 It is 6.30 so thank you very much to Travis to making that clear that it is the official start time of our regular meeting of June 5th 2023. I'm Megan Emery. I am the vice chair but I will be the acting chair tonight with our chair who is attending virtually and we're very glad that she's with us tonight after a successful procedure so she is she she never shirks her duty she had every excuse but no she's here with us so we're going to start tonight with the Pledge of Allegiance and I'd like Steve Locke to please lead us in that. Thank you and for all of you Steve Locke is our fire chief and our deputy city manager so that's a big mouthful and it means that he does a lot for our city so thank you for leading us and I'm now handing the mic over to Jesse Baker our city manager she's going to give you all instructions for exiting in case of emergency. So thank you for being here today for the people in the room you can go out either side of the rear of the auditorium left right and then turn left or right to get out of the building in an emergency for those participating online thank you for joining us as well if you would like to be recognized at any point during the night you can indicate so in the chat or turn your camera on otherwise we are not monitoring the chat for content thank you. All right and our next agenda item is the agenda review are there any additions deletions or changes in order of the agenda items yes Andrew. So Megan could I suggest that we talk about ash trees if possible and I only suggest that because I think time is of the essence to potentially deal with them this year. Yep thank you. Yep so we'll put that under other business if there's no objection to that all right any other things that people would like to add or change. Okay very good and this is now the time for comments and questions from the public on items not related to the agenda and please would you come up and press the button to make sure that the light is bright green and then put the mic right in front of your mouth and there we go we're ready if you can state your name and we're ready to listen. Yeah sure it's bright green so my name is Ann Obelnicki and I'm a resident of South Burlington and I I think you all got emails from me some I've heard back from some of you and I wanted to just comment a little bit on the proposal for the rental registry and especially regulating short-term rentals. I'm currently a host of two short-term rentals in South Burlington. I rent out an ADU in my home and also a single-family home that's across the street from my house and they're really the primary source of well right now really the only source of income that I have from my family. My family at my house consists of just me and my four-year-old and my nine-year-old and what I'd really love to see with the city council is some discussion of how changing the regulations will affect hosts and who those hosts are and I haven't seen a lot of discussion of that so far. For myself you know I went into this made significant investment of my money that I had set aside for retirement to to get into short-term renting and as proposed as currently proposed on the last the last time that the ordinance was handed out it would shut down not my ADU but my single-family home across the street from me and that would be a really significant financial blow to myself and I know that there's other people in South Burlington who are similar things and it would it would also be a significant blow to them and as I said like I made this decision because it was legal it is still legal and I and it's not something that can pivot really quickly by like next April and I can do something else with the property that would that would have any profit actually I'd probably have losses if I pivoted to long-term renting on that property in particular so I guess I'm here to just speak up on that issue and hope that you'll take a minute you know not necessarily today since it's not on the agenda but as you go forward and find out what those consequences are of the things that you're proposing and how they'll affect you know normal Vermonters who live in South Burlington and are trying to piece together livelihood in a legal upfront way so that's that's what I'm here to say thank you and and I believe we're gonna be getting back to the ordinance in July or do you have certain yeah it's the second right now it's scheduled for the second August because of the kind of schedule over the next two months okay very good okay well I'll be happy to come back then too but um I know a lot happens in between so I just want to put that in your ear thank you for listening to me today thank you thank you anybody else in the audience like to come forward all right if you'd like to speak to us online you can just turn on your camera or turn on your microphone and I will recognize you all right very good so we'll carry on then to item number five which is counselor's announcements and reports on committee assignments and I'm just going to start from my right and move left so Andrew um aside from my two weeks in the allogash which we can discuss another time um I don't have a report okay very good very good Tim thank you um so I attended two subcommittee meetings interviewing prospective members for different city committees and I also attended two graduations in my family one in Boston for my son for his graduate degree and one for my son at Shamblin College for his successful completion of the teacher apprenticeship program the TAP program and so and he'll be teaching in the high school next year as well so that's working well and I also ran the marathon but I only ran one leg so no big deal just four miles but it's always great to participate that and and see all the runners come in so thank you you had a beautiful day for the marathon it was it was it was a little warm towards the end but other than that you know the humidity wasn't too high so it was good yeah good good Tyler um yeah I attended uh as with Tim uh and uh Councillor Chalnyk and and Helen to some of the subcommittee meetings to for various appointments um have heard from uh a number of constituents on it well positive update as a follow-up to a previous conversation that we had uh regarding bike thefts and I'm I apologize I'm not I just want to make sure I'm being accurate but um um we had an amazing week last last week with the Burlington Bike Recovery Group recovering 159 bikes over the course of the last seven days so it's a it's an entirely grassroots effort led by a few constituents in the city and they're doing a remarkable job and um so I just wanted to recognize them for all of their efforts in the coordination with the South Burlington Police Department um was that just in South Burlington 159 bikes that was in South Burlington and Burlington um I don't have the exact that's a lot of bikes it's a lot it's a lot of bikes um but I um I it's I don't have the exact breakdown but I do think it's worth noting that a significant percentage not single digits but at least 20% were recovered within South Burlington or had something to do with the city of South Burlington so I thought that was that was notable how would you locate them Tyler they reached out to me no no no how'd you locate the bikes oh I'm not to be clear this is this is the this is the the group not myself um they're just there a lot of it is just uh leveraging the power of social media so when they have when they have their members who see a bike that is looks out of place they take it upon themselves to take a photo share it if if it's practical or safe they'll take a photo of the serial number um and so it's it's it's purely organic and um uh but the uh so moving forward I just want to make sure that they're working in lock step with with uh Chief Burke and the police department again we want to be careful that the the there's a lot of vigilance but I want to make sure that it's done right and that we don't vigilance could not saying this could be the case we don't want to turn to vigilanteism where people are actively snagging back bikes but so far the coordination has been great and on both sides I'm really excited about that um other sorry um got some feedback uh in addition to um miss old nicky did I capture that correct and who just spoke from a couple other constituents who had similar concerns um regarding um how we I think that the thing that I I heard um most clearly incoherently either where there are two concerns one one was again what's the impact of the rental registry what do we anticipate that will be on uh helping address like what's the scale and scope of the problem that was the first thing um that folks would like us to spend more time discussing and the second thing was is could there potentially be a either a grandfathered in-clause or some form of application whereby uh folks like uh miss old nicky uh who have leveraged themselves uh and are making this a source of their primary revenue um and who are really relying on this is there some way some vehicle that's that's practical uh both from a financial perspective and also from an administrative perspective to allow these folks to uh either get an exception or whether we have an x number of units that are allowed that still allows us to meet our goals as the city so I thought that would be appropriate for the next uh the next time we have those conversations that have been encouraging folks to engage in that dialogue then um went to the old brian farms uh uh groundbreaking groundbreaking which is very exciting had the opportunity to speak with a lot of folks and bathe in the conversations and really be inspired by the conversations about the Vermont way of doing things uh collaboration and uh the things don't necessarily have to be mutually exclusive and I thought a lot of those really resonated and I think their exemplary of how we operate as councils that was exciting and last but not least um heard from a number of uh concerned constituents who attended the school board meeting and not school board meeting excuse me the donuts and discussion conversations that sent the correct characterization of it yeah something along those lines um and uh folks were very engaged and um there's it's something that I felt compelled to to bring to everyone's attention there are a in my mind an alarming number and um it's I don't have an exact count but it's more than 20 uh individuals who have children of uh that are will be transitioning from fifth grade to sixth grade next year who do not intend to enroll their kids at total um out of concerns that um well there's a number of different concerns not all of which I want to share but I think the the underlying thing that um current of and that I felt and that was of concern to me was it is this like going to be a long-term trend that we anticipate to can will continue over time and if so what are the implications and how can we work together with uh with the school board um to ensure that um we're not preventing this outflight of intellectual capital um and I don't want to be alarmist but you know I guess where my red flags go up is is this something that could potentially lead to a group of citizens wanting to start something along the lines of charter school which could have dramatic implications for our school uh district and how we how we work and operate and um that also underscored the importance of one of the frustrations that they mentioned were the facilities and I think it's clear that we are um regardless of how we got there we're at a position where we really are need to put that on the radar and that's something I'd like for us to continue discussing and particularly to bring up as we start our our vision and planning exercises over the course of the next couple months anything else that's it all right Ellen sure um I I crammed a lot in before my procedure so um I did go to the O'Brien farm groundbreaking and um made a beautiful show some rebox on behalf of the city yeah um I attended four subcommittee meetings interviewing um a whole wealth of candidates for the community um boards and commissions and it's always um heartwarming to see so many talented people interested in donating some time we had a school um city leadership meeting and it was very productive an excellent conversation and we uh Jesse was able to kind of um bring the school board and superintendent school board chair and the superintendent up to um stuff with exactly what um we are doing as a community to deal with the traffic on market street um the school um exiting and entering um traffic counts are going on on dorset and market street um and and the city is actively engaged with families that were um described uh two weeks ago I guess with having some problems or creating potentially some problems at our housing um in the new city center um and I also went to a wonderful um charter committee hearing and it was it seemed quite well attended um although someone made the comment that most of the speakers were the old guard myself included um but we um it was a very good dialogue about um the different options and some good questions I think were raised as the charter committee um gathers the the testimony or the feedback in order to incorporate um those comments into their report back to us so it was um it was good overall great thank you Helen and so I too attended some subcommittee hearings but only two along with Tim Barrett and Helen of course and I also attended an affordable housing committee meeting um where we reviewed the the draft draft of the um affordable housing section in our city plan our comprehensive plan and the members were able to provide some feedback to to Kelsey Peterson in our planning and zoning department I also attended that uh charter review uh committee meeting that Helen spoke about and I thought it was a really good discussion and I've had some discussions since with with residents um on that as well as on Hubbard and I know that we'll be discussing both um I also I'm going to thank Jesse for giving me the credit I guess I also set up a meeting um with uh a resident um representing other residents from the the garden street apartments uh listen mcdonald was there and cht representatives were there with jesse um simply moderating and um it was an incredible discussion I got to see the the cht staff up close and personal and they're phenomenal and I got to also hear from the principal at our rick marcott central school that there are no issues at the school that that school is uh of an incredibly positive learning environment for all of the children there and um despite some of the comments that were made on a public facebook page she cannot at all um confirm any of those reports in fact she would she would renounce those reports so that was um a very good discussion um and I would just say in general with regard to our school district um it's phenomenal and I have three children um two who have just like tim made their way through this district and have landed incredible opportunities post graduation and I also have a sixth grader who in that transition is very hard from fifth to sixth grade as you know is a parent of a sixth grader and the responsiveness of the principal of the teachers and she got into the drama club and every child will find their niche because there are so many niches to choose from in our school district um that what started off as kind of choppy waters in the beginning she is swimming like a fish and I just I have