can't do it anyways and it probably wouldn't work on a town this small so how are we going to accomplish that goal and again that's this this goes back to our fundamental when we were talking about being strategic um we now have a goal it's pretty clear what they want we want more people earning living living wages now the question is how are we going to do that so some is to you know uh as i put in here amend incentive programs such as tick tiff tax stabilization and economic development revolving loan fund which have been talked in other places to apply only to businesses that provide living wages that's an option um right now it's only a it's it's you can get certain points you can still get tax stabilization without paying living wage um but you can get more tax stabilization if you pay a living wage so you know i think that's our best spot to look at it but i also put in there the other strategy so i really only had two strategies one was let's study how many jobs and in what sectors do not receive living wages and identify programs and incentives to encourage businesses to provide them because i think that's the best we can do because right now we i don't have any answer i i can't look at the literature and come up with a good way that says here's how we can either force people to do it or strongly encourage people to do it except through having programs like tax stabilization to say hey you you want to tax stabilization great but you got to pay a living wage and if you don't pay living wage you don't get it but i'm not i'm not opposed to that idea i think that might make sense i'm not completely sure but i think from my perspective given the size of Montpelier i think as a as a culture of people the people of Montpelier we that's something that we care about i think but i i think it's more important for us to be focusing on how do we make sure that our businesses are viable and if our businesses are viable or if we can't if we can't have viable businesses that we're supporting within the city they're not going to be able to pay a living wage so how do we make sure that we're i would look at it from the opposite perspective i guess and say that this is what comes next when you have businesses that can be viable yeah and i think that would maybe go a little bit into goal b which is to look at the um encouraging and supporting the businesses right and i think i think a was just look trying to trying to come up with those strategies because it is something whether it's connor whether it was ashley when she was on there um there's just a number of them that really go through and and have a sense that there are a lot of people that are that are making making money and doing doing well in business and um not sharing that wealth with their employees and whether that's sure or not i'm just saying you know reading reading into what i hear from from various folks that's been the sense and i think we just have to look at um if if that is their goal um the living wages then i think i think that's that would be the next appropriate step is to study it and another piece of that is if businesses aren't viable without it then then what um you know are we just encouraging living wages where it's appropriate i think we need to have a better i think the city council has to have a more complete picture um so they can establish their policies clearly um i know that their goal is they would like everybody you know even retail to make the the the fifteen dollars an hour or fourteen dollars an hour but whether that's viable in this economy i don't know i think i think the reality is you'd have a hard time living in mapeal or if you make fifteen dollars an hour anyway unless we have subsidized housing i mean for us for our community it's unique and the its cost of living is actually what's out of control more than a wage problem shows how these things are all connected so i i did want to go and take a look at that below that under goal b i tried to lay out um that first strategy develop and adopt the policy that focuses on economic um focuses our economics that our focus of our economics should be and has like what maybe eight points i think that's too many i mean i don't think it's very we're being very strategic and focused um but this captures all of the various points that i've heard from different people um and i wasn't going to remove remove them but i think it's worthy of going through um you know uh one of our keys is maintaining and supporting the functions of state government i mean three thousand of the people that people that work here three thousand employees work for the state and i think that's an important part of our economy um can you explain that one a little bit more mike um how are we supporting them now and if we're going to maintain our support then we have to have an idea of how we're supporting them now well we've got a lot of certainly with our emergency services um we used to do more coordination between them certainly when we start talking about um you know the parking you know the amount of parking that the state employees i mean it's just there are a lot of pieces and i know i got a lot of pushback from cv edc and a couple of the other economic folks um not the current ones but previous ones when i had talked about this when we developed the edsp we talked about it's important for us to make sure we are a good partner for the state um because they could move their jobs to other communities they could move employees to waterbury and we want to be a good neighbor and a good partner with them because they provide three thousand really good paying jobs and um for some reason the economic development folks that i was working with didn't want us didn't want our focus to be you know you don't base your economy on on supporting state government i'm like you do when they're providing when they're providing for the 50 percent of your jobs and they're really good paying jobs yes you do yeah and especially now given we want to draw them back here so what are we doing to support them for that so that those people will come back and not remote continue to work remotely yeah so that that was where i was going