 All right, good evening, everyone. This is the City of Montpelier Development Review Board meeting for Tuesday, January 21st, 2020. My name is Daniel Richardson. I serve as the chair of the board and the other members for my right are Rob Goodwin, Kevin O'Connor, Michael Lasorchak, Meredith Crandall, staff, Kate McCarthy, Ryan Cain. All right, first order of business is approval of the agenda. You all should have that in front of you. It's a very light agenda, no applications, but do I have any changes to the agenda or a motion to approve the agenda? Motion made. Motion by Kevin. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Rob. All those in favor of the agenda as printed, please raise your right hand. We have an agenda. They're the only, well, we will discuss, I think, in the latter part of the meeting some of the issues that I would otherwise reserve for the comments from the chair. I'll simply note that just before the meeting, we started having a discussion that it is unusual in a sort of collective history and memory of this board to have such a light agenda for as long as we have. I believe our last meeting was the beginning of November. We did not have any applications in the second half of November. We did not have any applications in December, and we do not have any applications in January. And right now, Meredith, my understanding is that there are no items for the beginning of February. Correct. So the likely next actual substantive meeting where we'll be reviewing permits is going to be at the end of February. And that's if we get an application at this point. We don't have an application in for that meeting either. So it's just as possible that it could be March. Yeah. OK. So that said, I'll just simply note that. I don't know we were speculating as to what that means, but certainly we welcome applications from anyone who wishes to submit set applications where we have plenty of room on our agenda, as you can see. The other item of business moving along is the review and approval of the November 4, 2000, I'm seeing already a typo that we need to correct, 2019 minutes at the top, that 18 should be a 19. Thank you. Those present were myself, Kevin, Kate, Rob, and we do have that quorum here. So we have enough to approve any changes to the minutes other than the correction of the 18 to 19 at the top. A motion to adopt the minutes. Mr. Chair, I move that we adopt the minutes with the change from 2018 to 2019. Motion by Kate. Do I have a second of those eligible to vote? Second. Second by Kevin. All those eligible to vote on the minutes, please raise your right hand if you approve of them. And we have minutes adopted. Very good. So that brings us to the status update on proposed provisions to design, review regulations and overlay district boundary. Meredith. So I think just because we do have one member of the public here, we may have additional viewing, I'm going to go and plug something into the laptop so that people can see from elsewhere. And not to put any pressure on you, ma'am, but. Well, yeah, that cuts the chase. For everybody else to hear, we may do this. I have an urgent comment. My name's Jenny Fulton. I'm a student in historic preservation at the University of Vermont. Robert McCullough is one of my professors. I have an assignment to attend some public meetings to see what's going on. I'm aware of the revisions to the design review regulations. And I'm interested in following that process. Great. Great. Well, welcome. And thank you for coming. And certainly, given that you're our sole attendee, if something should strike you, we will not sit on formality if you wish to participate. I mean, this is unlike a permit application that we would have a bit more formal order of business. This is really more of an educational opportunity for us to meet as a board to gain some information about proposed revisions that are coming, but aren't yet in our bylaws that we will eventually have to administer so that we can do so in a semi-intelligent manner. Mr. Chair, for the sake of anyone watching along tonight, we should probably note that this isn't a formal hearing on these regulations. This is, as you said, an educational opportunity for the Development Review Board. And I'm sure we will be hearing from Meredith when the formal hearing is going to take place and how people can participate in that. Right, and Meredith, that would be in front of both the Planning Commission, unless they've passed them out of the Planning Commission, and then eventually the City Council. Correct. Correct. So I think just with that lead in, the first thing I'm going to say is that the first big public hearing on these changes to the design review regulations, as well as the overlay district boundaries, is going to be January 27th at 5.30 PM in front of the Planning Commission here in City Council and the Council Chambers. And I wanted to just brief everybody on where the status is on this because we've been trying to keep everybody abreast of potential changes. So since I was here last time on this matter, the Planning Commission made a few adjustments to the 15 pages, roughly 15 pages, of draft new design review regulations. But in large part, the themes, the plans are pretty much the same. The Planning Commission sort of dialed back some of the requirements, made them a little less stringent in places, and had some discussions about where to go when it came to things that were a little more nebulous, like viewsheds. But in large part, they kept the main themes of the new proposed regulations the same. So there's we still have a lot more clarity on what the design review regulations are now. There are a lot more detailed. There are a lot more exemptions to design review for exterior changes to buildings. There