 Director Spencer, are you ready in your hands? Yes, we are. Okay, good evening all. It's Brandon Hogan calling to order the November 2020 meeting of the Public Works Commission at 6.32 p.m. Welcome all. The first item on our agenda order, next item is the agenda itself, comments or discussion around the agenda. I'd like to say that there was a letter that accompanied this obviously that people sent out to remove item B from the consent agenda. I guess just in deference to the community member that sent it, maybe we should just have a conversation about it. So I moved to accept the agenda with item B from the consent agenda moved or removed. Okay, thank you for that motion. I should throw out there too. There's been some communications around item, item A in the consent agenda as well regarding North Wudistiav 15 minute parking. So it may be worth pulling that off as well for the same reasons as mentioned as like Commissioner Marr. Sure, give them each of those. They're dedicated space, okay? Commitment to my motion. Sure, so we're still, we have a motion on the floor to pull off consent agenda items A and B for their own topics and move the rest of the agenda as is. So I second that motion to pull off item A and B for their own topics from the consent agenda. Did I get all the words right? Yes. Yeah. That's good. All right, we have a motion. It's been seconded. Is there any discussion around that motion? All right, seeing none, we'll take it to a votes all in favor and say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, our modified agenda has passed. Thank you all. Next item on the agenda is public forum. We will ask the interested public participants to live their time to three minutes and note that individual items on the agenda will have associated public comment dedicated to that as well. So we'll ask that in this general public forum, we're welcome to speak on any topic that's on your minds, but there will be a dedicated chance to speak on specific agenda items later on. All right. Public information manager Goulding, do we have anybody in queue for the public forum tonight? So we have a couple of hands raised. Thank you again, and thanks, Director Spencer. Just a couple of quick reminders if it's all right with the chair. Please use the raise your hand feature if you've joined the DPW Commission meeting via Zoom if you would like to participate in public comment. I don't think anyone has called in, but if you have called in or are planning on calling in, you'll need to press star nine. And for those of us watching on channel 17's live stream, thank you channel 17 for that, but municipal staff are not monitoring that for comments. So if you do want to comment, please join us on Zoom or via the phone. You have any issues during the meeting and you do want to speak during one of the public comment periods. If there are any technical issues, give us a quick email at that bottom email address you see on your screen, DPW communications at Burlingtonpt.gov and we'll publish you in real time. Thank you. There is one person currently signed up, two people currently signed up for public comment. And so Lacey Sloan will be promoting you right now over to have a public comment. Okay, can I be, oh, it looks like I can be heard now. Good evening. My name is Dr. Lacey Sloan. I really appreciate your taking quick action on the request to remove the 15 minute restricted parking space on North Winooski. I am speaking on that item that was initially on the consent agenda. It's my understanding that 15 minute signs like this are installed upon requests and are not a mandated part of the parking plan. And they're usually put up based upon compromises with neighbors. As a professor who teaches research and policy for over 25 years, I know the importance of making decisions based upon empirical evidence rather than anecdotal information. And so lacking a camera to turn on to the space for 24 hours a day, I made randomly selected observations of the parking space based on 44 selected times over 44 days, 44 times over four days. The first two days I made observations over a 24 hour period. And that did mean setting my alarm clock and waking up at 2.30 or 2.35 in the morning so that I could see if the space was being used. The last two days after the Department of Public Works said they would want to restrict it to nine to six, I then limited, I drew new using a random numbers generator. I selected new observation times restricted to the hours of nine a.m. to six p.m. Finally, because there were only out of the 41 observations that I made, which is 93% of the originally selected times, the space was used less than 5% of the time, basically two out of the 41 times, there was a vehicle using the space. Once, as far as I could tell, they were gone within 15 minutes. The second time they were there beyond the 15 minute restricted time. Although that time happened to span over the six o'clock period. They were parked there. My observation was at approximately 5.45. They were still there at 6.20 or 6.30 after that observation was over. I finally used convenient sampling, which is basically the technique that happens when you distribute flyers and ask people to comment. It's just whoever happens to respond. I decided I would sit and observe the space for four uninterrupted hours. And there were no vehicles that parked at all during that time. That was 11 to 1.30 p.m. and 2.30 to 4 p.m. on a Friday. Even though I did provide these results a week ago, I didn't see it in your packet. Just to summarize, there were 93% of the time that parking space was not used. And during the, hang on a second, let me make sure this is right. Yes, during the 9 to 6, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. time, a vehicle was present only twice. That was 7% of the time. It was not used at all by any commercial vehicle. In fact, twice when I was observing that space, there were commercial vehicles parked on Winooski Avenue, not in that space, but where they usually park, either double parked or in front of another driveway. I also decided to survey residents or not residents, people who I saw on Winooski Avenue. This was a convenience sample I interviewed face to face using socially distance protocols. Of course, with masks, 11 people to ask them if they would like to have the sign removed, not up for any restrictions at all removed. So it could be used 24 hours a day by anyone. One person did not have a car and had no opinion. The other 10 people, 93% of the sample wanted it removed. One additionally reported that had been a problem for more than just, for all of their roommates. There are metered parking spaces just beyond Grant Street that people can pull over to do whatever somebody seems to think people are using the space for. And I guess I would certainly encourage, I would actually repeat the words of Carol Pritchard who would say, don't let one person make a decision about whether or not the needs of one person, whether or not this space is gonna stay restricted or not. I've shown you that 93% of the people who, and if you wanna add in the other two respondents and even myself, overwhelming majority of people would prefer that that space was open. For us to use 24 hours a day with no restrictions, and again, the bottom line is it's not even used. Thank you. Thank you. We'll be promoting over Jason Stuffle next for public comment. Hi. All right, I think you can see I'm talking. So I know many of you, I'm Jason Stuffle and I live on Colchester Ave on the Burlington Walkbite Council as a liaison for word one. And I'm also on the advisory committee for the Colchester Ave Walkbite and intersection study that's ongoing. And so I just like to give some compliments to the improvements on Colchester Ave. I've been using the bike lane multiple times daily for the past year. And so the improvements there are really, really nice. The addition of the 10 foot wide side path in the area is a great addition. I'm looking forward to the Mansfield Ave path, hopefully being built next summer to compliment that. I'd say to look forward to trying to complete that little bit of Mansfield Ave down to Riverside Ave where there's the path, you'd have a path around the whole block. It's just a little bit of North prospect that maybe something needs to be connected there. South