no doubt that she will meet with the same success that her big brothers did it's a phenomenal district and good luck to the families who wish to to attend private schools they're good private schools as well but I certainly would not confirm any alarmist dialogue on on the state of our our public education system we have phenomenal teachers phenomenal administration phenomenal support staff phenomenal staff people just to see what they did with regard to drama um and in all of the you know the the custodial work that was done as well as the parent volunteers and the kids just phenomenal it's phenomenal I just want to put that out there um and we have phenomenal residents so we have all the partners in place we have an amazing city staff in addition to all of the the school staff and I just came out of my meeting uh last Thursday morning um just with a huge smile on my face as did the resident and just just I don't know floating floating out of the building feeling just so at home here and knowing that this was a home not just for me but for people who have not been um you know given uh the same I would say just um lucky breaks in life perhaps um and and um and just life experiences that weren't necessarily um as conducive or or as um I mean I've certainly had my my rough spots but anyway I just I came out of that meeting here in City Hall on Thursday feeling just phenomenally proud um and and that warm and fuzzy spot of South Wellington was very very real for me I have also been communicating with Anne Oblackie um I'm going to be meeting with her tomorrow um I want to save my remarks for a warned agenda item um but I I tend to believe we're in a housing crisis and that short-term rentals should not be a source of primary income for our residents so I will now turn it over to our city oh can I make one announcement yes please sorry um I forgot to announce that if you haven't seen advertisements uh in various media UVM is having a two-day event called the rise summit yeah it's the research innovation and sustainability and entrepreneurship summit and it's free you have to sign in to register so just go to UVM uh and search for or just google UVM and rise RISC the only cost would be if you want to take a lunch I think you have to pay for lunch but the parking is free too so I plan on going the 21st uh Pat Leahy will be speaking and Kyle Clark will be speaking and there are other panel discussions on both days so should be very interesting so looking forward to it what are the dates of that again the 21st and 22nd of June this month how did we get it to June that's that's a busy busy time of year yeah all right and now for our city manager's report great thanks um certainly a lot going on um so a couple of another kind of lengthy update apologies in advance um so charter committee survey and feedback um as many of you talked about the forum was really interesting we do have a survey still out on the ground to try and get some of those other voices who may not have time and energy to come to a public meeting that survey will be live through June 12th we'll close it on June 13th so far we have 105 respondents to that survey which is okay pretty good um I think what's more interesting is that the average response time is eight minutes which means folks are really um taking time and being thoughtful and providing interesting feedback which is great um June is finalizing the grand list month it's very exciting very dorky month in municipal government so for the council you may hear from your residents we are mailing out change of notices of change in value tomorrow so those will be hitting mailboxes in the next couple of weeks for anyone who's assessed value is changing hearings are through uh June 21st we then let lodge the grand list with the state get the education property tax rate back from them based on that grand list and you will approve the tax rate on at your July 10th meeting right now the grand list is tracking higher than we projected with the FY24 budget that may change as appeals are come in but what that would mean is a tax rate lower than you anticipated during your FY24 budget discussion so more to come on that but want to give you a heads up um there will be work done starting next Monday the 12th is that next yes next Monday the 12th yeah on the pressure reducing valve on the drinking water line under Nolan farm road the homes that will be impacted by that temporary water showed off will all be notified majority of work will take place outside of the roadway but there may be periods of time where we need to close one road and or one lane and the traffic will be delayed but we anticipate that being very short and if you if anyone listening or watching later has any questions about that please feel free to call the water department at 864-4361 864-4361 the final thing on that is the contractor will be staging some equipment at the parking lot at Hubbard Park so if folks see construction equipment in there it's for this project not for anything related to Hubbard Park rolling that out there so we want to thank CCRPC for their funding of our annual work plan to fund a bike ped master plan in FY24 which is really exciting I also want to share that on Friday we had three police officers graduate from the from our police academy that's a huge undertaking many weeks of work they now come home and do their field training with our officers and really learn South Burlington and then our release onto the street really exciting about that is not only the three new officers joining us but two we had one officer get what is called the Eugene Giotti Award which I'm going to read this because it's really lovely it's an award that the fellow recruits so the recruit class votes on to nominate the recipient based on their demonstrated honesty loyalty motivation and teamwork so officers are more joining our ranks receive that award at the academy and then Lieutenant Bataille received the instructor award which he this is the second time receiving that award he trains he's one of our police lieutenants and trains is the lead criminal law instructor at the academy so again voted on by the recruits award given to Lieutenant Bataille two other things one there's a staff team of us starting to work with the developers on a development agreement for the relocation of old farm road that will need to come to the council in the next couple of months to approve the process by which we will they will construct that new road and then we will relinquish the existing road it's the road kind of takes a turn to the right coming down into Kimblav so much more to come on that I just wanted to give you a heads up that a development agreement will be coming your way and then finally several of us are monitoring really closely the hotel return to pre-pandemic criteria program we have a weekly call with the agency of human services and service providers we're anticipating some requests from the executive order that was issued on data around housing options in the state and quite frankly right now we're not seeing a huge impact locally but we are keeping our eye on it closely that's what I have thanks that's fabulous and I have to say that I I had a very social weekend and I have to say for a professor we're usually homebody bookish types and so this was an unusual thing for me to have parties two nights in a row and at one of them I spoke with an entrepreneur who's in Burlington he works with Keith Epstein from our energy committee and he didn't know about hillside east so I filled him in and he's like oh really and I said yes and you should come check us out in south Burlington since he's in solar so we just have to sell all of the things that are amazing about our community and sell it loudly and get out from my my armchair with the books and go talk to people so that's the lesson of Saturday night may I ask the manager a question about the signal work on Dorset Street so it was supposed to start today according to the signs that went from May 1st to May 15th to June 5th yeah there were there was some there was some work done no there was some frustration about the scheduling I'm gonna I don't know the details but luckily Erica Qualan is here so we'll turn it over to her hi all Erica Qualan deputy director of capital projects from public works they have started staging their equipment so it is behind the former sears automotive now so you'll notice some stuff there and it is still scheduled for this week so they brought out their equipment either today or on Friday I just know it was there when I drove down Dorset Street this morning and it wasn't there last week when I left but it is still scheduled for this week they are planning to kind of start at the middle and move out and do a lot of the less invasive work that's out of the roadway at first and then get to some of the bigger ticket items sorry the work that's scheduled to start this week that's occurring at the intersection of in front of the sears auto center what was formerly that's just where they're staging their equipment right now it's nice and central for the whole corridor to be able to get to it it's going to depend as equipment comes in which ones are for which intersection we've had some pretty long lead times on equipment but it's going to be primarily stuff related to like pedestrian infrastructure getting things outside of the roadway itself that will be started and not really tackling the wilson road intersection or the kennedy drive intersection until the rest of the equipment is there so we don't have to keep open clothes open clothes so it'll be some of the more technology background stuff that they're going to be starting with and then moving to the more visible larger scale items got it and is there is there an eta on when i know it's i'm i'm asking back to the napkin everything in like is this a one-year project two-year project six-month project um it it will be done this calendar year okay thank you all right well thank you all that's clearly a lot that's going on in the city here so the next item is number six the consent agenda and we will be approving hopefully uh five items so that includes the disbursements that's the bills of the city minutes from april third april 17th and may 1st we're going to be approving the transfer of up to 40 000 of our fiscal year cip funding from the lead service line inventory to valve replacement on spear street approving a bike ped grant application for the hindsburg road shared use path which will include moving to cip and that's capital improvement projects to provide the match and that would be from kennedy drive all the way to wilson road and the fifth one is authorize the city manager to negotiate and execute a contract with paul frank and collins uh pc for legal services in support of city center right-of-way acquisition which has lots of complicated parts to it um so i will entertain a motion so moved very good is there a second very good and i do have an item of discussion or two does anybody else i do i have a very very small thing go ahead then tim in the disbursements the first two lines are two dollars for the easy pass of the new hampshire dot and two dollars for an easy pass i mean would you get an easy pass don't you just put 20 bucks in it just deducts and you don't did you actually did that get paid directly from the city or i was just curious because i i thought it was an automatic deduction thing so the city doesn't have an easy pass and and firefighters went to massachusetts but that was paid by plate is what it was exactly okay and so while i had given them change i threw some change in the car i also said just go through the high speed lane and they'll just bill us for the toll but you have to do the text thing you have to do the star eight nine three or something yeah it's been so long since i've been through the new hampshire tolls i thought they just sent you the the invoice for the toll and if you paid within 15 or 30 days you know it was the whatever was so it was total six dollars versus three dollars worth of tolls but that was why it was and but for the record they did use my personal easy pass as well i only asked because i finally after five years of going to boston plus out of school going every month for three years with braces to where my mom lived down there i finally got an easy pass and um i'm really proud of it now i just wanted to know i'm an easy pass user and i blew it on the way home because i went into the toll lane i was like whoa whoa whoa i can't get out anyway but i still went quickly through that so i'm just you know i'm just blown away by the whole easy pass concept thank you it's like easy rider i remember that 1970s movie all right andrew yeah jesse just a quick follow up was the um so jesse and i just had a little back and forth about the um budget amount for ash tree replacement was that to um remove and replace or was that just the replacement piece the number that's in the warrant this week is just the replacement of so removal was on top of that do you have removal we did in house with existing staff okay okay so just to put in the new tree with 700 buck to tree yep must be nice sized trees two and a half inch diameter okay thank you great helen are you have any questions or anything no discussion no i do not i had a quick question and so the uh the bike ped grant that is uh that's for hindsburg that connects hindsburg road to kennedy it goes from kennedy down to wilson road so it's the hindsburg road where there's an existing bike path but it's true there are some routes that it made it uneven it goes past prouty it goes past you know simpson court yeah there's an existing on that stretch of hindsburg road at least i've taken it it's not wide it's it's narrow it's a combination of concrete in some places asphalt and others it goes by the sewer pump house at the corner okay turn in the road i thought it was all just a sidewalk it's like a sidewalk but most of it's paved yeah okay parts of it are okay no yeah and they're getting they're applying for a v trans grant which is always a good thing yeah and yeah and then swapping that out for the airport parkway they're just kind of swapping it in our our cip our cip question yeah reorganizing things okay my questions are um and i've already had answers but i went up right i i communicate online i always like to have it come out for public discussion as well had to do with those violation charges and i'm wondering if it's because they didn't text i don't know but there was something like 55 dollar violations for the easy pass and yeah here i'll yeah so it's easy so it's all alphabetized for us and you found it okay so where is it so it's under nj actually njez i know what that i'm pretty sure i know what that is now jump in oh here it's good oh it's um where is it just a minute yeah disbursements how come i don't see it is it 55 and the other one 13 yes yes no both are 55 i thought that's my memory let me find it gosh darn easy it's working either okay it's before ingram it's on the short one yeah okay here it is it is on page three of our packet so it's njez pass first one was april 16 2023 it says vile v i o l so i'm assuming it's a violation 56 and 65 cents and the next line is for april 21st 2023 again v i o l with a code and then 56 dollars and 85 cents i think i know what it is but i'm gonna take a stab at it and i will confirm on the next couple days but we had a member attend training in texas with an enterprise rent