are also eight different categories of changes that can be administratively approved. So it's in the design review district. Technically, it requires design review. But the administrative officer, the zoning administrator can make those approvals without something having to go through a hearing. So they still need a permit, but they don't need a hearing. And those are big changes. Those are going to make things easier, simpler, and quicker for applicants, which is a really, I think, a really strong benefit. I'm going to get interjected here. I should have asked this at the very beginning, and maybe I should know it anyway. But just for the sake of anyone who might be starting from scratch, I'm sure there are a lot of people from home. Can you tell me sort of when this originated, what the impetus was for doing it, and what some of the main issues were that were identified as needing to be addressed? Yep, I can go back. I think some of this started before some members were even on the DRB. Yeah, I think so. I think we've, maybe I'm wrong. I think we did presentations. 7-12 PM. Oops, can you? That's supposed to be off. Sorry. It's my kid's last-minute bedtime warning. Oh, thank you. You were going to do all this anyway. I appreciate that. He was just sort of doing the big picture overview. It's also I had this as needed. So this whole process started back in 2017, really even before that. Back when we had the big regulation, zoning regulation rewrite that took place in 2016, 2017, after 2018, there were new design review regulations proposed. There was a huge outcry about those, both from the Historic Preservation Commission and other members of the public who didn't like how they were leading. So the Historic Preservation Commission was charged by the Planning Commission to do their own rewrite. So that started in September of 2017. And the Historic Preservation Commission was really looking to clarify the regulations, make them. I'm going to go to the next slide, actually. This gives. Next one. These are all the additional input. But the big goals were to improve predictability and consistency of the applications, improve defensibility of decisions. So right now, the design review regulations are really about three pages with very vague statements of what the design review committee is supposed to be looking at and what those regulations are in a lot of instances. There are some specifics with regard to signs, things like that. But in general, they're a pretty broad brush. There probably wasn't an analysis, but anecdotally, is there a sense that the appeals that have come from zoning decisions, what percentage they've been the Historic Preservation? Well, which is to say, I'm thinking part of the defensibility and the need for the change is because the standards may not meet modern zoning law. But as well, I think there have been a number of where we've seen appeals. With the DRB has seen appeals. Yes. Right, to the environmental court. I mean, those are before my time, so I don't know the numbers for that. But that was definitely a concern, as well as there being a history of applicants not agreeing with what the design review committee had said, and then that coming here to the development review board and the development review board not necessarily having clear standards to judge a decision. And I think that the Historic Preservation Commission wanted to make sure that the purposes behind the design review regulations were really more clearly laid out, including details that came from the National Park Service Rehabilitation Standards, which is a federal requirement. So anyway, there's lots of stuff here. So another big goal was they had the option of restricting the design review regulations to just historic preservation. But they really wanted to continue with it being a design review district, so that that means it applies not just to historic buildings, but also to new construction. And then one of the other big purposes here was to make sure that the new design review regulations clearly meet the time of my brains. For some reason, I can't come up with what CLG means, even though I talk about it all the time. Certified local government. Thank you, certified local government. I think the caffeine is wearing off. Certified local government standards. So this is a contract that the city has with the state on how we treat historic buildings that opens up the city to getting grant funding. There's a whole bunch of benefits to being a CLG community. And then also making sure that the design standards are a little more flexible. There's some places in the draft where it looks like. When you read it, it may seem really strict, but in actuality, we're making, because it's becoming more clear, you're going to have less room for a committee to just impose its own ideas on things. And it's just, like I said earlier, more predictable. More predictable, more transparent. So just back in time a little bit. For the drafting process, like I said, it started in 2017. The Historic Preservation Commission went through a lot of public input consulting with outside parties reviewing design review regulations from all over the state, all over the country. And then they spent a large part of 2018 and a good part of 2019 drafting the regulations with various public meetings and additional public input. So at this point, it's gone to the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission has had multiple meetings, some in conjunction with Historic Preservation Commission, some with design review members present to go back and forth and debating the actual terms in the regulations. And then once the Planning Commission was happy with those terms, they went on to the next step that the Historic Preservation Commission really