Wenusia Ave is, I'd say that's a great improvement as well. I've been looking forward to that for a long time. So just again, the transition seemed great. And I really, I've been actually driving it a few times just on purpose, just to see how it is. And I bike it a lot and I think that's a great improvement there as well. I urge, if you can do anything to make battery street the next conversion for that for a four to three, I'd be highly supportive of that because that's another area that I think could really use that and has been proven as I said on Colchester Ave, North Ave and South Wenusia Ave that it really does improve the safety and it doesn't affect the traffic through. I really enjoyed the Pine Street detour this summer where it's protected. I'd encourage anything we can do to keep that next summer and make it more protected. I know there's still a few parking spots along part of that area. And if we can do anything to remove those and make that a fully connected corridor, the use I saw this summer was extraordinary by families, by kids, all over the place. And so I think that's a really important thing to focus on is just a small little bit of area that needs improvement. Besides that, I just wanna compliment the city on the amount of bike improvement that's been going on. I know I always want more but it's encouraging just to see the amount of new bikers in the city or maybe they've been there and I just haven't noticed but on Colchester Ave, because I've been at home working from home, I see people going by the window all day up and down the hill on the bike lanes there and it really makes it encouraging just to see that improvement. So often you get a lot of complaints but let's say let's compliment you on the decisions over the past two years that have led up to these improvements that have really made it nice for people who are walking and biking. So thank you very much the commission for doing that. Thank you. All right, thank you. And Chairman, I think that is all that has signed up for public comment, so there's no one else. All right, thank you Mr. Goulding. With that, we'll close out public forum and move on to agenda item number four, the Consent Agenda to review in our modified agenda, the Consent Agenda item four is now consisting of solely, what's published as item four C, North Avenue truck loading zone. And we've been through this, we'll treat the items that were pulled off into something. So we are now looking at the Consent Agenda just for item four C. Sounds like you're looking for a motion in which case I will move to approve the Consent Agenda. Thank you. Thank you for that motion. Commissioner Archer, both motion, seconded commissioner Barr. Thank you for that. That, is there any discussion around that motion? All right, so you may move. Bring it to a vote. All those in favor of approving this Consent Agenda, please say aye. Aye. Myself, any opposed? All right, our Consent Agenda with item four C is passed unanimously. Thank you all. Next, we'll take it in order, our new agenda item 4.1, we'll call it. We'll be North Avenue 15 minute parking space. Let's see where should we start with this? From staff, we'll just give a brief introduction of what we're looking at here. Sure. So initially got the requests from Mrs. Sloan a little over a month ago. Did some discussing with local business, Carol Pritchard who owns the funeral home. And I think as passionate as Ms. Sloan is about the 15 minute parking being reallocated to general parking, general public parking. Ms. Pritchard, who I assume she wanted to participate tonight. She is just as passionate to keep it. And so staff and not just myself, but also Susan Malzahn and I, we discussed along with the public outreach that we conducted based on the public engagement plan. That this was a good compromise what's been recommended. And we stand by that recommendation. All right, thank you, Mr. Pearson. It's great to have a commissioner discussion here and commissioner Archibald who recommended pulling this off, let's start with you. Great, thank you very much. Maybe even a question for Phillip here, please. Is the data that we have to inform this decision rooted upon the public engagement or is there other data such as actual usage of that space? The data is based around the procedure that we've established with the commission, which is we do the public outreach, folks that want to discuss it with us, they do. We report that information to all of you. Beyond that, it is one 15 minute parking space. And if this was a bigger lift, if this was, I think the limit that we've talked about when we started involving mailings and other efforts, then we discuss other efforts, we discuss doing other things, we'll have a public meeting, we've done this for, we've had some pretty spicy issues, commissioner Archibald, I'm sure you remember when we did narrow streets last fall, some of those issues can be quite contentious and in those situations, we'll have those discussions. In a situation like this, I mean, I'm sure that Ms. Sloan used appropriate data collection methods. I would say that it's probably limited. We have some pretty specific data collection methods. If that's something that folks want us to do, I suppose we can, but I think we have to understand that what we're talking about here is one 15 minute parking space. And what we find, if we were to do that data collection might tell a much different story. So I'm not, we use the process that we've had established with the commission. Okay, so this is not to me, and certainly the public engagement process is important and narrow streets actually kind of was the birthplace of all that. So in past times, such as narrow streets, we've also had observations to accompany this, such as XYZ cars are parked there and it seems to be that they're from an adjacent street or something like that. That's kind of where I'm getting at is if there are any observations to accompany the engagement pieces that we've seen in the packet. No, there was no other data collection efforts as far as who's parking there, when they're parking there. Those efforts were not put into this parking space, but I think it's important to note as Ms. Sloan said at the beginning, a space like this, there are no requirements around loading zones, 15 minute parking, 30 minute parking. There's no requirements for these things. It's based around consensus in the neighborhood. Everyone gets together and they say, hey, public works, we wanna do this thing. And we go, okay, well, let's find the middle ground for everyone. And there are, I mean, it's, we have to be careful when we start throwing the baby out of the bathwater in that we have these competing interests. As I say in the memo, there are several competing interests on every street. And when we just start saying, well, we have someone who's very passionate and the space has to go, then we have to be careful about how we're doing that. Staff, we're seeking the middle ground compromise. Understood. And having been around a block, I think we see that precedent in many ways, especially resident parking, for example, which can drive, you know, supply passions and all that. I hope you respect the position that we're in as well, where we wanna make the right decision, not the path of least resistance, right? That if there's a space that potentially could be used to survey better good, that we as members of the community can determine what would be the right decision, regardless of seven people yelling on this side and three people yelling on this side, right? To me, that's not an equal balance, because especially for a meeting at, you know, 6 30 in the evening, when people are putting in long days and maybe tired of being on a computer or tired of Zoom calls, last place I wanna be is here to petition us to do something with a 15 minute space. So I'm more asked out of just curious about if there's other data such as was presented to this spot, completely respect that there's not, because how much of our department's resources do we really want to go into adjudicating, like you said in the back here, right? This one 15 minute space. So it's not to say it's not important, but from a city standpoint, yeah, I can understand that resources might be more valued in other places too. I think it's important that we wanna