a car which is probably why it's due jersey and the he had to take the car from the airport in dallas or austin yeah to the class and i think he thought the tolls were included in the rental car and that's how come it came as a separate charge then on the rental car charge and i just processed i just got the i just got it today finally um so it was for 55 dollars so that's why that number sounds familiar to me through enterprise and it could be the one way to the airport and that was the return and i just processed the one today for the return so i think that's i think i'm i'm 99 sure that's what that that is thank you that that makes sense it's it's complicated if you don't have an easy pass you have to they they do get you if you don't follow that within like 48 hours or something you have to notify them or something yeah yeah i know i know yeah and then my second question had to do we have a number of refunds on property taxes and jesse baker could you explain that to sure so we are at the end obviously of the tax year um there are four different i mean there are more than four but four major categories of uh why we have tax overpayments one is a taxpayer sets up um automatic withdrawals on our online system and the mortgage mortgage company continues to escrow so it's double paid and when we find those we refund them or when they're brought to our attention um the second is when a property changes hands and a buyer or seller doesn't attend to what the what was passed at closing and pays a full amount we refund those at times a homestead is applied mid-year through the state and they send us notice that that homestead has been applied and we need to refund keep in mind these are refunds on both the city and education side of it because we collect both um and then um if there's a settlement appeal at the state level um and a settlement at the state level and we've received notice of that uh we refund as well so all four of those categories apply to different um of the refunds that appear on your warrant this week um it does not mean we are not collecting what is owed to the city it means somebody paid too much and we are returning that too much we are fully collecting what we need to be collecting we're just not keeping me extra because one seems to be a legal firm there are four different dates so they're April sorry May 16th 17th 18th and 19th um this is on page nine of our packet uh Floyd under Floyd and there are two repayments refunds of 26,763 dollars and 93 cents uh a repayment of 15,973 dollars and 59 cents and a repayment of 2,633 dollars and 50 cents so I just yeah it just kind of stood out so that is the states I know that particular case is a state settlement very good okay can I just follow up with the question too when you make the repayment if it's after we have um sent the really big checks over to the school um for the education portion of those taxes is it then um computed so when we send the next installment there's credit yeah it's trued up at the end of the year between the agency of education and our finance office okay and then do we might withhold money from the school to make that trued up or or does it usually work the other way we owe them more uh it's it's not usually that we owe them more it's usually that their next installment is lower than it otherwise would affect okay so we all right thank you well thank you very much and any questions yeah so you're finding a discrepancy in the check warrants that are enclosed in the agenda versus the excel spreadsheets that were no no no discrepancy no no but where where are you seeing that easy past violation oh it's in the first set of the it's the third page the third page the agenda the agenda third page what what page third so it's right after the agenda so it's the first pace page of our supporting documentation oh new jersey so it's under it's after the plant the plant's plumbing and heating so it's page three of that one yeah hold on so what page of the is that page nine of our page three page three of the entire no no no of the entire agenda what page is page three page three the page three of the agenda okay hold on do you want me to come help you no no no i'm happy to i'm almost there okay now i see it why are those not on the spreadsheet i don't know i don't think they're in the spreadsheets um let me look again there's no nj i mean was it just a timing issue between when the spreadsheets were cut because they were cut before the warrants that were put added to the agenda did you search did you have the spreadsheet open excuse me do you have the spreadsheet open yeah can can you search for the dollar amount no no i searched for nj in the dollar amount it's not coming up so i'm just wondering why there's yeah missing value there we can resolve that i will resolve that okay thank you because i would have caught that too you know this is the one night that i told martha stay home enjoy the nice june night with your kiddos i'm glad i sent my email later in the afternoon for martha's sake i'm sure we'll get the answer and we will report it back to you all right technically we don't usually take questions during the paying of the bills but uh this does have to do with paying of the bills here michael or a policy question because if it's a policy question hold off we're going to be talking about it under other business see you if you're up to staying till past nine thirty we're we're going to be talking about it or you can you can be online while you're at home with your head on the pillow yeah okay sorry about that all right all right let us keep going uh so we have a first we have a motion and a second and i will now call the question all those in favor of approving the consent agenda please say aye aye aye that's unanimous thank you very much and thanks for all of the answers to our questions as you can see residents we do not just spend your money frivolously we check every i and p and q all right number seven we're going to be interviewing candidates for the development review board and jesse if you could just start us off and then we will call forward uh quinn man um so uh as the council knows in the community likely knows uh we have been going through a process of interviewing applicants for all boards and committees of the city over the last couple of weeks um the council will make final appointments on june 19th uh we interview folks who are both incumbents on committees as well as new applicants the development review so while the subcommittees kept this the policy committees the full council requested to interview all candidates for the polls for the planning commission and the development review board because of their regulatory and statutory nature so first tonight is the development review board um quinn has served on that board for two years one year about a year and a half came in october of 2020 yeah um we have two openings on that board quinn is the only individual who applied to serve on that board this is a bit of a problem for our community in that this is a really important regulatory board so we will be soliciting additional appointments if anyone is interested ensuring that development in our community matches the vision and values established in our land development regulations this is the commission for you or the board for you i will say that the council received a communication from the chair of the development review board and the staff person from the development review board talking about criteria that they would like to see on the board and singing the praises of miss quinn so that is the feedback received but she is here to talk to you yeah very good well thank you for coming quinn and i am going to just be asking questions on behalf of the council but there could very likely be the follow-up questions and you are also going to have the opportunity to ask us any questions you have great give us any feedback since you have some experience too um so the first question is please explain your interest in the specific appointment uh yeah so i've um served for about a year and a half now um my uh kind of background um i studied environmental science at uvm and have been in environmental regulation ever since initially i worked at the federal environmental regulation level working for the state um in the agency of commerce and community development um where i worked focused primarily on affordable housing projects and economic development projects so um really i carried that work uh all the way through and so when i uh came on to the position initially i was working as a private consultant um working with federal agencies um doing uh environmental compliance work and uh this position was really to kind of um bring me back into the folds of vermont local focused work because i've worked for the state previously um since then i've um a transition back to working for the state because um i very much enjoy that and i'm with act 250 now um and so all to say is uh this position is very aligned with um what i'm professionally and personally interested in um and now that my um day job if you will is um focused on you know vermont land use as well uh what i've enjoyed you know the aspect of it that i very much enjoy is um in my day job i'm not the decision maker the commission's the decision maker so in this role i get to be the decision maker along with my other board members obviously at the local level um and i will also just add that another reason why i'm drawn to the position particularly in this community and why i've enjoyed um living here is that uh the the city has a lot of shows a lot of the values and um and that is represented in the regulations themselves too so it's a very um easy position to be in to kind of uphold these regulations that show that so well so thank you thank you and what do you hope to accomplish with continuation of your service yeah um exactly kind of that i know i i gave my big mouthful there but continuing to uphold um uh the regulations um as they're they're intended to fulfill values of the community so um you know uh i've been on the board um uh when there was a regulation change and so uh we've seen in some places you know us and the applicants kind of working out what new regulations mean right so there's um more strict uh requirements around wetlands and what can be you know um approved in in wetlands so asking for more information or you know alternatives that they looked at really vetting that before we just put that stamp of approval because i think you know that's an example of you know something that's that's really our role to look at um and then another piece kind of you know that's on the natural resources side of thing and then um on the other side of that is you know the focus on a pedestrian focused scale feel of things and that's it another thing i think myself and a lot of the other board members we hone in on too because we see the value in that and really looking at proposals that come forward and saying does does does that meet those regulations that are also kind of newer um and and the applicants are you know putting together proposals and and going having a back and forth about those types of things so those are some examples of things that jump out great thank you and tell us about how you've been working in this group or in general in in your your various roles what skills do you bring to the table here yeah i would say that i have the benefit of being a generalist um you know we look at a lot of different um potential impacts under the regulations um my background is environmental uh regulation as i said so i tend to hone in on those types of impacts and resource areas um but because of my background in general project review at the state and federal level you know i i have a sense of you know traffic impacts and um aesthetics and and those types of things as well although i wouldn't say they're my specialty so i would say being a generalist uh is is what i try to bring great great and this is the time for any questions you might have for us and then i'll ask the council if they have follow-up questions for you um no additional questions okay any questions that you have for quinn well i just want to say thank you i think your skill set is just really terrific for this role i'm wondering if you have any insights and whether it would be appropriate to ask you to have insights into perhaps why we're not i mean i think working well on the board yeah any sense of why maybe we're not seeing um yeah i mean i was i was very surprised to hear that honestly you know i came today and was like oh there'll probably be quite a few other folks um so you know i i don't have a good answer to that i just um when i applied previously it was a one-off um as far as a position being open i think someone left or moved or what have you and the one thing that comes to mind just observationally is because you guys were recruiting for a lot of things so maybe other things look more appealing to folks um people sometimes tend to shy away from like rules and regulations if if they're not used to dealing with that so um i unfortunately don't have further insight so hopefully we can we can fix that um do you enjoy the board i do enjoy the work yes yeah very much so do you think there's a good diverse uh array of of backgrounds uh to be able to you know derive the the decisions that they they come to and and they're fair and yes yeah i i definitely feel that i mean we have kind of our lawyer our architect our engineer like it it's a very um nice holistic board that it's i'm thankful for the composition of it often so and you think decision the decisions are fair yes yes yeah great thank you any other follow-up questions helen i i have one i was just curious have you um ever had had the need to recuse yourself um from a decision or is that not happen yeah i i haven't i haven't um been working on anything um in south burlington and i i maybe it goes i should uh it's worth saying that for act 250 um i work across a few commit our court districts rather um and i work primarily out of the southern districts even though i live up here um and they would not put me on any south burlington projects um so i do hear things now and then about um projects that are happening here as well but i don't touch them and at the natural resources board so okay great well thank you for your service yeah well i think you're gonna hear from us pretty soon great thank you well and thank you for your time tonight i appreciate you listening to me when you probably didn't have to do you have any friends i know well as soon as you said that i was like going through my rolodex so um i i will definitely think on it and let you all know because yeah i have to live in south burlington yes i know that's that's the tricky part right so um good question tim always thinking always thinking right if anybody has questions about the drb i mean i was chair a long time ago i kind of remember how it works but please contact me at home or email whatever i'd be glad to either point to the right place or tell you what my impressions were and how much fun it was it really is it's a very interesting job because you get to see the city from a lot of different perspectives and how the ldrs are applied you get into frustrating situations where you can't do anything and you get into situations where you go oh we can maybe make a little bit of a finesse here and you know and then you get to see that later on 10 years down on the road after