couldn't lead on and revised the district map. So this is something that is going to, this is where individuals really start to figure out how this is going to affect them. It's kind of hard to see on the 11 by 17. So I'm going to zoom in on here. So this black line that you can see on the map, and you all have a copy of it, surrounds the current design review district. This is the current design review district boundary. The stripes. No, not the red stripes. The black line is the current. The red diagonal stripes are where we're going to move the boundary to. So here you have parcels, and in some cases, parts of parcels that are going to be brought into the design review district. A lot of what the Planning Commission is doing is cleaning up lines so that you don't have just a part of a parcel that's in the design review district. You have the whole parcel. Or you don't have just part of a neighborhood. So you're all familiar with how within each zoning district there are distinct neighborhoods. With the current outline, the current design review district boundary, sometimes just four or five or six parcels in a neighborhood is going to be within the district. So the Planning Commission has tried to think critically about each of those neighborhoods and say, well, should we have the entire neighborhood in, or should we have the entire neighborhood out? They want to have some level of parity of equity going on here so that you don't have just a few parcels within a whole neighborhood that's in the design review district. In this neighborhood, the 10-4, which it's way over on the side as to what it's called. So that's the Redstone North neighborhood. Everything here that was out, it's out right now, that we're pulling in is actually part of the national district, the National Historic Register District. So it really makes sense to try and have our design review district overlap with the historic district, which is a whole separate matter. But one reason that makes a lot of sense is that if you have a building that is on this national or the state register of historic places and there's a plan to have it be demolished, you have a higher standard of review. We're all familiar with that, I think. But right now, these parcels aren't subject to design review. So you're not having design review people who might have more of a historic preservation background potentially. I know of at least one person on the current design review committee who's also on the Historic Preservation Commission. They're getting skipped over in the review process for demolition of these historic buildings. It doesn't automatically go to design review unless it's in the design overlay district. So that's one of the rationales for these changes. And so right here, you can see where the black line there, they're proposing bumping these parcels out of the design review district. Because these are just a few little houses in a separate neighborhood, it's not in the historic district. They aren't finding any reason to bring in the whole rest of the neighborhood. So it seemed to make more sense to just pop those parcels out. Another interesting bet is here along Berry Street. So you had one side of Berry Street that's currently in design review district, the whole other side of Berry Street, even though it's the same neighborhood, right now it's not in the design review district. So they're proposing to pull it back in and have it come over the entire neighborhood and both sides of the street. Does anybody have any questions right now? I mean, there's lots of I could talk about every single change, but that's also something that's going to happen at the meeting on the 27 with people who have a lot more understanding of why they made the decisions they did. How far along are they in the process? I mean, if you were going to assign some kind of percentage to three quarters to wait down there. The planning commission process? This is not, this is the very first public input hearing. So at this point, the meeting on the 27th is there the first really broad, let's get all the rest of the players to the table at the public, at the planning commission. They've had multiple hearings, but there hasn't been a lot of public input. So for this hearing, we've actually sent physical notice to every single property owner who owns property that is currently within the design review district or is proposed to be added to the design review district. And so they've gotten a special letter that tells them which property we're talking about if it's in is gonna stay in, if it's in is gonna be booted out or if it's out and it's gonna come in plus a copy of the map, plus a copy of the regulations. So we're hoping that the meeting on the 27th is gonna have a lot of input. We've started getting some of that input in writing for people who won't be able to make the meeting and have called in, but hopefully a lot of people will turn out at the meeting. And then depending on that public input, there may be a sort of retrenching, remeeting between planning commission and historic preservation commission just to see what the barometer is saying. Whether or not there needs to be big changes or just small changes to then go forward. So then the planning commission will still have to have, I think at least one, maybe two more public hearings after that before they even have a vote on whether or not it goes forward to city council. And city council definitely has to have at least two public hearings before they can adopt something. That's my understanding. Yes, Kate. I'm kind of curious if you know what's happening up by the College of Fine Arts. You said that there was an effort to bring into the design review district anything that's in the same neighborhood for consistency. And