do the right thing. We're not trying to just take the path of least resistance, honestly. The path of least resistance, I think maybe previous folks may have done that, by kicking the can down the road and not doing anything. And we don't do that. We take the bull by the horns and we try and solve each issue as they come in as quickly as possible. Okay, can you just briefly describe, what is the change, I see the language that you're suggesting, but what is changing here that you're proposing? Well, right now it's a 15 minute parking space, no restrictions at all. And so the proposal is to put these time restrictions and I forget what they are. I don't have the pack right in front of me. I went off of what was existing in traffic regulations. I went off of what we've consistently used for other 15 minute parking spaces. The funeral home wanted the space to be effective from I believe eight in the morning until nine at night. And I felt like Susan and I had discussed this as well, that that doesn't really give residents a chance to use it as a parking resource. So we kind of felt like, well, other 15 minute parking spaces have an end time of 6 p.m. So that is what we felt like was the middle ground and the right thing to do. Yeah, so effectively you did find that middle ground that you were mentioning earlier in the sense that you're giving this parking spot to the residents of the street for overnight parking. Correct. In the daytime acknowledging that there may be other anecdotes, of course, and observations that may justify that keeping the spot as a 15 minute space. So, okay, that's all I have. So thank you very much, Phillip. You're welcome. Commissioner Barr, thoughts on your answer. Thanks, thanks. I just have a couple of questions. And I think Commissioner Archibald answered one of them. I was trying to look at, I've got a small screen, so bear with me. I was trying to look at Google Earth to see what businesses are nearby that might need or requested this. And I did see that there was a funeral home. Are there other businesses nearby or is the funeral home the only business that is in close proximity of this space? That is a really good question. I think there may be... It looked like there was another one with an access ramp to it, that may or may not be. Yeah, so there is a convenience store further down the block. There is a couple of takeout places, but they have 30 minute spaces. We've talked to those before. I think primarily it is for the funeral home. I would say in talking to the funeral home director, she's very adamant and passionate that there are several deliveries, things that happen. There's no reason not to believe her. And we do have streets like these where parking spaces, they're sprinkled in there and they get used. Yeah, okay. So we'll follow on question then because I know that given the current conditions of the world, that their businesses may or may not be as busy as they have been in past or hope to be in future. Don't put me down for saying that if I hope a funeral home is busy. My point is that during... It was this request made prior to the current situation or is it always been a 15 minute space? It's always been a 15 minute space and it's been a 15 minute space for before I was ever here. I'm sure that it goes back to probably the 90s. Norm is on here. I'm sure he can comment on it better than I can. But yeah, it's always been a 15 minute space. Did it go away? Cause when I looked at Google Earth, it's there right now. Oh, it's never, it's still a 15 minute space. So we're not talking about getting and, taking an existing general parking space and making it into a 15 minute parking space. We're talking about an existing 15 minute parking space and putting time restrictions onto it so that the 15 minute parking may still be used. And during daytime hours and then folks can have local residents can use it as overnight parking. And that does make sense. I mean, I looked at the Google Earth again and there's a driveway that goes towards the back of this funeral home that's right there and there are other driveways near there. Personally, I think that what you've come up with is a fair compromise. I just would say that there might not be a lot of business going on right now. So any observations that may have been made in the last week or two weeks or three weeks or month may not be indicative of what it normally is like. And if we ever get back to normal, I guess I'm just thinking that, you know, there's a 15 minute space there. It has been there. There obviously was a need or it wouldn't be there. It apparently had been used and we're just, you're just recommending that we restrict it a little bit so that the residents have a more of a, more of a chance to park there overnight. So that's all I have. Thank you. Commissioner Bose, anything else on your end? I mean, I think most of my questions have been answered but I don't know exactly what the, I mean, what the mechanism we have, you've sort of mentioned this already in terms of, you know, what kinds of resources do we have to actually do extensive analysis of this one 15 minute spot. At the same time, leaving your department to mediate between strongly held views of, you know, maybe it's two people, one on each side or maybe it's half of a neighborhood and the other half of an neighborhood. I don't really know what the mechanism, we have beyond actually going and doing this kind of observation ourselves. And I guess that's a bigger question for the department to answer. If you were tasked with mediating these kinds of disputes city-wide, I mean, what kinds of, I don't know how many of these kinds of cases come to you. It certainly, you know, it stood out when I read it in the package and I read, you know, all of the communications that had gone on and it's very hard to take either of these sides as being, you know, more valid than the other. I mean, I've certainly seen a presentation of a more systematic documentation in the case to remove it. But, and on the other hand, it's just sort of anecdotes. And so I was sort of looking for a little bit more evidence as well. But again, like I understand that, like, I mean, to validate the claims one way or another. But again, I mean, I don't know if Director Spencer has some kind of thought about like what a dispute like this would mean in the grand scheme of things in terms of what the department's capacity is. So it's not really a bigger question that I have or a pathway forward. Certainly a compromise seems like the best way forward to me, but perhaps Director Spencer can chime in a little bit. Great. Thank you, Commissioner Bose. At this point for us, this is one moment in time. It is during a pandemic. We are not sure what the full use of the space would be outside of the pandemic. But we received this request several weeks ago. We've been able to bring this to you fairly quickly. Times change and we can revisit at some future time. So my thought is nothing is set in stone here. This is a move to provide more additional neighborhood access once life returns to normal. Then we can, if the neighborhood is interested in requesting a further change, we can certainly explore it at that time. We, I do appreciate the acknowledgement of capacity. We were unable to hire interns this year or seasonal staff. So the technical services team has been doing a lot of resident engineer work in the field. And as a result has really struggled to kind of keep up with their workloads. And so I want to thank staff for that. And it was great to be able to turn this so quickly. I think this is a good step forward. Staff is recommending and look forward to evaluating in the future if the neighborhood wants further evaluation post-pandemic. Thank you for that. All right. Any of it? Commissioner Gellin. I think all my questions I asked, I think have been addressed. I agree. It sounds like the data says we should move away from my full-time 15-minute restriction, which I think this does. So I'm generally in support of the proposal put forward by staff. Commissioner O'Neill. So I agree I'm in support of the proposal put forth by the staff, but just to qualify that while I appreciate residents collecting data and the passion they have about parking in front or near their residents, I think given the limitations of city staff, we