with you know that's that's our bread and butter is we can do a lot with our economy um if we can maintain a good working relationship with the state government and the state you know state workers um maintaining the support of businesses that support the function of the state so in other words we've got to recognize that being the capital we've got to support those nonprofits and those lobbyists and those other ones and there may not be much that we need to do to physically actually support them but you know you kind of have this 3 000 employees then you got the people that are supporting the state um we've got another strong sector finance and insurance has always been a strong sector of our economy um national life and a number of other insurance companies but then we start getting to a few of these other ones so those i think are no-brainers those first three the next ones are the ones that start getting a little bit farther out there the edsp talked about growing our food processing and specialty manufacturing sectors businesses like Caledonia experience um we invested the city invested a lot of money in helping Caledonia spirit happen you know and should we be putting money towards those types of um ventures it grew our grand list a lot i think i think it was a good investment on our part it grew a number of living wage jobs um it grew our grand list um but again it's a policy where we have only a limited amount of money where should we put the money um we've gotten a push from the parks folks to look at growing our recreation sector um which would mean you know and again it's how do we spend our money if our focus is going to be on being a recreational center then that means we've got to put our money into completing our complete streets plan so we've got on-road biking and our parks and off-road biking you've got to that's where we would invest money um so again it's about how we invest our money i don't think we can do all of these pieces grow our professional business and technological services like engineers lawyers accounts and environmental services again that's a that's a good idea but can we invest in all three of those and then if we want to talk about growing our tourism and hospitality and arts sectors based on our recreational arts culture and food another another great idea but can we do all of these and growing specialty retail um again i think this is just it's just some of our conversation i put all the pieces together from the edsp i think for a city of eight thousand we're trying to be too much now the basis of a lot of these comes from the fact that we have very expensive land very expensive rents so what we're trying to do or what our edsp developer wanted us to be doing is focusing on things that could afford to pay our rents um that's why we're talking about specialty retail um food processing and specialty manufacturing because if somebody is going to be doing general manufacturing they're going to go to the very very town business parks they're going to go to very city where land is cheap rents are cheap because that's general but specialty manufacturing looks for places like Montpelier that's why Caledonia Spirits is here Caledonia Spirits wanted to save a lot of money they would have located in very city they could have saved a bunch of money but it's a specialty and they wanted to be here in Montpelier um so again that's a little bit of the background of why they were recommended to be our targets but i think at some point at some point i think we need to go through and either rank these or you know i think that might go Barb to your conversation with some of the the people who are working specifically is all right what's what's our focus going to be um you know where we're going with our downtown um because as we set up our focus the downtown should fill in to fit that niche that we're trying to grow you know and assuming we pick the right niche then it should grow that then you know obviously if you pick the wrong one you know and i think some of these are going to be tough growing a recreational sector we've got a lot of competition we're going to have to really separate ourselves in some way from why would people come here and not Warren or Watesfield or Stowe or Smuggler's Notch or very town you know i i don't want to be the you know the downer on it but boy we're going to have to have something that's going to set ourselves apart we're you know stay here because you can do this and and go to a great dinner at night um and have you know i think we need to put a package together that that makes that a good selling point unless we're just talking about having great recreational sector for the locals to use but i don't see us being able to support an entire sector just on the people that live in town and i don't expect the answers tonight i just wanted people i wanted people to focus on that one i think that's an important one for us to have conversations about so what are what are some ideas for moving some of these things along like i'm sitting here thinking like uh i guess some of the professional business type stuff if we want to help that we could allow those things to be put in in more places i mean what else what else can we do um i think some of this comes back to how we spend our money or our tax stabilizations we tend to give tax stabilizations for a lot of things but we can certainly go through and say you know we're only going to give tax stabilizations for um for businesses that meet one of our eight priorities um so if somebody comes in and decides they're going to do something that's not one of these priorities then they're just not eligible for a tax stabilization are we giving out a lot of tips i didn't realize that the tax stabilizations we get them there's not a lot usually it only applies to uh new projects getting built so you'll have to look at um caledonia spirits got one um the old armory just passed the roundabout they got one friend conard built that project he put an addition on the back so that got a tax stabilization um and you know they come up from time to time i can think of um yeah another one of friend's projects on 302 think of a new building