yet this looks like something drawn based on a parcel line. Yep, so my understanding is that because this particular separate outlier of the design review district was originally drawn to encompass the property owned by the college, the planning commission is proposing removing those parcels that are no longer owned by the college from the design review district. Has the buildings, the types of buildings that are on those parcels changed since the college no longer has ownership or do they continue to comprise part of the character and district? Ownership and form are kind of two different things. Yep, I am passing on to you what I know. I was not at every single planning commission meeting about this, so this is, hold on, let me zoom in and see if I can see something. So sometimes you can see the little white lines that designate a different neighborhood. So right here, I think this parcel is technically, I mean it's a different zoning district. You can see it's purple instead of the yellow. Same with these yellow ones. Sorry, that's orange underneath the red stripes. So because these are also different technical neighborhoods and districts, I think that that's reasoning behind that one, that may also be this one. That makes sense. I'm wondering about that one. The big one? Yeah. Is that a hill? The big one is a tricky one because it's very strange to have a single parcel have multiple zoning districts over it, that is something they typically, and this actually, huh, they've drawn this line incorrectly, there was a change to the zoning map. So this district line right here, this actually now goes straight across and down. This little bit here has been rezoned to match riverfront. But this is this parcel, because there's actually a parcel line here. The parcel, I always call that a penguin. I believe is, this is what the Vermont College of Fine Arts is talking about selling off. There's no, right now there's no buildings on here at all. Really, it's sort of more, in my mind, it is more similar to Sabin's pasture, but it's been owned by the college. So I think that because if there's development on there, it's gonna be new development, but it's planning commissions thought process, depending what happens on the 27th and other public hearings, these lines may all change. And I mean, considering it's new development, that might be an argument for having it within the design review district. Yeah, it's a, especially because- It's been an ongoing conversation. It's an, yeah. And that's what the 27th is all about, is broadening that conversation. Thanks for taking that question on the fly. Oh, yeah. Any other? What did that zoning change happen of the river from the line? So I can't remember the exact date. That was one of the interim changes that then became fully adopted, I think that was part of the September 25th adoption that took effect in October. I think that was part of that. And there were several public hearings at Planning Commission and City Council about it. So just so I understand the process, Meredith, these decisions, because they always involved decisions where to draw the lines and where not to draw the lines. This has been driven by both the Planning Commission as well as the Historic Preservation People? When it comes to where the district lines are drawn, that has been much less driven by the Historic Preservation Commission. Okay. That has been more Planning Commission at this point in time and trying to, as with the design review regulations, make things more transparent and clearer, easier to follow and a little more parody. This is their first stab at it. I don't think at this point, they really don't feel like they wanna make huge changes to the design review overlay district. They're trying to tweak it where it seems to make sense right now. But it's their version of what makes sense, how it morphs from here forward. I don't know at all. So there's a few properties that are gonna experience the design control regulations for a first time. There's a few properties, fewer properties I would say overall that are going to leave the design. That's the proposal. And the proposal. Yeah. No, I'm sorry. Then maybe it might make sense unless anybody has any questions to sort of move on to the actual regulations overview. The PowerPoint? Yeah, if you're ready. Yeah, I mean, I think we've talked about a lot of it. I can go into the core changes. I'm not sure if you think that's helpful at this point. This same presentation, most of the same presentation is going to be presented on the 27th. Do, I mean, this is... I think for our purposes, I mean, what I'd really like to know is under the changes that are being proposed, how many applications are likely to be, or what types of applications are likely to come before the DRB? I think that, so right now, if something goes through the design review committee that is a big project that then has to come before the DRB, you usually get a copy of their recommendation form, right? Which is one page, maybe one in a back with a few sentences of recommendations on it. The way this is gonna work to be able to get similar recommendations and to have the kind of detailed analysis that is gonna be required a little bit more is I think we're gonna have to have more different kinds of recommendation forms. So right now there's one for signs, there's one for everything else. With the new system, you're gonna have, the question of is it a project that involves a historic building? Is it just a project that's new development? Depending on the answer to that question, you're gonna have different standards that apply. Right. And so we're gonna have to have more variety of forms, they're gonna be more detailed. It might be that there is a sort of design review committee