don't have the city staff data protocol that we can rely on to say we're going to make a decision based on city data. So to agree with Director Spencer, moving forward with this compromise sounds great. And then if we need to revisit it once we're on the other side of this pandemic and there's more vibrant activity along North Winooski Avenue and or if this falls within the scope of the North Winooski parking study, which I think will be rolled out sometime in the near future that may come into play then. But I think this is a great compromise to allow residents to park at night. Okay. Commissioner Overby. I also support the recommendation to make available the spot for overnight parking of residents. And I feel like we do have other situations such as the Elmwood Funeral Home where they have other arrangements which might be more burdensome than having a 15 minute spot out front where they are able to actually block off entire sections of Elmwood from parking when there are funerals planned. So I feel like we, if we want to revisit this, there's way more to dealing with the needs of funeral homes. And I don't want to just, I think if we want to have that discussion about this particular parking spot, then there's more to the discussion than just this 15 minute spot. So I feel like it's, we've done it before to make sure that people can park overnight that are in a residential neighborhood. I feel like this is a great way to go forward. And I do support the staff's recommendation. All right, thank you. With that, Mr. Golden, can you check and see if there's any takers on a public comment specific to its agenda item or 0.1 north of New Ski Ave, 15 minute space. Thanks, Chairman. Is there, is anybody interested? Please use the raise your hand feature on Zoom. I don't think anyone has called in, but if you have or are about to, please press star nine. At this time, there is nobody currently signed up. Okay, thank you. So that will bring it back to the commission and are seeking a action here. I make a motion to accept as staffs proposed staff recommendations. I'll second that. The motion of Christian Barr, seconded by Commissioner Archenbaugh. Thank you. Is there any discussion around that motion? All right, seeing none, we'll take two votes. I'll go, I'll call roll to the vote here. Commissioner Archenbaugh. Aye. Commissioner Barr. Aye. Commissioner Bows. Aye. Commissioner Gilman. Aye. Commissioner O'Neill. Aye. Commissioner Overby. Aye. And myself and I. Okay, that's the item 4.1 passes unanimously. Thank you all. Moving forward, agenda item 4.2, we locate Fletcher Place ADA space. Same players involved here. Can we get a quick overview from staff of what we're looking at here? Right, so we have kind of a long-term project for Fletcher Place. We're doing some survey work there in the survey work that we're hoping to get going here within the next couple of months. Traffic foreman Dan Hill gave me a call and mentioned that there's an ADA parking space that exists on the street that's not placed very well. It's, if we were to move it so that it was adjacent to 43 Fletcher Place, and we did talk to the resident of 43 Fletcher Place, they still need the accessible parking space, then we would prevent this dead zone. So as it is right now, the way that it's placed, it's approximately one parking space away. So there's a parking space between the driveway and the ADA parking space. So it's creating situations where folks are getting driveway encroachments and it also can create a dead zone. The letter that was sent by Ms. Lang, I spoke to her yesterday and kind of cleared that situation up. She assumed that what we were proposing to do was put a new ADA parking space in and was opposed to that. And then I explained to her that that was not the case. And she said, you know what? I'm not even going to attend the commission meeting. Sounds good. I support what you're doing and it's all, that's fine. I think in situations like these, it's basically a tempest in a teapot. We're moving an ADA spot 10 feet to the north to provide more parking resources for residents. I can see how when DPW staff go out on a street and start putting out flyers that it kind of can get people's hackles up and they start going, what are they doing? What's going on? And the folks start making assumptions and start worrying about losing parking resources. And so, but everything seems to be fine and folks on Fletcher Place support the proposal. Thank you for that, Peterson. All right, is there any commissioner discussion? I'll just say no, that I read the letter. It's, she's a resident of my ward. So I felt compelled to pull it off, not knowing that there was a second conversation after the letter, so I'm fine. Thank you, Commissioner Barr. Anything further from the commission? All right, since we're here, we'll open it up and see if there's any, when interested in speaking on a public comment regarding this item, 4.2 relocate Fletcher Place ADA space. I don't see any hands up, Mr. Goulding, do you confirm or? Yep, there is nobody at this time signed up for comment. All right, we're ready to bring it back to the commission seeking an action on this item. As commissioner Barr, I make a motion to accept a staff proposed. Thank you for that motion, Mr. Barr. I second that motion to accept staff proposal. Yeah, we have a second. Commissioner Neal, thank you. All right, is there any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, I'll bring it to the votes. You know, if they'll call rolls, sure we got everyone here. Mr. Archambault. Aye. Mr. Barr. Aye. Mr. Bose. Aye. Commissioner Gilman. Aye. Commissioner O'Neill. Aye. Commissioner Overby. Aye. And aye for myself. The motion passes unanimously, 4.2 relocate Fletcher Place ADA space. Thank you very much. Moving forward. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. Same to you all, thank you. All right, so we're on item five, Witcher Maintenance Presentation. Seeking a staff presentation. That's one we have, Mr. Perry. Good evening, commissioners, how are you? Good evening, thanks, how are you? Everybody ready to talk about snow? Yeah, please. That time of year. Feels like it today, actually. OK, so I'm going to get the presentation up and share my screen. OK, can everybody see the screen? Got it, thank you. So in the interest of time and for questions at the end of the presentation, I'm going to hit the high spot on the slides. Hopefully, everybody had a chance to go through the presentation in the packet. So we'll start off. DPW, Snow Fighting Operations. So DPW plows 95 miles of streets, 130 miles of sidewalks, and 21 miles of combined bike lanes. And we accomplished this. We prepare for all the storms. We watch weather closely. Snow is forecasted depending on the time of the arrival. If it's after hours, the streets maintenance manager will place crews on call to be called in when it does start snowing. And along with the street steam, we place two fleet technicians on call to respond, just in case we have any issues with equipment while we're out plowing. If there's a need, the storm gets big enough, and we know we're going to get a big storm. We'll talk about doing a parking ban. And Director Spencer will talk with the administration. And when the decision is made, the DPW will coordinate with traffic and parking enforcement. And residents are notified via a parking ban light system, other social media outlets, BT Alert, 658 Snow, and all those communications are put out prior to the ban being enacted. How do we do this? With our staff equipment and materials, we have 17 full-time employees and street maintenance. And when available, we utilize two seasonal employees to help us with operations, not only with plowing, but this is construction season as well. Currently, we have staffing issues in both street maintenance and equipment maintenance with open positions, which we, like it says, we hopefully will have a filled plan on doing interviews for the street maintenance position, hopefully starting next week. Along with that, we do have some injuries and restrictions that prevent some employees from getting into plow equipment, which is where the seasonal help will come in. We also rely on help from other departments, water resources, fleet, traffic, parks. They'll come over and help us out with plowing on