that's built that it'll probably try to come in and get um a tax stabilization for it yes sorry for bringing up tips there i confused myself okay yeah just just tax stabilization okay so we could apply we could apply it to tiff even though i think that would maybe not necessarily be a good idea but you you could technically go and tell somebody you know if your project isn't building you know if you're if you're building a project that's unaffordable housing or is something not on this list we're you know you can extend the sewer all you want pay for it yourself um you're in the tiff district but we're not going to use tiff to support your project it seems like being more permissive and not more strict is the way to get more businesses in you know it just depends if you've limited limited resources and how you want to apply them and so mic are you thinking that with these eight points that um you would want us to sort of consider a hierarchy on on who we would really be what our focus is and who we would be most appealing to uh it could be it could be a focus um i mean i some of it is going to come down to this is going to be a priority and if this is going to be a priority then why must follow um let me take you out of montpelier and give you a different example so we've um when i was working with hardwick on their plan years ago um the discussion came up if you wanted to if you were going to focus on agricultural products which they were you know we want to have these agricultural industrial parks we want to have these um ag innovator um processing it's actually what caledonian spirits in came out of that in in hardwick but there are a lot of products that came out of that that brainstorming that was there um separate from my work um that was already going on but we had a conversation that if if agriculture is going to be your focus then you're going to need to also um as a secondary thing start to focus on where is the conservation and what do we have for the farmland because if we then grow out our this entire agricultural economy on on um ag processing and then a farmer turns around and decides he's going to sell out to a housing developer well you're not just the impact of losing farms to housing development is going to have an impact the trickle down impact on everybody who relies on the products that were produced by on that land now you'd hope that the value added industries would keep the farms going but sometimes that's not the case sometimes farmers need you know as much as they're doing things they they don't think there's their health there's other things that may come up that go and say look I've got to sell my farm because I can't you know I don't have the health insurance and you know I've got big bills I've got to sell out and you know I'm going to get more money selling it to this housing developer well we've got to think about that if we're going to invest a lot of city money in value added industries if we then don't at least think about what are we going to do to make sure that the the land that supports these value added industries because if we lose the land these industries all go down as well um and so that's some of the connection that's why I pointed out a little bit when we talk about if if our focus is going to be on this recreation economy then we've got to start maybe prioritizing how do we invest our money in our grant in our in our capital improvement plan because if that's going to be a focus for you that's where we want to go we want to go with this we think is going to generate more jobs then we've got to spend money putting in the bike lanes because it doesn't do us any good to try to bring in a lot of people if we've got disconnected bike routes and um you know it's kind of like if we want that to be our focus then we've got to stick our money here rather than investing in something else um and I think that's where some of the picture comes in of you know it's not necessarily direct outreach to onion river sports to say how can we get money to onion river sports some of it may be um helping that sector by doing what we're supposed to do um building out the green print so that way these trails connect across the town that's going to cost money and that's going to take time that's going to take resources but if we want it that's going to be the focus of our our economics then we need to invest money in making the the infrastructure support that economic goal yeah I think your point here is a good one because we do seem like we're stretched too thin and we're trying to be everything for everybody and um you know it we don't we don't have the funds or the resources to do that so by prioritizing at least that might help um and yeah we've got I mean we really do have for a city our size a lot of great recreation um um parks and Hubbard park and and bike lane but um you know is that our focus and I think you know we if we could prioritize that would help yeah and I'm not trying to put which one should be I'm just saying if if if people say that's that's the priority then my next thing would be well then you've got to put your money in this place um and if you don't then you're just setting yourself up for not having it work out well or as well as it could um you know uh you know growing our tourism and hospitality sectors you know that that falls a lot back to building the hotel and you know we're not going to build the hotel but we can build the parking garage that supports the hotel um you know they're different it depends how do we want to spend it and while we're not putting a lot of our our money into the parking garage we are investing a lot of time and we could we could put that staff effort in other places um but again I think you know if you were to ask me my opinion is I think the the tourism would be a strong sector that would support the downtown um I think it it would it would support a number of these other goals um by having a strong a strong sector in the tourism and hospitality because I think we already have it I think we can strengthen what we have right and these things also relate like Caledonia spirits is definitely a draw to things like the food processing