level, shorter staff report, that then just gets folded into your staff report to go through everything. We're kind of playing with the process, not the process, but what the paper is gonna look like in that process. So there might be a little bit more for you to look at when a design review matter comes before you, even just to understand what was talked about previously. And especially if it's something where the design review committee recommendations are being appealed to you. Right, I mean we're still gonna sit in a pellet review effectively of the design review committee's decisions. Or the zoning administrator's decisions, because there will be the opportunity for zoning administrators to approve or disprove disapprove things before they even go to the design review committee. So. Is demolition still going to be under our wheelhouse, or is this? Demolition will, I mean currently demolition in the design review district, the design review committee gets the first cut at it. Yeah. That will still be, under these changes, that will still come to the development review board. I am gonna give you a little heads up that the Historic Preservation Commission is playing around with a brand new demolition provision. They've just started looking at that. That may not come move anywhere, or it may take a year or two. Okay. So who knows, but that is something that's being worked on. Right, but that's not. Outside of this. Process. Process, but. Actually I have one very specific question. Yeah. In looking through some of these exempt developments, I'm just curious. This has absolutely nothing to do with the DRV. It's only because I've gone through this process, I think. I notice that the defined that doing, particularly under subsection F, it has says in bold alterations that involve changes to materials, composition type, or appearance of a feature, the removal of distinctive materials or alterations of features, spaces, spatial relationships that characterize property and not exempt activities. So I've seen this problem, I've run into it myself, where you are using, where you have a building with historic material. So the porch roof that's in hammered tin that's now corroded and needs to be replaced, but of course nobody does roof in hammered tin anymore. It's rubber membrane. So you're replacing one type of material with another because that type of material isn't used. Otherwise, it would appear the exact same from the street. Black looking roof, you're not changing the spatial features, but looking at the definition of what's in kind and alterations of materials, that seems to be a change such that it would require a permit and review. Correct. Okay. Correct, because it is not the same material. Right. So in that case you'd have to fill out an actual application and likely go before the DRC. Correct. And it's, you know, the thing to keep in mind is that's what happens right now. If you're changing materials in the design review overlay district right now, if you're going from metal to rubber, you're going from shingle to metal roofing, you go before the design review committee. Even if it looks the same, if the material is actually different, we're sending people to the design review committee. Well, I understand like if you replace, you know, if you have, you know, like slate shingles and you replace them with asphalt shingles, even if they quote unquote look the same. But what I'm talking about is a little bit more narrowly and I do, I know that the prior administrative officers have interpreted it differently where if a material is not available in the same manner, which is to say if, for example, the hammer tin example, even if I wanted to replace a roof with hammer tin, I couldn't because it's just not available commercially the way it was 110 years ago. Right. And so at least in the past, I have seen administrative permits or even determinations by the administrative officer saying, well, you know, it's not, it's, it's, you're basically, it's a kind of blurred in kind material because it's the original materials not available. And this is the closest alternative to it. It'd be like an asbestos tile. If an asbestos tile, because they don't make them anymore, isn't available and you have another tile that looks similar, the question is, does that then require a permit? And I understand what your answer is and I understand what this answer is. So. Vice wants to make sure. Be the zoning administrator with a legal background who is told to read the regulations exactly as written. My decision would be to say yes, it needs to go to design review, not necessarily because design review is gonna say you can't do this, but because design review based on the qualifications to be on that committee are gonna be the ones with the best resources to advise that applicant as to how best to make that change and yet still have it fit within the design review overlay district and be reflective of the historic period of the building or whatever. So, you know, the zoning administrator in my mind isn't supposed to make that judgment call. It's supposed to get the recommendation from the design review committee because that's what they're there for. They're the experts. Okay. No, if that's the way it's been going to, I'm not gonna. I mean, you can come to the meeting. Yeah, no, no, no. Well, I just, I wanted to make sure. I wanted to just, and like I said, it was much more down in the weeds and informal question of whether that was gonna open up a new set of applications that are existing, but what you're saying is basically the way you've been enforcing them, they already have been coming into that system. So, we just haven't had that many of those. Yeah, I mean, there is a time when something is going, you know, up on a roof, nobody's