the bigger storms. DPW has 10 trucks total, nine, seven-yard, or single-axle trucks, and one 14-yard dump truck. One is kept as a spare. Sidewalk tractors, we have 12 tractors equipped with plows and spreaders. Materials, we keep on stock, probably to 600 tons of rock salt located at 645 point street in our bins, as well as about 7,000 gallons of chemicals in storage tanks that can be mixed with the salt in applications, especially in colder weather. It really enhances the salt's potential and allows us to use it at colder temperatures. And plow routes, streets and sidewalks. Streets are broken into nine routes, three in the New North End, three in the Old North End hub area, and three in the South End. Sidewalk tractors are similar. We might break them up, put less tractors in routes to keep that hub area a little more concentrated on. A lot of side streets in the Old North End. And this is an example of a plow route map. Each truck and tractor will have a plow route for each route in the city in a binder. So normally truck drivers have their own routes, tractor operators have their own routes, but in some cases, if you get a person sick, calls out, truck goes down, you need another truck to go on that route. The person might not be as familiar with it. They have a map to go to, to see which streets get plowed. And on these maps, you can see the specific areas to pay attention to, which would be hills, intersections, Green Mount Transit routes, and bike lanes. There are sidewalk tractors. We just got four brand new ones last month and the last month beginning of this month, which brings their total up to eight new tractors in the last two years. So this is great, it's a big help. It's gonna leave a lot of, a lot of stress on our team and our equipment maintenance team as well, less breakdowns. And here's one of our trucks plowing main street, you know, during a storm, you know, concentrating on main arterial roads to keep traffic flowing in and out. And, you know, depending on the day, the snow lets up and we can, we can keep the traffic flowing then we'll dip into the side streets and start plowing those out as well. But when it's really intense, we just have to concentrate on those mains. This is one of our trucks getting loaded up with salt at our salt storage facility on Pine Street. Tractors are usually loaded with a chase truck we call. We send out one ton trucks loaded with salt and the driver will, you know, have a phone when the tractors need salt, they'll figure out where they are, meet them, both the operator and the truck driver will fill their truck by hand with a shovel rather than wasting time coming all the way back to Pine Street to fill up the sidewalk tractor. And here's a picture of ferret trucking delivering a load of salt. Cargill got the contract for salt again this year and ferret trucking is a distributor. Usually after a storm event, you know, we'll take a look at our bins to see what we need to order and immediately have them start trucking it in and it's anywhere from 100 to 150 ton, you know, after a decent sized storm and snow operations and COVID. So as you know, COVID's really changed the way DPW had to go about doing business this year, especially, you know, in my departments, my guys can't work remotely. So we've had to change shifts around and, you know, it was good during the summer because they're out working out in the fields. But now that winter's coming, you know, we're gonna be back in the shop. So we're really, really trying to press, you know, safe hygiene, masks, social distancing to keep everybody safe and healthy. You know, we have protocols we follow and, you know, it's gonna be a challenge this winter and we know that going into it, but we're gonna do everything we can to mitigate anybody getting sick and how to report winter issues. So most of our issues come through customer service. They can be called at that number. After hours, there is an answering service. We do have a person on call, 24-7. They'll get a hold of the pager if there's a slippery spot, you know, we'll respond depending on the severity. We might call in one or two guys or we might call in the whole crew depending. It can also be, complaints can also be registered through C-Click Fix on the city website. And that is a quick overview of our winter plowing operations. Okay, thanks so much. No matter we're not seeking any action particularly here, but we're looking forward to a discussion around these points. So I'll open up for commission or discussion at this point. Would you like me to leave the screen up in case they want to go back to a slide or is it fine to take it down? Yeah, I think it's fine to take it. Bring it down. We've seen it in our packet. We've reviewed it again now and I guess quickly. Maybe we can bug you to bring it up, but I'd rather just see the people at the moment. Commissioner Overby, start with you with it. Right, at the moment I don't have questions. I think my big questions are usually about the plan for the sidewalks and particularly getting the ones that the kids go to school and there was some funny things happen last winter and I don't know until we start seeing some snow and how things go, I feel like, do you feel like we're gonna be in good shape as far as the people that do the sidewalk routes so that they're familiar with how they're gonna do it because there were some that were like skipped and it may have been somebody was filling in for somebody who didn't know the route, but. It might have been. I'm not sure if we had equipment down. Like I said, we just replaced a bunch of trackers that were anywhere from 14 to 27 years old, I think. So now we have the average age of our fleet up, is only three years old, which is gonna make a huge difference. Less trackers down. It was getting pretty bad. Our spares were breaking down. So now we don't have that problem. So I think those are always our high spots are the schools in the hub area, downtown businesses, stuff like that. So I don't foresee any issues with that. And if there is certainly, we'll hear about it and we'll correct it. Yeah, I think we don't know until we actually start seeing how things are going. And there was last winter an issue with a side street that probably wasn't getting attention and the postman had to just ditch his vehicle and... So that would have been up in the old North end, I think. Right, and I'm not gonna say we're gonna have that again. I'm just, you know, I don't know the thing about the prioritizing the in and out of the major routes. Sometimes I don't know what the best way is for that. It's tough on that street because I think it was popular and Myrtle and those are four foot wide sidewalks and there's basically just enough. It was Willow and St. Mary area. Willow and St. Mary, okay. Yeah, but I don't wanna go into details. I'm really happy that you're thinking about it. You're working on it and we'll see how things go. And I don't have any complaints until we see if anything needs to be dealt with later. So I think you're doing a great job. Oh, thank you. So, thanks. Thank you, Commissioner Archambault. Thank you. Kind of a similar question to what Commissioner Overby was just asking. So within the presentation, for example, I see a route and you mentioned that the drivers have binders with those routes, but how do I know what a priority area is like a school? How do those get surfaced so that the drivers actually go to be sure to tackle those areas? Well, on that route map, there was prioritized areas. That was just the truck route. So that would be Hills intersection. So the sidewalk tractor maps have those areas mapped out on them as well. And some of them, we get the same operators in the same tractor and it's their route. So they know the priorities and like Commissioner Overby stated, it might be when we get someone helping from a different department or is new that season and is just getting to know the route. It's pretty intimidating. I can remember when I first started here with the city and got thrown into a big truck and here you go, this is your route. Driving around looking at a piece of paper, seeing which way I need to go. But I think we've got these binders really set up for the guys to not fail. There's a lot of information in there. Yeah, great. Okay, thank you. And one issue that we