something's built you go that's like that because we right you know said something and it's very it is it's a sense of ownership and that's i would think would be very rewarding and i don't nobody who knows the city like tim and i imagine when you're the same way they they know it frontwards and backwards and upside down it's amazing yeah well thank you so much for your time again yeah thank you all right we're going to be moving on to the planning commission and Duncan oh please did you want to say something about the planning commission so oh i'm sorry that's just because i'm looking at it we do have three minutes technically until 7 30 well isn't that close enough no gift to what oh tim has to unplug his car okay so a little three minute warning a little three minute stretch very good i did appreciate seeing you bike in which route did you do you take nice you do you feel safe doing that a whole study that was done of different categories of riders yeah and there's about you know five to ten percent of the riding population that has a lot of experience in a lot of different settings and is not terribly concerned so i put myself in that category so no i'm not worried and also i understand why a lot of other people find that to be a major obstacle i found the scariest part was williston road just east of the interstate there's no all of the curb cuts and that's right turn up dorset street right right yes that's much more difficult because there's nowhere for rider to be the sidewalk is only five feet i have no interest in scaring pedestrians yeah lots of uneven uneven cement blocks all right we're all back and convened and encouraging everybody to get out and ride their bikes safely item number eight and i'm looking at now my agenda as opposed to my my spreadsheet we have a public hearing on land development regulation amendments number ldr-23-01 and number ldr-23-02 i will be looking at the solar photovoltaic cells for new buildings subject to vermont commercial burn building energy standards as well as some minor and technical amendments and paul i would appreciate you just giving us a short synopsis of those amendments before we open the public hearing absolutely so paul connor director of planning and zoning um also here in the audience this evening are two of the members of our planning commission michael matag and paul engels um so the principal amendment that's in front of you this evening is uh regarding on-site photovoltaic systems so this would build essentially on what you adopted in february of 2022 so new buildings that are subject to the commercial building energy standards at the state level which is essentially commercial buildings and residential buildings that are more than four stories tall are required um in south berlington to have a solar ready zone on the roof um that has been the case in south berlington since those adoption the adoption of the regulations in february 2022 using the uh an add-on to this to the state's energy code so under this standard those buildings would now be required to include a uh the installation of a solar pv system on that solar ready zone so reasonably maximizing the physical space of that zone and then there are some exceptions built in that if um the utility which is green mount power were to say that it doesn't have the ability to take that power that um would be an exception if the building generates um if the building uses less power than we'd be generated then it can be sized downward it's not intended to require that somebody generate more power than they would use um and uh wherever there are exceptions on the state um code about when you don't have to have a solar ready zone there's certain circumstances where the building is really shaded or will the where the building isn't large enough those exceptions would carry through to where you would not need to do it but broadly speaking um new building subject to the commercial energy code would be required to install a photovoltaic system they don't have to connect to the grid but they can um so that's that is that um piece it would be subject it would apply to any building that is seeking a zoning permit um after the effective date of these regulations including buildings that received a site plan approval since or were submitted their site plan since last year when that standard came in so if a building got a site plan submitted four months ago and they had not yet pulled their zoning permit for construction it would apply to those buildings as well as anything new coming in uh so that's essentially that one uh the other one is really just some very minor um clarification of language um making sure that we've got the lettering in the right place um nothing uh of any material substance just things that are beyond the threshold of what we can do without a approval so it's just numbering and lettering and that kind of stuff that's what I have is my overview thank you all right now I'll send oh questions for Paul before we open the public hearing yes yes I was just thinking worst case here like I do with a lot of things um is there a requirement that the panels be tied into the electrical system for the building in other words I mean worst case somebody wants to honor the regulations so they put one panel on the roof and they put a 12 volt light in an office or something like that I mean you know I mean they would just barely meet it and they they wouldn't tie it into the I mean ideally if they put some panels there and they they didn't have a lot of demand and they tied it into their system when the sun shining they would be using that power first and their meter wouldn't be turning as much so they'd be saving some money which is a critical thing right but if we don't require them to tie into the electrical you know the 110 220 you know powered lines in the building then they could get around it kind of theoretically yes um the the way that it was written was to make clear that they don't have to connect into the grid because that's not our legal authority right to require a green mount power to accept it that is entirely under the public utilities commission as a regulated utility at that point it doesn't say here that you must connect the solar panels to something in your building so I guess in theory you could have a series of solar panels that are not doing anything they could be doing something different but not hooked up to the 110 or 220 circuits in the building it was the original attempt that it least be hooked up to the internal I think that the expectation is that most folks will take the opportunity to connect into the electrical grid but as that's not our authority we make it clear that it is not a required okay piece we would then most likely anticipate that somebody would would then connected into their internal building if they chose not to it doesn't specifically say that it must be connected into the building I guess you could have panels with a dangling cord at the end of it or just dangling cord with a 12 volt fluorescent light yes like a camp light or something right you would still have to maximize you'd have to reasonably maximize the total area so you couldn't just put one panel on if you have 900 square feet you would have to install 900 square feet worth of photovoltaic panels so it would be a fairly substantial expense to then not have it well unless that didn't didn't exceed the the demand for the building right so if it's a warehouse and just has lighting and nothing else right then they only need to use as much as they needed to meet the some part of the demand of the building without right tied to yep that's true so okay I just wanted to point that out and I mean as time goes on if we find people are trying to circumvent in that way we might want to change the wording I mean I guess we'll learn but it would be to a commercial investor's you know benefit to at least put enough you know on there to offset cooling lighting and it would make sense it would make sense for them to connect it into their utility bill yeah because they can you know at a minimum it is likely that the power that the payment that you receive is is equal to what is being you're being charged and currently and for the whole life of the system to date there's an adder where you get a benefit of selling your power to the grid so it would it would seem likely that most folks would choose to do that good okay I'll also note that because of one of our other audiences are probably also using electric for heating now we'll probably have a fair electric draw and you mentioned um UVM's rise event and I was reading um the BT digger and saw um the article on the startup called Verde which is amazing um which is in fact instead of having the solar panels it's a film that they're developing and they're working with MIT and other other universities in the northeast in order to develop something that is lighter and malleable could be put on the surface of an airplane or a car for instance and I was talking to the guy who didn't know about hillside east who's um very much uh an entrepreneur uh and has done several things including working with UVM and their startups uh he said that this could be available in a year and a half so I would imagine that this is not just panels you set a system so it could also include film right like on the building exterior or a rooftop or or whatever right yeah so that's just amazing I think we're going to see prices on solar drop because it there are some key components in china that the costs have dropped 30 and they're going to start pumping these things out and the tariffs have been suspended for two more years in the u.s so I would think that solar should be getting more reasonable and is a number one choice for a lot of people and if I'm remembering correctly this vt digger don't quote me on it but in one hour what lands on our planet could fuel our energy needs for a year I believe that was what they said which is amazing so if we can simply concentrate it it's amazing so I think we need to open public hearing because we could talk for hours about would you like some wording on that yes please I moved to open the public hearing on proposed amendments to the land development regulations number ldr 23-01 and ldr 23-02 second second all in favor hi hi all right and so the public hearing is open staff did not receive any written comments to share with you very good anybody here to speak to this these amendments please steve crawley and come up and even though I stated your name please identify yourself and and make sure that the button is pushed and it's a bright green light on the microphone at the base hit it again thanks thank you planning commission to the rescue hi thanks for opening this up I'm Steve Crowley I live in Pleasant Avenue in Queen City Park been a resident here for almost 40 years and I just want to say thank you for all the work that everybody has done on this and and I want to strongly encourage you to adopt it if anything I guess I feel like it's not enough we're you know Vermont right now we have about five percent is the small tiny minuscule bit of in-state solar that's required and and it's not nearly enough we're not nearly on the right path yet so the more that we can do here at the local level the better you know it's a little hazy outside right it's last week it was Nova Scotia today it's Quebec 153 fires are burning in Quebec so many that they have to let a bunch of them run out of control because they can't fight them they're evacuating towns they're sending people to with with respiratory issues to places where they'll be safe there's air quality advisories expected here as a result of that in the next few days maybe it'll wash out I don't know what the rain's going to do to it but but you know it's here and it's happening so much faster than people have predicted and and it's not going to slow down so the more we can do the better one question I guess a question is is uh as it was listening to the conversation here comment about car charging uh is is car charging part of a view of a of a building's demand for electricity it ought to be seems if you're gonna have a building and you have people coming to it in cars that are going to be using electricity and we're going to be requiring charging it seems like we ought to figure out how to work that in and that's just going to grow of course so thank you and keep up the good work thank you anybody else want to come forward anybody online want to turn on their camera or turn on their mic and speak address these amendments okay I did find I did that's amazing now that we have computers I did I was correct and I am now quoting from this vt digger article and this is a uvm let's see uh who I am quoting specifically someone working on verde bagged in okay um anyway I'm just going to give the last name bogdan said bag and said we believe that solar has the greatest potential of any renewable technology to offset oil as the primary way that we produce electricity one hour of solar energy hitting the earth is enough to meet the world's energy needs for an entire year amazing that's right thank you michael so if seeing no other comments would you like a motion to close please I move to close the public hearing and proposed amendments to the land development regulations number LDR 23-1 and LDR 23-02 any seconds second thank you Helen all in favor hi hi all right and that brings us to item number nine which is possible action on these land development regulation amendments that we just discussed here well I would move approval as presented thank you Helen second very good any further discussion all right let's call the vote all those in favor please say aye aye that was unanimous and thank you very much paul thank you to the thank you time everyone thank you for all your work can I say we should be very proud of ourselves of the city um I remember researching this a few years ago and I think it's still true now that there's only um a handful of jurisdictions nationwide that have this requirement and it's it makes so much sense so um really kudos to the city for being forward on on this issue really important yep yep lot to be proud of in the city that's for sure all right now I get to take out my spreadsheet I'm a little bit early though I don't know if I'm too early let me just see who's in attendance paul is here and michael is here so and who go ahead yeah we have four who are already here okay so let's go ahead to item number 10 and begin interviewing candidates for the planning commission and jesse would you just like to start us off here sure so uh just again the council requested to interview all candidates for the planning commission and drb because of the regulatory statutory nature of these two bodies um so you have before you five candidates interviewing this evening um that includes your incumbent candidates as well thank you very much and so incumbent candidates well done Duncan you weren't here we just expressed great pride in your work we just passed the ldr amendments on the solar uh the full tool valtaic systems uh being required for all new commercial as well as any new zoning permits so that's just wonderful work and we take great pride and thank you for it so you come right at the right time Duncan your first stop if you're you're ready to go you can step up to the podium and we're very grateful to our incumbents to uh coming back and and being willing to serve again i think that's working and