especially manufacturing is a tourism draw whereas I think a lot of the I don't know how many people come in two months earlier for recreation I think based on the towns my husband's on the park commission he can hear me right now but uh it's all the towns around us I think there are other towns that have better um recreation in terms of being a draw for tourism than we do well we don't have a ski mountain that's true but um but I when we were at Caledonia spirits there were a number of people who came in who had biked there because they had a bike path that they could use to get there yeah so and they you know that that was a real draw for them so um yeah I mean I think it gets into um a lot of complexity we are a support for um for the hospitality industry you know when we still don't have a facility that can handle a conference of any size I mean given that we're the state capital I think that's a problem and so you know those are the kinds of things that where we haven't supported it in the past and so we need to decide how important we think that is yeah it's why we haven't had the Vermont beer fest or any of those larger festivals they just yeah you know and you know the the number of things that are lost um Norwich University for graduations people tend to stay in hotels in waterbury because there just isn't room in Montpelier and it's just I think it's just a loss for us to have people drive through Montpelier on their way to Waterbury because there's not enough hotel space and I think we could benefit in a number of ways by having you know capturing people who are coming in to to um protest or or voice their opinions on things having the ability to have space for people to be here I think it's a benefit all the way around but but again I think you're right my my concern is I think we're we're trying to focus in too many places and I think it would be helpful for us to you know we we know we've got our big two or three um right off the top with the with the state and the functions that support the state the nonprofits and lobbyists and finance and insurance I don't think we have to do a lot to help them they're all very successful but I think we have to be a good partner for them once we get below that I think we need to start going through and prioritizing because that's where we need to invest I don't think these just happen organically the top three are going to are going to succeed because of who they are we just have to be a good partner I think things below it I think we have to do a better job of prioritizing what our focus is going to be so we make sure that we're investing capital dollars programs in the right direction to help them I think I think the professional businesses go with the top three as well I think that they also kind of take care of themselves as long as we allow it to happen there's this there's this psychologist that keeps trying to buy my house um they want to I mean that's just one example but I think they they come in and they they want to be here the same as that the others the top ones I think it's what do we prioritize then what are what are things that can support more than one of these things so that we can do how do we maximize um whatever our investment ends up being and we don't have to answer that here I'm just throwing that out there's things for us to chew on well I hate to say it but I have to sign off here in the next couple of minutes is there anything in particular that you want us to look at other than that particular portion of it Mike or just basically the whole thing um I would I mean once we reshuffled C up front to A then I can make that reshuffling and get that back out to you guys later this week I would I would think most of the focus would be on this section C that's now going to be A because I think many of the pieces of B are helping are helping the the the landlords and the commercial landlords and I think those are valuable but I think most of those get to your point earlier that you were talking about Barb of the continuing I don't think there's a lot of new things we need to be doing to help those we've got this we've got those we've got the pieces there to help you know if you want to build a new building we've got the tools to help you um I think where there there are there are going to be things it's going to be in C and I think as I said I think I don't think A now moved to C I think it's that's more fuzzy and amorphous I don't think I mean people are welcome to review any of the pieces and give their input but I think most of what I would focus on people said I don't have time for this go and say you know look at the new A the new A tell us what you think and living wages comes directly out of the city council goals and you've got to figure out me I have to figure out as as staff how do I how do I help city council accomplish their goals what can I recommend for strategies and I personally don't have good strategies if people have ideas for strategies I'd love to hear them and then we want to continue to improve business and climate and then we want to maintain and enhance the success of local businesses through retention and expansion so we're kind of got the three goals that one strategy that one aspiration three goals and a whole set of strategies to accomplish each one of those okay sorry and I've got to take off here but I've got a conflicting conflicting agreements here tonight so thanks for a thanks for all this work on this mic it certainly can get us started are you anticipating having energy for next time then so our next meeting is three weeks from now and it will be the public hearing on zoning so we'll see what we hear so I'm going to put on the agenda is going to have the public hearing and then secondarily I'll put the energy plan on unless people want to revisit economic development I could put the energy plan on and if we have time we get to it if we don't have time we don't I think I think what we need to do because it's going to be a while before you revisit this and that'll give Barb some time to get some feedback and report back to us because yeah our next meeting is definitely not going to involve this I think