had come about last year, the year before when you were just jumping on to your role was the plowing of bike lanes. So just wanted to check in with you to see how that fits into this snow removal program this year. So yeah, in the last winter, I think we got a pretty good handle on it because we were waiting to plow the bike lanes after the sidewalk tractors were done, their plow routes, you know, they'd go out and then they'd all go out like a bunch of bees and just hit all the bike lanes. So now, you know, it's like you're driving parallel to it. Just do your pass up the sidewalk, go back down the other side and then make your pass up the bike lane. Yeah. And also, that's how we instructed them to do it. And their bike lanes, you know, are plowed with the bigger trucks with a wing, you know, and we get as close to the end of the curb. And then over the winter, if the banks get too big, we'll go through the snow removal. That's what we did last year. We'll go right down either with a sidewalk tractor with a blower, blow it straight so it doesn't keep sloughing down into the lane or just bring the loaders up there and haul it right out. Yeah, yeah, okay. And do you have a facility up in the new North End this year where you can draw salt and fuel from for your sidewalk plows? We can draw fuel, but hopefully in the future, we can get some salt storage up there because that would be nice for the tractors and the trucks as well. Yeah, well, let's have the battle, right? Cause technically you can get a truck full of salt up there to restock the sidewalk plows instead of having them drive all the way back down a pie street, right? Well, we have the one ton out there already to fill up the tractor. So it'd just be the one ton that goes back. But yeah, if we were able to store, you know, a hundred ton of salt out there for the winter, just for the tractors and the trucks, that'd save a lot of time. Even with the trucks, you know, during traffic, heavy traffic, a big storm is going to take that truck 30 minutes in traffic to get back to Pine Street to load up. That's why we got the tandem. The tandem's a bigger truck. It can hold 70 yards more. It can hold double what a single axle can. So we can send them out on the belt line and just keep going back and forth on the belt line in the avenue while the smaller trucks, you know, hit the side. And such a huge benefit to the city to have this site in the new North End. How long has that been in play for you now? Was it just the second winter or tell me my memory about that? It was just completed this summer. Okay, so this is the first year that that's at play. Correct. Okay, it was fantastic. And again, I remember I was very excited for this hearing about the facility. I know you worked with Norm to get all that done too. To not have all those tiny little plows, you know, hoofing it down to Pine Street and then going all the way up to the North End. You know, it's just, it's crazy logistically. So I'm so glad that that facility is there. It should make a huge difference. Even for folks, if they're noticing that their sidewalks are not plowed, right? It did the time of it all too, it should be a lot better. Yeah, especially, you know, in the fuel aspect for those tractors, if we get a big storm and we got to put the blowers on, you know, that's a lot of fuel you burn going slow, you know, and so you're out there for hours. So yeah, and you can't travel fast with a blower on. That'll make a huge difference. Yeah, yeah. Well, good for you. I'm so glad. And I wanted to just make everyone aware of that too. Just it's such a low key thing. No one knows it, but I think that's a huge piece of your snow removal program this year in particular. Lastly, just a silly question. So what tips would you have for reliable weather predicting websites that the rest of us could use and learn from you? Do you have old bones or anything that started to ache? No, we don't have any special. I'll check four or five, but I do believe the local stations or, you know, WPTZ, Channel 3, AccuWeather, Weather Underground, Weather Channel, I just, I'll look at four or five different ones and, you know, most of the time two or three are saying the same thing, you know, but it's still, it's weatherman, you know, it's... Yeah. All right, thank you. I'm just looking for tips there. Well, radar, you look at the radar, the radar doesn't lie. True. That's very true. Yeah, yeah. The first thing I go to is the radar. Well, Lee, thank you for everything. That's all I have. I just wanted to commend you in your short time in the role. I think you've accomplished a lot already. Really just, I'm so impressed with everything that you're bringing to the table. So just thank you as a member of the community. Really appreciate it. Thank you. I appreciate it. All right, thank you. Commissioner Barr. Thanks. I don't have a lot to add except that I've always been pleased in work one or the East district with the snow removal and how well you guys get to it and clean it and work on it. I know there's a lot more bike lanes now. So I'm anxious to see as more people start biking in the winter, especially with COVID unless wanting to ride the transit, how that might work out for you. But like everybody else has said so far, I think pray for us, not a tough winner and see what you do. Yeah, I used to, I used to, couldn't wait for it to snow because that's what we do. But now it's like, ah. Yeah, I love the snow too. So we'll have to see if I could change my background. For some reason I can, I put my good winter one on here. But I don't know, I think because we're recording, I can't change. Thank you. Sure, thank you. Yeah, I don't have much to add other than to thank you for the presentation. I thought it was great and very informative. And my daughter also said it was the most interesting of the presentations I've had to see in a while. So we spent some time talking about, I asked her, what do you think are the hardest roots to plow? So I really appreciate it. Thank you for all of your hard work. Thank you. Good stuff, thank you. Commissioner Gilman. Nothing else for me, thanks a lot, Lee. Thank you. All right, Commissioner O'Neill. Oh, Lee, this is great. I mean, I love the plan. I love the binder, sort of the organizational mind in me is so excited that the drivers get in there and there's a binder. So I guess a couple of things is, one about the four new sidewalk tractors, that's such great news and such a relief, I'm sure. Wondering if there's a way for you to measure the efficiencies that you're going to realize with, A, the newer tractors, and as well as the fueling site by Letty in the new North End. Just, I think that's really important information for public works, for the city, for our residents, taxpayers to see, we made this capital investment and here are the returns on that investment as far as time and fuel savings and emissions just because that's my work stuff. So that would be great. I don't know. I know there are ways to calculate it, but I think it would be great to see at some point at the end of the season what were some of the savings in there. And then I would love, I know we're in this crazy time right now and keep an eye on when the schools are in session and prioritize those sidewalks because kids are not like, the capacity on the buses is limited. And if we can continue to prioritize, kids being able to walk to school, those who are physically able after the storm, I have a BHS kid and I'm like, get out of the house. So for like really good reasons, not because he's a bad kid, but I think we really need to get these kids out, get fresh air and the more we can do that as our whole community to support that would be great. And these sidewalk tractors will help. Another thing I'm wondering is, so you say you're down two staff people, are those like CDL positions? You mentioned that you can rely on extra staff for from other departments. So that goes into my next question, sort of figuring out what the optimal staffing is going to be depending on the vehicle, as well as do you have a COVID contingency plan in case their illness is? And I think those kind of fit together looking at what are your CDL needs as well as just your tractor needs? Yes, so the open position in streets is a CDL driver. Fortunately, we have veterans who are