we're we're a little bit more how do i want to say i don't know but we actually have a set of set questions and i'm going to ask them on behalf of the council and then provide time to you for you to ask us any questions and then give my counselors any any time time to ask any follow-up questions that they might have for you all right well thank you and you've served a very long time already so thank you for your years of service and i really do appreciate the fact that you represent the business community so well and the first question i have is please explain your interest in this specific appointment um i've been on the commission for 2016 is when i first came on when we did the last comp plan um and um it's been fascinating to watch um what it takes to make a small city operate um but uh i really would like to finish the work on this comp plan um that's the real reason i would like to be reappointed to i kind of feel like i'd be walking away from something if i didn't do that um and it's i think it's uh it's been a pleasure to serve the city in this capacity and i would like to continue to do so for a little longer great very good and what you hope you just talked about the comp plan or anything is there anything else you'd like to accomplish in addition to the comp plan that you could perhaps set out there as your own goals that you would bring forward i mean i think that um yes i know you've talked about this and we we've all talked about it on the commit different commissions throughout the city it's just the equity and justice and just um transparency um to really make the citizens feel like they're part of the process as opposed to just being dictated down from above to really and i think that's one of the things that we've really tried to do this time around with the comp plan is really try to get people more involved and make it feel like it's really their comp plan their comprehensive plan thank you and could you tell us about your role what what role you play on the planning commission and what skills you bring to it um one of seven commissioners um i'm the vice chair right now which is a thankless position um you know i i agree i agree i say see your chair um no i'm one of seven people in the commission i think we've got a good group of people um we don't always agree but we respect each other we respect each other's opinion um and i think that we all have what we hope is the city's best interest um in our in our hopefully doing our work thank you so the leadership there very good and do you have any questions for us okay very good any questions follow questions for Duncan Helen do you have any follow-up questions for Duncan just a comment and i appreciate your service and i'm really pleased that you were willing and interested to um sign on for another term i think you bring a um an important voice i think you're a thoughtful and quiet voice but an effective one and i think that helps make um planning commission decisions um often unanimous ones and and that's um not always easy to accomplish so i appreciate the role you play in that way thank you hon yeah yeah i i completely agree you're you're a consensus builder and so i would add that to part of your leadership that you you bring people together and um i likewise thank you very much Duncan and we will be in touch very soon thank you yeah next up is michael mittag good evening good evening and also a long time member not new to this at all and if you could please explain your interest in continuing this specific appointment well um first of all i have served uh two terms and so i'm very much invested in in what the planning commission does um in those two terms there's been a lot of on-the-job training because i'm not a planner but uh i think i've learned a lot and um i'm retired so i have the time and the interest and the energy to devote the considerable time that's required uh to do this job properly so um i think the planning commission is in the midst of something really critical at the moment which is the drafting of the 2024 city plan as it's called or comprehensive plan and uh i would like to i'm interested in being very very much involved in that and making sure that um we don't have any ambiguities in the language so that the commission has something very clear to work with um i'm also interested in as i'm you probably all know i'm an environmentalist in some way because i grew up on a farm um so i'm interested in making sure or contributing at least uh to making this comprehensive plan compatible with the climate action plan that that the city has adopted i think it's one of the most important aspects of this plan so that's that's why i want to do it and i like i love working with the people that are on the commission um it's collegiate collegial it's the same size as my executive committee when i ran a business so obviously i can't tell people what to do but it's it's a very collaborative group of people and they work we all work very well together and i think we get things done i think you've you've answered the first two questions in fact unless you want to add anything to what you hope to accomplish with this service um well i think uh some of the things that we accomplished were um presented by paul this evening and the prior ordinance relating to uh the non-use of fossil fuels for heating and hot water of new residential buildings um i'm delighted to to see i think the results of that in that a brian is building 155 homes that are totally electric with battery backup uh i think they see what's what's coming and they know it's the right thing to do and i believe they will find that it's less costly but environmentally it's a super responsible thing they've done and they've followed what we set out in that ordinance so i'm i'm happy with what we did uh there's lots of work to do i think in in our environmental protection standards uh and there will be work to do as a consequence of the passing of s 100 and that's quite a long-term project so i'm in for the hope for the long haul very good and if you could just tell us about your how you work as a member of a group what skills you bring to the table well i think in some sense my my experience in running a business wasn't that big 600 employees maybe 110 million dollars size company it was a a small kind of tech company um but it was part of a publicly traded a subsidiary of a publicly trade company so my experience in doing that i think is important in being able to work with with diverse opinions and diverse people i think my my uh growing up in a household of architects and graphic designers as well as my father had a masters in urban and regional planning um and i worked for him during my vacations so i bring i bring a little of that to to my work on the planning commission um obviously i would love to influence influence the design of things we build but that's not our daily wick um but uh planning is interesting is urban urban planning is is interesting very interesting to me and i i think i've learned something and i've also brought something to to the commission and that area okay so would you say you're kind of an ideas guy someone who likes to i'm an ideas guy push the envelope a little bit yes and i'm a sort of more like can do if you if you grow up in a farm you have to do you have to figure out how to do it things and so i'm i don't believe that anything is too complicated or too complex or too big for us to do um i used to have a mantra which is the degree of difficulty of a project is not the yardstick by which we will measure whether we're going to do it or not uh so there are a lot of complicated complex things that the commission has to consider and i like that challenge great thank you very much any fellow questions for us michael well thank you for what you do thank you for listening to the planning commission the most of the time and thank you for the trust that you've put in us i think that's critical that's a two-way street you're an important board we simply enact all of your wonderful work you don't have to though oh well it's usually well vetted any fellow questions from the counselors for michael well we just thank you very much for your years of service and for all you've done for our city we're very very thankful yeah all right paul angles also an incumbent and someone who has served for a number of years on the planning commission very good so you didn't include the the year that you started did you remember what year you started on the planning commission i can't remember okay it was in the teens it was prior to covid that's what i remember maybe 2017 or 2018 yeah all right very good so please explain your interest in continuing this specific appointment if you would what just i always just please yeah please describe your explain your interest and continuing with in this appointment oh yeah um well for me like one of the best times in life is when you have a great group of people together of like-minded you know working together to accomplish something it's happened a few times in my life and i recognize it whenever it does and it's the good part of life it really is and we have that right now we have that with the planning commission we have that with you all we have it with a lot of people who are involved in various boards and committees or just supporters you know it's a good group we have here working on south burlington government we have good administration i think we have the most dynamic city manager that the city of south burlington has ever had so and also you know we're right in the the planning commission really is right in the hub of everything that's happening you know we're working on the issues the issues of the housing crisis the issues of the climate crisis i mean we are grappling with what's happening and as you said you know we we you know we write the book and then we give it to you you know but that comprehensive plan that we're working on right now i think we're taking very seriously and i think we're going to have a really great comprehensive plan so you know this is important work we're doing and we've got a lot of people supporting us and great people to work with so that's for me that's why i want to be here thank you very much and what do you hope to accomplish with the service well as everybody said we want to accomplish a really great comprehensive plan i mean that's the first thing to get done that's what we're working on you know we'll have a draft to you on the 27th of june and we're going to open it up to the public right at the start draft number one and try to involve everybody in the comprehensive plan so that's you know obviously job number one i personally have a lot of interest in the neighborhoods so i want to see the neighborhoods well represented in the comprehensive plan and i've always been a vote for the environment so i obviously the work that needs to be done on climate change and sustainability and and protecting south burlington from probably what's to come is uh it's really very important to all of us thank you and tell us about how you work as a member of a group what skills do you bring to the table well i think i'm i think i'm a good forward thinker you know i think i'm a person who you know has ideas and you know get some started and things roll out i mean i you know was a mister you know form-based code you know so uh you know i don't think there would have been base code in south burlington if i hadn't you know said that i wanted to do that as part of interim zoning when i was on the city council so you know i i can i feel like i can take credit for that i put together that committee did a good job um and i'm a decent writer too you know i mean i you know i don't see myself as a great speaker as a matter of fact i see myself as a terrible speaker but i'm a decent writer you know i i can express myself in the written word pretty well great and i i would just reiterate that you really do do focus on neighborhoods i know that chamberlain neighborhood has benefited from your leadership on not only the planning commission but on the task force that you and they need her help again you know so yeah you really want to hear the grassroots you want to hear what they have to say i'd like to see that be a big part of our planning you know you mentioned that there's a part of the statutes that allows for neighborhood associations you know i really really would like to see us you know push that and make that happen and get all the neighborhoods grassroots stuff you know both involved in planning and you know in governance too yeah maybe yeah maybe just again we're getting down to getting the information out there and yeah and really communicating with people yeah we don't all read the charter right i mean i didn't know was there you know right but yeah no i i think that you're a very inclusive person that i i very much appreciate any follow-up questions for us um i wanted to say something about the general work of the planning commission i would like to see us become more concerned with visioning you know we're we're you know hard little workers with our little axes and stuff you know making words you know the comprehensive plan or the i'm going to say land use regulation and deference to michael um but we don't we don't spend a lot of time like really thinking the big thoughts and thinking of the big long-range things and you know what south burlington gonna look like in 20 years or 50 years or whatever you know i mean i'd like to really have some part of the planning commission be visioning as well as planning that's my big thought about it okay any follow-up questions on the part of the counselors for paul callen anything no i i don't thank you all right well i think that's either good or bad right just a big thank you just a big thank you because yeah the comprehensive plan we've now heard from the three incumbents and you've all been this is your second rodeo yeah and it's and the the buck the it can it can buck you around a little bit and we've got a good group right now so i think we're gonna i really i really think we're gonna have a great comprehensive plan actually i i do have a question i'm sorry and this says um it's kind of a future thought for you but have you um ever considered um a role on the d rb uh yes what a horrible and okay well that's the answer yeah you know i i've known you know i've known don't everybody i just thought i would ask because it's um you know it's kind of a follow-up from some of the things you've been doing don and i are actually really good friends and i've known her for probably 30 years you know and she'd be a great person to work with you know she's really a competent capable person um but um i don't think i want to do that kind of thing okay okay got it okay any others all right just a big thank you then okay thanks thank you very much and keep up all of that good and careful work it's a the nitty gritty the fine grain thinking that goes into these land development regulations i know takes a lot of thought and careful balancing and i just want to thank you for that yep all right michael scanlon is he not yet here we're a little bit ahead of schedule oh oh i'm sorry i thought that was our that was steve hello again hello good evening everyone good evening all right well you've heard these questions before because you you've applied i think twice already for this this is wonderful so would you please explain your interest in the planning commission sure yeah i moved