gonna see it. You literally cannot see it and there's nothing, especially if it is also then associated with a building that is typically exempt from a lot. Zoning regulations, that's one thing. Roofing material usually is very, the design review committee wants to see that. And it can be pretty integral to, it's official if it's integral to the historic, if it's noted on something on the national register, it's gonna go to design review committee, which I'm assuming a tin roof would be. None. If it's on the national register of historic places and it has a tin roof, I bet the tin roof is noted. Okay. Okay. So, I don't know if you wanna talk more about details or if you wanna move on. No, I just had one observation on that one question. But, you know, I think, you know, overall it looks as if, and I only lanced through these, but it does look like they're trying to put some more detail onto the historic preservation. Yeah, and there was also a lot of discussion with design review committee, current design review committee members, to get a sense of if these regulations would actually change outcomes for people who actually come to the committee. And in large part, the sense was the new regulations are actually reflective of the way decisions happen already. But gives, especially, you know, new members or the development review board a basis to make those decisions. Well, also, I mean, you know, just even looking at things like rhythm of historic buildings. You know, that's something I think has always been part of the DRC's concern. And it just never has been codified to a particular rule. So, no, I don't have any issues with any of these things. I just was curious, and I think he answered the question. Anybody else have any other questions about, okay? I also agree that codifying standards is very important in being able to read something and then determine whether or not you're adhering to that standard is important for appeals, but also way before that for applicants. I also know that when it comes to creating the way that a building feels and looks and masses and like it can be hard to capture in words. So I see that you're creating a Montpelier guidelines for to be determined. That sounds like it's gonna be more visual to help us know what rhythm is and fenestration and all that. Exactly, so there are currently guidelines the Montpelier streetscapes that are, you know, part of the decision-making process but these were put together long time ago. Yeah, we used those at our last meeting together when we were looking at appropriate signage on the main screen. So I guess my question is you've got a lot of property owners who are gonna bring this document on the 27th and maybe be a little intimidated by some of, like by words like proportion and rhythm and fenestration. So will those pictures be available for the public to review by the 27th to inform the discussion and make all these concepts even though the words are more solid? You mean the guidelines? Yeah, are those gonna be ready? The new guidelines are something that is gonna require a whole new, at least one, maybe two series of grants to develop new guidelines. And that's something that is on the Historic Preservation Commission's plan for the new city plan for their new chapter on that. But it didn't make a lot of sense to invest all that time and money if the design review regulations have large changes between now and adoption. I'm just trying to think of the best way to present it to the public so that the words which do provide clarity don't also cause confusion, absent of visual that helps people lock it in their heads. And maybe you're thinking about that for the public meeting already. That's something that can be, I honestly, off the top of my head, don't know if that is in the current street scapes at all, I can't remember. No, but I mean even- Just to demystify the terms is what I'm getting at, yeah. I think Kate's correct in that and maybe just informal feedback which is when this presentation goes forward. If you can show a picture, whether it's in Montpelier or not, but that exemplifies the difference between good rhythm and bad rhythm. Yeah, I think that's a good idea. And I can recommend a wonderful website called McMansion Hell done by Kate Wagner that is a really incredible collection of bad architectural choices that I think illustrates. It's a classic picture with a thousand words kind of thing. You only have to see the mismatched windows or the stuck on architectural features once to get it, to understand what these protect or what these prevent. Yeah, that's a good idea. Thanks Dan, that is right, how you characterized what I was getting at is the idea of informal feedback to help facilitate the meeting and make these concepts less scary when the public comes in. No, I think that's a good idea. I know it's work. The planning director has been working on that presentation, on morphing this presentation into something for the 27th and so I will bring that up with him to see if he's even started on that. Yeah, some visuals for just rhythm is this, windows are this, height means this. And some of that may be able to come out of existing materials that we have in the city. I think those are good, thank you. Thank you, I think it'll help the meeting. I sometimes get lost in the big picture of how to present the whole thing and didn't think about that. I often get lost in words rather than pictures because I'm wordy in my head and in my speech. But pictures matter. Yeah. Good, anybody else have any other questions? Okay. Thanks Meredith, this has been really helpful. Awesome, thank you very much, that was great. You're welcome. And if anybody wants copies of presentations or anything, let me know. If you aren't gonna keep your paper