in sidewalk tractors right now that have CDLs. All full-time employees have CDLs. We even have a couple or one seasonal that we were able to help him get his CDL. So he's been helping out tremendously, but so we will be interviewing that position, like I said, hopefully next week. So regardless, we will have someone going in that truck, whether it's a new hire, or we will rotate them out of a sidewalk tractor and put that new hire in a sidewalk tractor because those are not CDL required. And then in fleet maintenance, all of the fleet maintenance are CDL positions as well. So we can take employees from fleet maintenance, put them in a dump truck. We have plenty of experienced operators over there, same with water resources. We can get up to six from them. We have people from wastewater that help out and we are trying to reach out across other departments to see if we can solicit any more volunteers, whether it's driving one of the trucks around to fill up tractors or training them to drive, operate a sidewalk tractor. We've tried reaching out across departmentally to Brownlington Electric to see if they had people off hours that are available. We're still looking at that. So we're trying to cover our bases if this COVID thing does affect this. I know there are some other towns that are doing similar things. We are working with other towns, Williston and other towns in the area for help if one of their departments gets affected. We could possibly help them out. They could help us out. And I know there's a lot of other towns throughout the state that are doing that. Just looking at some emails with local roads. That's good to hear. I feel like it's this infrastructure that we so take for granted and if any of your staff become ill with COVID or injuries or whatever, we have the potential to become really paralyzed. So it sounds like you've got a really deep bench with CDL drivers and I love the connection across departments and across towns. Hopefully we don't have to go there, but I appreciate that. Hopefully, I hope so. Well, thank you. Thank you for all that you do. Thank you. All right, thank you. A couple things. I feel like we spoke about this time last year. We were excited about the new automation and the parking ban lights. Has that been working out well? Yeah, they're still working out some bugs. I talked with Dave Garen a couple of weeks ago to see if you wanted to do a test run on them. He felt confident and it's really a time saver than the way we used to do it. I mean, it used to take me, literally it would take me three hours out of my day to go turn every light on because you had to physically go look at the light. And when they narrow banded the communication system in our two-way radios that weakened the signal even more. So someone turned it on, someone wouldn't. So the new one is an app. It's right on a tablet. You can go on the app, turn them on. It'll give you confirmation if the light's working. It'll tell you what's wrong with it. So that's, you know, that's a big, big saver right there. And there are still a few that the technician will have to go out and turn on, but it's not like before. Oh, that's great. I like the sort of some themes here, removing the direction of greater efficiency of those auditions and newer tractors, fuel depot at Letty Park, it's all good stuff. That's been a similar theme today is GIS Day. I know it's another of organizations. We're celebrating that today. Applaud that your sample truck routes in the packet looks fresher and newer than what we've seen in previous packets of like the highlighter over the 20-year-old map. So I take that as a hint. We're moving in the direction of modernization there. Is it safe to assume the other routes have been updated as well? Yes. Thank you. And we're looking at, you know, there's a sort of a snow and ice control plan, standard operating procedure, a document that's up on your website and it's updated in its appendix of bike lanes. Is that stuff been refreshed in these route binders that are out as well? Yeah, the snow and ice control policy that was presented last year and this year? Yeah. Okay, well, I'll have to look at that. That's outdated. I have a link from last year. Okay, okay, I will look at it because I got all the updated information when I rewrote the policy last year or updated the policy. Yeah, maybe worth another pass through that. I think it's still, Dad, I don't want to take time now, but yeah, I'm... Absolutely, I'll look at that. For our earlier comments on public forum, we've been building out the bike network and want to make sure that that's reflected in these route maps as well. Yep. Thank you. Absolutely. See what else I want to list here. Oh, are there any, you and your team's feeling good about where we are with the narrow streets? Haven't heard anything coming forward about any changes or additions there? They can always be wider. Sure. And that's with our one ton, that's why we call it the dead end narrow street truck because it only takes a couple of cars parking across from each other on a street and we can't fit through there with our big trucks, even with a wing up. And guys aren't going to risk damage to vehicles, damage to our vehicles, is their license. So they'll call the one ton if they can't fit through in the one tunnel drive out, which does add time to their route. But Phillip, he has, we went through this list with him last year and what we needed issues with. So I think we got a pretty good handle on it. Okay, thanks. I just recall we were sort of going in, I don't know if it was increasing order of, right of way with there and then picking up a couple in a time you anticipate making any changes there. I don't think so. I know the person who plows in the old North end where they changed the parking on Charles and it's one that cuts around on Charles and Russell on North street and off of Willard. Yeah, the guys said that's tremendous. They love that. And I think it worked out for the residents too. I didn't hear many complaints. The recycling trucks could get down through there. It was much easier plowing. So that was a big help. Okay. I know there's still a lengthy list of streets that are not compliant, but I guess we'll sort of wait and see. Yeah, we'll work through. Director Spencer. Thanks, Chair Hogan. Yes, given this year's challenges and all we were focusing on, we did not have the bandwidth to bring through the next slug of narrow streets. We can look at that in advance of next winter. Yeah, fair enough. Thank you. One other point I know we've touched upon in the past about enforcement for blocking signage sidewalks with private snow clearing. I, as I understand it, it's a very minor fee that's enforced rarely, if ever. And in past conversations that maybe we would look into that as, do we give that more teeth? I feel like it's just terribly antisocial and dangerous when people sort of disregard the safety of those traveling on sidewalks, but just sort of plowing straight across and leaving waste-tied things there. And I gather that would probably be, we need to go through the ordinance committee and everything else, but I just want to sort of put that out to Dr. Spencer and Mr. Perry there and sort of get your thoughts on, if there's an avenue or a need from your perspective or when the time might be right to get some more teeth there. I think there is, especially with the amount of bike lanes we're putting in, and I foresee someday it'd be permanently protected and where there might be maybe a curb. And when you get these trucks back dragging across that, they're not only blocking the sidewalk, then they're blocking the bike lane. So there's a couple avenues that we need to cure when doing that. And then just taking the driveway, snowing, putting it out into the right way. It's not supposed to be done. And I don't know how many times when I was plowing, I'd get my street all clean, spotless. And I'd go around the block and someone just pushed a bunch of snow on the left of the big pile in the middle of the road. And it's, that's dangerous. And you don't know, could have these chunks in it. You know, when a car comes along, it should be a bigger fine. I think I'm not sure what the fine is. And I've talked to people while I was plowing, they're like, hey, that's against the city ordinance. And