to south burlington a year ago i actually bought it here seven years ago uh my family and i decided that this is the future we have you've moved here with a 11 year old son so we're obviously vested in where south burlington goes as a where south burlington goes as a community uh we were very much attracted to south burlington primarily school system and uh the city plan and division you have and also for me personally having gone through a similar transformational process in the last four years when i oversaw a municipality of eighty thousand and bosnia to transform it into sort of a sustainable future prosperous and in this particular case ethnically integrated community you know it's an exciting process to be a part south burlington has very ambitious objectives which i'm very happy for and if i have any skills that i can contribute it would be great to to participate thank you and what do you hope to accomplish with the service on the planning commission sure i think i'm very impressed by all the work that is done by the people have spoken so far have applied so far and obviously driven by the city council vision um the the big challenge i saw when i was doing a similar thing with this community was the sustainability issue we have the same challenges of moving infrastructure out from the center to create a city center to be sure that the areas outside the city center were continuously integrated that the schools continue to generate the interest for people to stay but also to attract the businesses that ultimately drive the the challenges and i i think when i look to the vision i i plot all the ambitions one the issue of course is the economic cost of doing this and one of the challenges in local government the united states is so much is driven by the costs that are put on housing personal property taxes and bonds and this is always the challenge and i think one of the things we've seen we we did there in terms of creating certain sort of economic growth areas but as we've also seen in places like falchers virginia where i lived when i was stateside is to create sort of economic engines or compact more dense areas especially with businesses to basically be sure that you can continue to generate the the taxes necessary to supplement what is usually the as we said the personal property taxes to be to do all the wonderful things that this community hopes to do and would like to do and obviously since we've chosen this to be our home for the long haul we would also like to see so i would like to bring that sort of perspective i think we look at university mall we look at the development of the where all the medical facilities out by outside you have the out by the airport i mean there are sort of areas that you basically can create more sort of economic activity there's also a way i think ultimately to create i think what is ultimately necessary whether it be a walking street whether it be a green area is having grown up and always in europe having these it's hard to envision a city without it whether that's going to be possible in the university mall to integrate that into a walking street whether it's worth revisiting the idea of the school just across the area of your in false church they were very creative and taking large school areas consolidating the schools with modern design being sure it has all the same facilities all the same sort of opportunities in many cases upgraded but yet using the more clever design to create additional spot whether it's for economic development to raise funds or in particularly this case maybe a green spot area so hopefully they're creative ideas that we can draw on and in my particular case from the experiences i've had that i could bring to the great work that has already been done here thank you very much and would you tell us about how you work as part of a group and what skills you bring to the table sure well um in in general my profession as a diplomat is about building consensus it's about finding a way to achieve an objective but in a sustainable way uh as again i mentioned the last four years the last assignment i had was overseeing this municipality with executive authorities you always could basically impose things but the the challenge was to have the three different ethnic groups that fought together to come to some consensus on a shared vision and it was about building a consensus it takes time and it also requires to have people realize that it takes time it's not only to take time to come to a consensus but also time to come to a vision but i think ultimately you can convince people that you know too often it's a zero sum approach or someone has a very passionate about a particular issue if it's an all-or-nothing proposition whether whatever your particular issue is you're not going to be able to achieve that objective because you're going to have pushback on the other side so it's about building compromise it's about building consensus and ultimately that leads to a win-win situation for people and that's been sort of the mantra on the requirements of my work the last 32 years so i think i'd bring that dynamic all right very good this is your chance now to ask us one thing i uh in northern virginia which is and especially about communities like paul scherlinton that sort of are doing what i've done what uh south burlington is trying to do which is move from sort of a suburban reality and framework and mindset of the people and i'm still struck by uh so many people i meet in south burlington to see south burlington as a place to live and enjoy the rest of vermont grade in burlington the center but not necessarily seeing south burlington as the they're there for them in terms of of stuff uh and uh one of the things that they've done is again i think creating a place where you can congregate whether it have you seen in europe sometimes they just even every saturday and sunday they just walk off two blocks of the streets where the the cafes can outflow or or create a congregating area but also the key thing is integrating the schools and this is my actually a question to you uh i'm just curious yeah since that's going to be one of the follow-up questions and both in false church in arlington they integrate the city planning and the school planning very closely and in fact it's reflected in a common budget and it is also reflected in sort of the city planning and if you go to false true city the city planning it lists you know excellence in schools whatever and if you talk about equity that's obviously the ultimate equity is about creating excellent education for the whole community it's also about creating a workforce that stays in vermont try so hard to attract people we we have home chrome talent uh and it's also about uh creating the right environment for climate change education i mean so one of the things i've been just wondering is there ever been as it ever existed or has there ever been any thought about more closely integrating the school component and i've been attending the super you know the uh dunk and i mean coffee and donut meetings with this superintendent which is great but it's almost like two separate conversations and you know this is one community and and even though only 20 of the uh uh households have kids in it it it doesn't detract from the benefit to all the ones who don't have kids in terms of the other benefits it brings to the community that i just mentioned so i just wonder what's the history on that or is there any thought of sort of integrating that more well we have i think um a very young in terms of years of service school board um so the the council and the school board members are going to meet over a meal uh and i think some discussion in that regard will occur and that will of course continue um beyond that meal since i unfortunately will be missing that meal and that conversation um but uh it's it's the steering committee meetings that we have four times a year are not sufficient i i agree with you and i think that uh you know i'll let other people respond to you as well um that you know there are various conversations that go on between the two chairs of the board so Helen really in this case and it is um alex henry mchenry sorry alex mchenry who is the chair of the school board as well as the superintendent and our city manager who sit down weekly or monthly monthly to to discuss uh you know the the bonding capacity i think has been a real discussion uh ongoing discussion um traffic flow and and kind of the design of the city center uh and i i can certainly pass the mic over to to jessie or to helen to to go on and explain because they have much more intimate view that then helen would bring back to the council and alex would bring back to the school board um i'll just jump in but helen a few other ideas i i yes and i think both points are really valid i think we are doing a we are doing an improving job of coordinating around logistics and short and medium long term short and medium term plans um and being really seeing each other is on the same team and pulling in the same direction i think what you're suggesting is more that long-term vision and i and i don't think we've necessarily gotten there as a city community in school community at least in the two years i've been here um but i think that's part of what this rebuilding the relationship between the school the school board and city council is about in the months to come and after that's one other question then and i would underscore that okay i'm very glad to hear that i think it's at least from our experience in paul's church it was really a strong component of building that community and on all aspects of it the other thing is coordination sub-brilinton is part of chinning county uh and obviously public transport is a key thing and we've heard a lot of talk about it there were some great ideas and and uh various focus groups and i was just wondering how much sway does the city through funding or the city council through its actions have with the public transport system because you do have that circular route in south burlington but it basically leaves shale burn out doesn't stop at you know memorial park which what i would have thought have been a no brainer in terms of bringing people who will be living the city center to there i mean you have biking other things but you also have people of different ages and also just opening it up and i'm just wondering is that is also an ongoing discussion is their way to weigh in especially now that this the fairs are coming back i heard they have this technology like in europe where you can flip the green lights so the truck but they don't use it if you're going to be competitive you got to give advantages so i'm just wondering because i think that's going to be a key component of creating this integrated south burlington and allowing people to access where regardless of where you live in south burlington all the south burlington has offered because you're not going to be able to build a park in every single corner i'll start first but please feel free helen or jesse to jump in here i would say that we are a heavy weight in the county our staff is highly regarded um and really sources of expertise um and of course we use the county staff as well our our chitlin county regional planning commission they have they have staff with expertise so there is a really good and strong relationship between our planning and zoning department as well as our planning commission as and the chitlin county regional planning commission and i believe that that even goes on up you know to the state level and i'm just going to point out the you know the reception of our our city planner in the state house when we were discussing this s100 bill that um truly um was um what's what's the correct adjective here um will serve the state better thanks to our city planner who has that kind of vision and that kind of expertise and and that is regarded and and valued at the state level so just to give you an idea we have this best city planner in state and i would even say i could i could get really really impressed by his engagements yeah and i was with regard to this i take the bus to work and we are the only community other than burlington to have a circulator bus all right would we benefit from more yes and it all comes down to the green mountain transit financing they're already on a budget that is really tenuous the state did extend the the free funding uh till i believe the end of this year um and then i'll have to start charging they'll start charging uvm again anyway um and it is it's a huge part of our climate action plan and i can't state that enough and and it's a huge part of my sanity to be quite honest with you i don't commute i sit and i read and i don't have to worry about the weather or anything i just am dropped off and i walk to my office um and i think that what it comes down to is you know we americans do not like being told we're taking this right away from you so that you do something that you should be doing and it comes down to that consciousness raising just like people you know investing in heat pumps or in electrical vehicles or in solar solar you know solar the photovoltaic systems that we just passed tonight um and that's the american way right and once we can open people's minds to that and and then the market follows that's when the buses will follow how can we as as a local board stimulate that i've certainly you know called out from the mountaintop just saying hey you know you're all out there and the slush and the muck and the ice and i'm sitting here warm in a bus just reading my book so i mean that's all i can do i think is try to lead by example i i you know i i'm open to other ideas but i am with you and i think that we need to do more to get people to our city center um and to there's already i know um people that go between route seven and our city center including young people that get back and forth um so uh are they doing it safely i hope so um i certainly think that there's something to be said for um changing that 189 to become more part of our green belt that will only happen in 20 years time at the at the minimum um but that would allow i think for a much safer transit system between those two major commercial areas of our city so that's my answer and we still have to we still have to crack that nut i would just like to say i think you've um raised some um very pertinent issues and they're spot on and i i hope that you'll be um we'll be able to join one of our committees and bring your experience and expertise because i think it sounds as if you've been there and you've done that and um that's sometimes what it takes is someone to say i know you can do this and this is how you do it and um generate the the movement forward will it be easy no and it probably won't happen in my lifetime and you know don't say that Helen don't say that Helen but we've got you for 20 more years we're going to do it within a generation well maybe that's true that would be good yes um but i but i think you're spot on and i appreciate your um ability to sort of think about those ideas and your experience in um addressing them thank you i'm happy to help in the case this is my vested interest this is my the community i've chosen to be a part of and i think the potential is phenomenal it's just a question i'm getting from here to there thank you yep thank you thank you very much oh yes tila shower follow-up questions from from