well especially everyone's mind if we can spend these last 10 minutes like letting Mike know what other direction we have in mind because I don't know how else we're going to share information about this chapter in the near future because and also follow up the meeting laws so I guess what I'm saying is like that's can I send can I send things out through like Kirby um well I was thinking like maybe it may be a month or like either either not next meeting but the meeting after that or then either two or three meetings from now you can report back to us during the meeting and but but Mike would also is also going to be working on this in the meantime so I think now is our chance to let him know things like for instance you know like I guess my feedback for you Mike on what we were just talking about is I think it sounds like supporting a conference and hotel infrastructure sounds like a good focus if we're going to try to prioritize something um and do other people have other thoughts to share with them while we're still here for the next 10 minutes okay I gotta go um thanks for thanks for all your work thanks Barb yeah thanks Barb see ya see ya so do we have do we have any any other ideas I mean uh touching the living wage does anyone have anything they want to see for the next time we revisit this I don't have anything major just what I already shared so nothing I mean for the for the living wage stuff it seems like maybe if you're not going to be heavy handed in any way I mean something to do with Montpelier alive or some sort of celebration of businesses promoting businesses that offer a living wage or something like that like a social pressure kind of approach which I think could be pretty effective in Montpelier actually yeah up you know stickers if you pay all of your employees a living wage you put a sticker I don't know right yeah a lot of those be surprised how some of those um end up working I know when I was in in grad school it was a big push to have um my graduate one of my graduate advisors was working on labeling doing some of the first labeling for sustainable harvest of of wood products and it was just you know it's it's not mandatory but it gives you a value added if you you can get third party certified which is what they were setting up as sustainable harvest then you might be able to get a better wage in the market because or better rates in the market because people are willing to pay a little bit more to know that they're getting a you know an environmentally responsible product and you see it a lot now and I've always been surprised I'm like that was you know I see I see the stamp on on wood products now when I go to the um to the lumber yard and I just can think back this this was just an idea this guy was was pushing that people would actually pay a little bit more and now you almost find them everywhere but same idea I think that's a great idea but yeah that's what city council wants to prioritize if that's the thing they care the most about I think that's a really good way to go about it anyone else have any more thoughts about the chapter okay then well let's we'll leave it there and we'll all have to get ready for the hearing I it's been a long time Mike since we have talked about the development review process would it be possible for you to since since an outline or something about what we should expect for next time I think that'll help the meeting go much better um yeah I'll I'll see if I can get um Meredith to come to the meeting again because she had her presentation maybe she'll be able to come to help a lot of the technical answers I don't have off the top of my head so it may be helpful if I've got her to to go through and answer some specific questions about you know I know we've had two two sets of hearings already on this so we shouldn't be new but it's good to have a refresher of oh that's right that's what we were talking about we were focusing on this this this um so that way we can have more easily defensible decisions um um easier to enforce and administer and they're more consistent with other places around the country because we are basing them on the national park service that's in a nutshell so that's what we're doing right so so yeah I think I think that what would be most helpful for us is I mean presentation at the beginning of it seems fine and if and if that presentation could be shared ahead of time so we can refresh ourselves because there's been a lot of changes I think that not everyone's going to probably have kept track of all the ideas and changes that took place like one example that I just remembered yesterday was the Bailey Bailey Avenue area right that neighborhood yeah we at one point at a kind of a last minute type of thing we threw a few parcels in but then we heard some feedback and then so we voted to take those parcels back out right so yes and we rezoned them for that's part of the proposal maybe I'll have to go back you're right I think having that talked about it I think we were I think part of the approval process will rezone three properties from you know whatever zone they're in now I think which is res 6000 they'll be rezoned as res nine thousand because they're more appropriate in that neighborhood and then then we follow the neighborhood boundary for the rest of it um yeah so that's so that's one of like of several you know like little details right yeah so yeah if you give us give us some heads up going into it uh and then yeah we'll plan to have merits the presentation at the beginning that sounds great so yeah all right resend docs all right okay looking forward to it everyone uh get ready for next time the big hearing party yeah thank you derby finally hearing party we all have to be there on snacks never as big as when we got done with that zoning January 2018 the day finally ended yeah well we've got a long ways to go for the city plan I guess yeah okay all right well thanks everyone uh do we have a motion to adjourn so moved okay for the second no I'll second okay second fire everybody asked you all right so we are deemed adjourned okay thank you have a great night thanks everybody thanks a lot Mike see you later hi hi