copies of things, you can give them back to me because we'll use them on the 27th. Very good. Okay, next item of business is the upcoming board member changes. There's a couple of things going on and I think it's just worth talking through. So as I think most of you know, if not, that I am seeking a city council position and I'm actually applying for the open vacancy, which could be as early as this coming Thursday. So I don't know if that will happen or not. Obviously if it doesn't, I'm still here but I am running for city council and if I am successful, then I would step down obviously as chair. I'm not planning on stepping down before said election or appointment just simply because I love this board and all the work we do when we actually have work to do. But, and I'm not running for city council to escape any of you, in fact, the opposite but there will be that change and as we all see, we're down already a member, we're down an alternate. And then I talked, you know, Kate, you were talking about taking a short leave of absence of a family leave from the board. That's gonna leave us a slight deficit again. And then, Ryan, we talked, you're coming up for renewal but my understanding is that you will not. I expect that I will not be seeking. So that leaves us, I think, with a serious issue of making sure that we have enough people to fill in the spaces. I would encourage you to encourage others to do their civic duty, to step up and serve on the board because of all the fun we have and the winter's off, apparently. And, you know, I think, so if we look at this, I mean, Kate's absence will be temporary but Ryan, if I'm successful myself, the open seat, that's three plus the alternate, that's four out of nine physicians. I think we need to be very thoughtful about getting either people who've served to come back because some of the people who have served in the past are interested in coming back as well as getting new people on board because I think, you know, one of the really good parts of the board that in the past few years has been the new infusion of people serving. It's been a great opportunity, not only for you but I think as a board, we've been a better board because we've had new ideas, new perspectives. So certainly, if you can encourage that, it's something to keep on our agenda. Any questions? All right. I would just add that my intended leave period is that tonight, my last meeting before taking leave was going to be our next meeting, which we don't have. So it's tonight and I intend to return May 4th, assuming that everything goes well and that way I can be back soon. If that can't happen, I'll let you know. Good. So obviously, something to think about. I know that the city manager's office sends out a board and committees vacancy newsletter. On a regular basis. And I'm not sure, has the board been included in that? Yeah, and it's been, yeah, it's on Front Porch Forum, it's on Facebook, it's through the city manager's weekly report. We've covered that area. Yeah, we've been broadcasting and they just recently, I think, also did another posting in the local newspapers. No, it's funny because there's times when there's really a lot of drive on people's part to want to be a part of this board, and then we go through these deficit periods where it's like, can we find somebody who's still breathing? You have a posture, I'm not really a resident, let's go. We can do better. But it's cyclical, and we're... I agree. Because I've always been the case on the board. I've only been in it for six years, but... Yes. Yeah, I've noticed those ups and downs, and yeah, I think, you know, in part, I think it's a testament, and I don't want to do any back patting, but I think we should. As a board, in part, I think because we've been working so well together, it doesn't create ripples. People often pay attention to boards that aren't functioning well, public boards particularly, and they start to step up because they feel like it's going off the rails, and they, you know, everybody wants to step, you know, that often gets people riled up, and that's when I've seen, when we've had controversial decisions, that's when, or when there's been controversial issues, that's when people have often wanted to sort of step forward. That's correct. And I think, in part, because we've run a pretty smooth ship of state, as it were, which I think is a credit to everyone here, particularly Meredith, to make sure that this process has gone well. People think, oh, well, we don't have to think about it because it just runs. All right. So don't let them be complacent, get... Well, for our television audience, you know, take a look, see what we're all about. Yeah, watch some of our back episodes. Yeah. Okay. Look at season... Season five was great. That was great. That was great. It's a flip-hanger. You're just so extra missing. Okay, our next regularly scheduled meeting is February 18th, 2020. There are no applications for the third, so our third meeting on which we would normally have on the first Monday of the month is canceled. Just a little note. The February 18th meeting is a Tuesday. That didn't get put in here. Oh, sorry, that's right. It's a day after president's day. So it is actually a Tuesday, February 18th. And that's a tentative schedule because as of right now, we do not have any applications for that meeting. And obviously, if there are none forthcoming, we will likely not meet since we've had this opportunity to sort of get caught up on some of these changes. And I don't expect any other substantial changes to come between now and next month. All right, motion to adjourn. Motion by Ryan. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Kate. All those in favor, please raise your right hand. We are adjourned. Thank you.