counselors right we can't let you get away without being grilled okay not grilled not grilled but but genuine intellectual curiosity because i think you've got a fascinating background i really think it could complement our city um two questions um one i think i would just like to uh better understand or ask ask for a little bit more clarification um you mentioned that um we've you mentioned earlier about something along the lines of trying we keep thinking about things in terms of trying to i think you put it enjoy areas outside of south berlington as opposed to creating areas where people could enjoy here and that that on one hand that seems like that which makes sense and it's how do we how do we make south berlington less about the suburban ideal and more about a new envisioning of it and that that makes sense it seems a little at odds with what you later said about um thinking about the role of south the greater role of south berlington and chitlin county and trying to think of south berlington as a place where we again do you i believe your words where you can't build a park in every corner of the city so there are certain things we can't do here and um i'm just curious to help you can help me reconcile those i think you uh uh perhaps miss understated what i said when i said that uh yes i'm having lived in fosters having lived in other smaller communities there's a very much sense of you're always talking about community interacting community uh in south berlington i'm just struck by how many people i interact with the community outside of south berlington and their vision is outside of south berlington which is fine there are a vermont has an endless just like when i lived in fostered virginia you know washington dc the waterfront etc you have all the fosters won't have it but there was a core sort of day-to-day things whether it's with kids with family with just not every day you want to get in the car or get on the metro and go down to dc you want to be able to have accessible stuff just life simpler that way so this is what i meant about south berlington when you're talking about south berlington as a part of the chen county that was more in terms of how does south berlington access resources or leverage resources or have a voice and this is what was coming to the public transportation uh you know that that's circular it's great that we have a circular but if you're speaking about just a south berlington interest that circular would also go up to memorial park because people who live down here should be able to jump on the memorial on a on a bus and go down to memorial park and enjoy it just like i can walk to for me to get on a bus i have to walk 29 minutes um yeah i would prefer to walk to a bus and five minutes sit on it and go on it and it would be nice also i have to go down to you know shell burn and and not have to do with all the traffic and and use your time more constructively because i think part of the public transportation the joy of it is better use of time yes you you're driving you yes you're listening to the radio whatever but you're not using the time as effectively or as enjoyably as you would so my mention was how does south berlington leverage or influence the regional decisions that have an impact on the say south berthing specific life okay that that that clarifies thank you sure the second follow-up question you mentioned the resources that south berlington can leverage outside and within chitin and county in your mind what are the resources that the rest of chitin and county what are the uh should be leveraging from south berlington what what can south berlington give back well i think the south berlington um because uh uniquely going through this process of creating itself um can i think create some strong economic development centers whether i think university university mall and in my vision when i've seen uh same compact areas with apartments of all different income levels of walking streets around the apartments of areas where businesses are uh you can create an economic engine the same thing i think is possible out i think it's it's uh where all the medical center issues where they'll be building the surgery i think you can create an economic engine i mean overall one of the things that we've been just really struck by by vermont is the lack of people lack of people not in the sense that you know we want to live in a metropolitan area no we chose to leave a metropolitan area but the lack of people necessary to basically cover the basic economic realities whether into the schools when i talk to the school board and they have empty positions when i go to a store and it's you know closed come back you know on monday because we don't have staff for the weekend when you know you get together with friends and say let's go out spontaneously tuesday and you find out oh it only works once a through thursday friday so i think what south berlington has the possibility is to create sort of uh a very vibrant attractive appealing climate conscious model of of of of what vermont can be it can sort of have its cake and eat its too it can be a lovely vibrant life but it doesn't have to ruin the beauty and the nature that attracted us all here but there has to be some vibrance there has to be economic activity if this is going to be sustainable i assume this is you know one of the challenges you know we thought that the school bond would be approved the things that you know the the possible rigging of the school here would be changed but obviously there's not an appetite for personal property taxes rising i understand that uh but therefore you need to find another way to find a way to generate it and you know false church city has done a good job uh the only 40 percent of their budget is personal property tax the more and more commercial taxes of various sorts property and otherwise and i think you know this is a way of you know we love vermont we want to stay here we came here we want to be sure that it continues to grow in its academic viable and i think south berlington is unique in vermont because of its size because of its amount of wealth because a certain amount of land it has in its location to create this great engine that will hopefully spin off for the great bit of chin and county and then we also get the return that we can leverage chin and counter resources especially i think in public transport that will allow us to move around our own city in a much more sort of efficient and economical way great thank you very much for for the follow-up i appreciate it any other questions thank you very much michael all right so ryan doile you are online if you would turn on your camera and your mic we hear you thank you hello greetings thank you for joining us hi so we are we've we've met you before so this is not our first time but we're still going to have you explain your interest in this specific appointment or i'd like to ask a quick question uh the fellow before me could you say his name again was it michael scanlin scanlin yes scanlin michael if you're still there please get my email from andrea leo and uh shoot me a message i'd love to talk to you about a few things sometime over coffee if you get the chance um so uh council my interest in this board is that it encompasses so many different aspects of planning that interest me i studied civil engineering and i've served on planning commissions city council design advisory board before those kinds of things um but i like that they're they're so interconnected uh so as much as we can specialize in certain subsets or smaller groups the planning commission really has to take a look at everything and how things integrate together so like when we're looking at the um the current comprehensive plan sometimes the discussion is where something actually goes because there is overlap but also making sure that there isn't contradiction and things line up well so if there's a transportation objective that also affects the climate that we're making sure that those things um really are in harmony with each other and don't create any um impedance to each other some of the things that i like that are getting better with this current city plan than the previous one from 2016 is more specificity of language as i think that might have been um uh michael metang said earlier um and uh i i think uh also the objectives and the metrics i think we can still do more there um in the 2016 version there was more vague language that sounds really good but doesn't necessarily connect to specific outcomes and i think uh some of that's been improved i think we can take that further because if we're not accurate enough then the language isn't really clear for the city council and how to even interpret where those directions go um there's i've got all this time i'm feeling better than last week for the last interview but not good enough to walk in person did you repeat the last question yeah well you i think you've expressed your interest but you could say what more to what do you hope to accomplish with the service yeah so in in the immediate future obviously we're working on the comprehensive plan uh i've been through a lot of those meetings this spring and i do participate in the meetings as is i email staff uh questions and so the short term is making sure that we have a really good document that is accurate is based on knowledge of how think the real world actually operates um and to make sure that we put as much language about data in there as possible a lot of times when we're on various boards whether it is the council planning commission or other there'll be the question of we would like to do this but we don't have enough background information and i know the city is going to be getting a GIS specialist soon which really helps with this but um in all of the different subsections of the city plan making sure that we list out what kind of data we need to keep track of so that we can make better decisions in the future so making sure we're very articulate about those things in particular again some sections have those things to a degree other sections not so much going a little bit further in the actually i'll stay with that um some areas where things get glossed over um we talk about affordable housing a lot but we don't often talk about affordable commercial space um there's always this conflict with gentrification and as municipality is trying to um develop in a way that gets higher value out of the land that it can displace people of lower income but just as effectively we can displace commerce of lower income or lower margins or especially when we look at minority owned businesses that they tend to get sidelined quite a bit in that kind of process and i think we do need to take a really serious look at including some language to make sure that we don't lose sight of that in this plan i could do other sections but i i don't want to be overly boring i will make one more look about housing which is to include more alternative types of housing that can help keep housing costs lower like cooperative housing which is not common in the united states but is really effective at lowering housing costs in other canadian and european cities so finding ways for us to include that language so the city can actually legislatively have models for that to happen in south burlington in the not so short term i think i'm also pretty short term but besides the city plan i do think the city still needs to reevaluate its form-based codes and the official map um when we look at the buildings that are already taking place in city center and we have first story front doors and railings that look like they belong on the back side of a warehouse or we have a raised bed with really pointy metal directly abutting a sidewalk we would consider these features austere would be one word for it which goes against the whole human-scaled thing that we're trying to work toward both with form-based code and with that principle in the comprehensive plan i know others um paul has brought it up before with the earlier visioning with the form-based codes and how you know things don't necessarily come out the way we intend and so we as soon as possible as soon as the staff time is really there to reevaluate those things so that we have your of those mistakes or gaps get through and we can polish those things up we can't regulate architectural style in the us right that's a first amendment thing but we can regulate other aspects of design so in really other forms of architectural principles can be worked in so that buildings actually do look more human-scaled rather than what look like the basic principles which have been put in our form-based codes that don't actually tie in fully to the concepts so it's almost like a checkbox rather than meeting the legislative intent we'll say so there are areas that we want to look at and there's places on the official map to you that just bring up some concern as far as the way traffic can even flow or function when you're trying to move a certain number of vehicles on a street the more stoplights you have the less vehicles you can move obviously last week i was interviewing for the bike ped committee and we talked a lot about those issues for the three of you that were at that meeting moving vehicles is still really important because we don't have a really effective transit system yet that can start to reduce the volume of vehicles on our streets we're still kind of a long way out from that and so making sure that our official map is setting us up for success in terms of not encumbering our transportation network both in terms of vehicular traffic but also making sure we can get bike ped users off of the busiest roads and have parallel routes so i know a couple of you weren't at the interview last week for the bike ped committee but we did go in quite a bit of depth about that you have other questions yeah so would you tell us about how you work as part of a group and what skills you bring to the table yeah so in a group i don't function as the leadership type of person i am a support role it's usually my job to catch all to figure out what's not being evaluated uh to figure out maybe who's and when i say who i don't mean the people in the room but the people who aren't in the room um what perspectives and viewpoints aren't being representative represented and also what are possible long-term effects obviously anything we pass has an effect and some effects will be negative so trying to do as much for thinking or you know if you play chess that sort of thought to look ahead and see where we're going to encounter some of those pickups or troubles so that we can hedge them off the first time we pass legislation or write plans and obviously nothing is perfect but as much as we can um save those hassles i know right now some of the um some of the ldr's came back through there are some concerns and so you know we end up jumping back through some hoops again and taking up more meeting time so workshopping those a little bit more uh and trying to imagine what kind of conflicts will arise from what we're writing down um in the first place just saves us a lot of headache so i tend to take those roles a lot more and also secondarily right most people who are on boards tend to be you know whites upper class folks um obviously in south burlington there's a big divide um regionally where people live based on income and we have a wealth of people who apply to be on boards which is absolutely fantastic um but there's a large swath of the population that just doesn't get represented so it's really important to you know have connection in those communities specifically i worked a lot with disability communities um and with youth though uh having that perspective to bring in when we're making decisions uh really helpful in the long term great thank you ryan do you have any questions for us i do um i was wondering you know like in reading the um the tiff application there is it talk about the central school property and also mary street um and as i look through the website i don't always find what i'm looking for i do email staff and ask for other documents um and and follow up in that regard but i was wondering if things have been updated with tiff as far as the vision of where city center is going and some of these areas that have been identified but i haven't seen any projects come up for um and so that's one of my uh questions for you guys if those things have been discussed or um taken off the table what question specifically are you referring to i guess yeah so um in city center right there was a tiff application i think the year was uh 2012 um and it mentioned specifically mary street and the central school properties and areas for future redevelopment as part of city center but i haven't found projects or things relating to that since so i didn't know if if those have been taken off the table it even kind of gets into michael's question about you know integration with the school system but um are those areas being looked at still um are there future plans about those areas yeah our city manager can respond to that so i think i think ryan what you might be alluding to is the original application for the tiff district which outlined a bunch of projects that has been updated we did a substantial change request to vep c um in 2021 beginning of 2022 and fine tune those projects and those are the projects that came before the voters last time meeting day which is the last tiff vote we as a community will take so in terms of specific projects those are outlined in the substantial change request vep c approved for my economic practice council so if i understand that correctly um that means those specific areas aren't really um being looked at in terms of projects at this point but maybe in the further further future no i think can we can we get the question was was do you have any questions for us in terms of just in general about you know the position on the board wasn't an opportunity for you to get into great detail about past projects and project plans so can can you think of it more generically do you have any questions for us about the position or about the planning commission or no um you know i've served on a planning commission before i go to planning commission meetings i interact with michael and paul and other staff so i don't have really any general questions there i'm going to be more in the detailed side of questions okay okay well thank you and counselors thank you for yeah thank you do you have councils uh councils do you have questions for ryan i do not the the witching hour for me no questions okay well thank you very much ryan i appreciate it you have uh clearly an interest in serving and that is very much appreciated so we will be in touch very soon and your your interview concludes our interviews so thank you very much all right have a good night you guys yeah have a good night and i love seeing you outside are you outside it's that beautiful out there oh that's nice all right well enjoy all right so now we are going to be uh moving on to number 11 which is consider the process and recommendations from the council subcommittees on appointments to all city boards and committees oh we can certainly take a break thank you thank you yeah are you ready we'll reconvene here and what i'd like to suggest everybody since michael was interested in the topic of our other business that we just move that item number 13 ahead of our number 11 and then we will have number 11 and that will what is is 11 the actual it's a consider the process it's it's a two minute speech for me about what we're going to do next i like speeches okay i like your speeches yeah it's kind of yeah moving to the conclusion especially if there are any two minutes yeah okay all right so 13 so yeah ash trees thank you everybody agrees but we have the word from helen that we keep it short and sweet all right so other business ash trees so um i spoke with this gentleman greg renalo from teachers tree service and he subsequently wrote us an email and he kind of impressed upon me that time is of the essence to take some proactive action with respect to our ash trees um and i think i think of this more as a logistical question anything else in the sense that his perspective was the ash borer's hair is out right in and that we may well wake up one day and find most of our ash trees infected and you know dying sooner after and when you get to that point it becomes really difficult to deal with the trees they become brittle they become much much harder to um remove because they're dangerous and that we really want to avoid being in that situation his recommendation which made a lot of sense to me um for multiple reasons not only for the one i just articulated but for multiple reasons which we can get into um we'll see start a program whereby you would treat a portion of the trees let's call it 80 percent um the treatment lasts for three years during that three-year period remove from replace the 20 percent that haven't been treated then the next three-year period call it years four to six you treat 60 percent and you remove or replace another 20 percent and so on and so on till the end of year 15 when you've removed or replace all your ash trees in a kind of safe controlled way where then you're allowing the canopy behind it to redevelop so the neighborhood doesn't look like a desert um this made a lot of sense to me um he quoted that um you know each tree cost about 120 bucks to treat less than three years so call it $40 a year per tree we have 600 ash trees so 40 bucks per year 120 trees call $5,000 a year to treat it seemed to me honestly no brainer to get moving on this and to get moving on it quickly so i wanted to raise that here and we obviously can't discuss this in depth but could we ask jesse when this could be on a future agenda because this is something the natural resources and conservation committee has recommended and it was under the arpa requests so we've been kind of patiently letting that it's a school amount of money i mean i would imagine i don't know we need to i mean personally i don't think we need to wait to fall into that arpa discussion i really think times are the essence but we still need to have a public meeting where we approve that yeah so when did that happen jesse so right now this is scheduled on your agenda planner for july 17th to have a full discussion i do want to just inform the new counselors and remind the former counselor or the continuing counselors you've talked about this four times since i've been here and each time we've either approved funding to continue our plan or we you've actively voted to continue our current plan of removing and replanting we can revisit that but that is an active vote the council has taken every year since i've been here so happy to talk about it came up during public comment our last meeting i put it into the july 17th agenda planner we can so the the challenge for the next couple of meetings is that we have the juneteenth event this the policy retreat the steering committee meeting and this is on your next regular agenda so we could put it into one of those other agendas but i'd look for your guidance of what your what other content area you're willing to kind of shimmy down for that agenda for so it's on your next regularly agenda meeting on july 17th before that the options you have is to add it to the juneteenth celebration the policies and strategies conversation i think that's would be hard to add in one special thing to a whole strategic retreat then you have your steering committee meeting where you're setting the tax rate and then the 17th i know i'd like to be nimble enough to discuss this soon around later i really think that we i i guess i would also i'm sorry and i think that um we may wake up and find it's just too late to i i just out of deaf out of fairness in respect to all the other folks who've also on the 17th they were talking about we were assuming the conversation about arpa are we is that where we would be talking about the astries right now in the agenda planner on july 17th it's a specific agenda agenda item in addition to other agenda items but a specific agenda item i mean i'm already i guess i'm already a little uncomfortable with the fact that we're fast tracking this particular item when there are a lot of other items that are of imports to members of the community who are donating all their time to these committees who have put in requests through formal channels i'm comfortable given that the urgent nature of this expediting it to the 17th but to move it up and then to push other agenda items further back i just i feel like we we also have an obligation to the to the rest of the community i'm not i'm not i wouldn't be entirely comfortable moving in any further ahead than that well tyler we have discussed this quite a few times and several committees have weighed in so you know you're concerned that we might not be addressing um a committee some other committees concerned by taking this up is just as valid for the natural resources committee saying hey we've been talking about this for a couple years and you haven't right but we've addressed it that i think there's new science or experience or information that suggests that maybe the decision we made was um the wrong one so helen do you have a suggestion i mean would you have us arrive at six o'clock on juneteenth to to do it before the 6 30 kickoff i mean do you think we can figure it out in 30 minutes i do and tim seems to be saying yes okay well then i'm willing to do that so you're saying special start early at six o'clock on the 19th okay i i do need to know with all due respect i i think valuing a private business owner's opinion over your professional staff public works director and city arborist is a dangerous precedent to set and i think you know tom and i have had conversations in the last couple of weeks where we've talked about this is going on july 17th he and craig are getting prepared for that blah blah i can ask him to fast track that up i'm sure he will comply he's very good at doing that but i would just encourage us in the future let's start with our professional experts and not start with private business owners so six o'clock on the 19th okay and if tom and craig cannot possibly make that date would you just let helen or me know if i'm in that loop helen that helen specifically sure do we need to consult with colin i mean are we setting a precedent that could no i mean you guys can collect information from whoever you want to collect information from absolutely that's that's not the problem it's that we want to make sure we're giving our professionals who we employ the same respect the same respect we are to the right and i believe that the nrcc got the information from the state level project so just to make that clear okay well thank you all right so let's go back to item number 11 the oh yes michael i'm sorry and it will be brief okay it is urgent because it's a matter of life and death of a living organism namely the ash trees it's my understanding that the trees can be treated for something like 62 dollars per year and that the cost of removing and replacing a tree is about a thousand dollars so there's a lot of 62 dollar trees treatments that can be expended to save these trees before you've spent a thousand dollars or more and i think the i think the city and the council should try to save these trees do everything in our power to save these trees and if it cost 62 dollars a year per tree that is a bargain in my view and it's and andry's chelonic is right we can't wait we've been messing around with this as you just said for a year or two and the information about treatment and the and the comparative costs of treating rather than replacing and then removing and replacing has been available all that time i mean i know i've known about it for for a year or more so that's my plea when you get to discuss it please seriously consider saving the trees by treating them and i this replacement um schedule of doing 20 percent now 20 percent then that might be might be viable but it's better to try and save them and the ones that that we can't say the ones that die have to be removed thank you thank you michael all right thank you item number 11 i'm going to have jesse explain to us the process and recommendations from the council subcommittees on appointments to all city boards and committees so the council all knows this is this is more for the community and for those who have applied so as you know you approved a process to appoint subcommittees to interview all the candidates we have now gone through that process with the the drb and planning commission tonight each subcommittee has made a set of recommendations on who to appoint in tonight's executive session we will talk about those recommendations the full council is totally has the authority to appoint anyone they want that you do not need to take the recommendation of the subcommittee you have all the applications you can make whatever decisions you want but that's will be discussed in executive session and then will be approved on the consent agenda and theory on the 19th as well uh staff will notify candidates following that meeting um and july 13th very exciting night is our counts is our committee orientation as we did last year so collin and i will be welcoming anyone from who serves on boards and committees to that orientation on july 13th and certainly councils welcome to attend as well so that's really all i want to say to go over what the process was going to be thank you all right and now we are going to move to convene as the south growington liquor control commission to consider um liquor licenses to to quarry hill club uh farmers and foragers and mires would fired so moved is there a second second all in favor hi hi hi that's unanimous we are now the liquor control commission of south burlington and is there a motion i move approval of the three um applications second second all right any discussion all right all in favor hi hi hi that was unanimous thank you very much i move that we come out of uh out of uh liquor control liquor control commission second there a second second all in favor hi hi all right we are back into our regular session as the council and now we will consider entering a possible executive session for the purpose of discussing appointments to boards and committees would you like the motion please i move that the board enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing the appointment employment or evaluation of public officers or employees inviting in jessie baker with this with the council is there a second second all those in favor hi hi hi we will not be coming back and we will not be coming back so thank you very much for attending and for doing all of the tech work there in the background and we will be going somewhere or staying here