they're just like, well, it's a minimal amount of fine. So I'd rather just pay it. I'm with you on the danger there. I'm wondering if you would, Dr. Spencer, have thoughts on where interaction steps are? We could take a look at it. One of the things that there's an education component and then there's an enforcement component. And on the enforcement side of things, the city council did vote on Monday last week to officially bring parking enforcement into Team DPW. So our team is now going to be responsible for that type of enforcement. So we'll take a look at the current ordinance language and see my recollection is that it is a very nominal fine and is likely to be recommended to be increased. We can take a look at that. And then maybe at the next meeting, the commission could, you know, indicated support for that as it heads to the ordinance committee. Yeah, that sounds great. Thank you. We obviously know, we know where it's happening. We could sort of mind a C-click fix for the pictures. I've read up on some notes from the field trip to Montreal last, this time last year, people noted that the private contractors, they're clear sort of driveways and businesses are going to register there and the city maintains a database of which contractors are working, which addresses. So they know who's responsible there. I mean, I think even in we start with the ability owner to let them pass a town to their contractors. That would be a thing to step in the right direction. But yeah, I would be supportive of looking into that and see what we can do to move forward. We'll take a look. Thank you. Great, I'm scanning my list of questions. I think I hit them all there. I appreciate the presentation and I feel like that's here. We're excited about a lot of the movement here. I see Henry, it's Mr. Overby. I had two follow-up questions from what we've been hearing. Number one, I know it's hard to have, I'll get women into the kind of jobs that we're talking about that you're looking for a new person for. Do you have any women in your department and or if you don't, are you finding ways to encourage other women to apply for jobs? Because the pipeline for these kind of jobs is pretty tricky for a woman to get going in. And I know I asked this question of a former person in your role and it doesn't seem like an easy matter, but do you have any women working in your department? And if not, what's the plan to get some more in there? We do not. When I first started here with the city, we did. And she was a foreman, a working foreman for a person. And then she got done and no, we have not had one since I have been here. Our human resources department, when we post a job, they do a good job of outreach and where they send the posting to. And I'm not sure the specific name of it, but it is like women in labor, something like that. So there are avenues that we take to broaden our search because we are trying to make a department more diverse. I know it's a challenge. And I think the last person said that they look at mechanics than things that came from car vendors. But I really think it would be great. They're good paying jobs. And I don't know that women feel encouraged to even try to get themselves in there. So the possibility of looking at really good pipelines to get a person in the pipeline to learn how to do the job, get the CDL help, a licensing help, like you suggested it was done. So I'd love to encourage more of that because those kind of jobs are good paying jobs. The second thing I had a question about is, I know what I asked about this years ago, is obviously when you get new employees trying to figure out a route, do you have equipment that could be programmed like a GPS device that would basically be programmed? A couple of devices that you could just put into the vehicle that would say you're on route number three and it's set to go and it will follow it whether it's a sidewalk plow or a street plow. And I know at the time I asked that question, it was like, well, the drivers know their thing and we want them to have some self-reliance and some independence. And so that wasn't really an attractive thing. However, for your concern about people who are sort of nervous about getting going, a new person and we're having to switch to a different route, I would think maybe that would be a helpful thing. Do you have anything like that that you could test out or use or maybe you do already use that? I don't know. No, we don't have anything like that. I mean, we've always had older equipment. It wasn't an option in these newer tractors. I suppose- Is it an affordable GPS device that you probably- Yeah, I suppose we could. I don't know if you can program a route into those though. The operators do go out in their route prior to the season to get familiar with it when we do get a new operator. We used to have a sidewalk tracker that had a, it was called a trainer. It had a jump seat in it. So the working form in that overseas, the sidewalk program would go out with a new operator and drive the route with them and point out any obstacles. Because we do, we send them out, go through your route. Let us know if there's any load tree limbs this year. Trees grow and limbs get in the way. If someone built a new wall with a sidewalk, there's all these obstacles that we can't see when it does snow. And we go out and make lists. And if there are trees, we give them to the city arborist. He goes and takes care of them. 150,000 dollar sidewalk tractors. You don't need to go smashing them into a tree. If there is somebody that's got some technical interest in researching that, where they could program in all of your street routes, all of your sidewalk routes in one device and you just pick the one you want and then it can follow, talk you through it. Like everybody doesn't know where they are and they have no idea where they are up or down. They just listen to the GPS, go left, go right. When they make a wrong turn that tells them to turn around and go the other way. But I mean, I would think there might be something like that that would be really helpful for you to know that you're gonna have somebody who's given a new role, new route, that they could actually feel a little bit less nervous and you would get the job done well, but obviously it takes some research. Maybe that's not something you could do, but maybe somebody else in DPW has that interest in researching something like that. Yeah, I can have my fleet manager, the fleet manager take a look at that. Yeah, it sounds like a good idea. If it was me, I would love to have that. If I was the first person having to do a new route, it would be helpful for me. So, thanks very much. Thank you. Let's call anyone else for commissioner discussion here. Will we open up to public comment? All right, Mr. Golding, how are we looking for public comments? Chair Hogan, there is no one currently signed up for public comment. If anybody does wanna sign up for public comment, please use the raise your hand feature on Zoom. But at this time, there does not appear to be anybody signed up for public comment. Okay, Mr. Golding. All right, we're not in need of any action on this item, but I'll say, I do really appreciate the preview here in the presentation, Lee, and I look forward to seeing how it goes this winter. Great, thank you. And thank you for everyone's input. I appreciate it. Yeah, thanks so much. Have a good evening. Yeah, you too. All right, moving forward on our agenda, item six, Relentine City Ordinance Language Review to address gendered pronoun recommendations. There's nothing in the packet on this. It's probably worth a little intro of what it's about. Director Spencer, would you like to introduce this? Or would you like me to? Sure, happy to say a few things. So just in conversation with Chair Hogan, we've been having back and forth conversations on various topics in the language and ordinance that we've been referring to has used gendered pronouns. And we'd had a conversation that might be helpful for the commission to weigh in with a simple motion to indicate your support for scrubbing city ordinance to have gendered neutral pronouns or revised at least to a list he and her. And I think all that we need at this time is just a general indication that that would be helpful. And we could use that support to talk to the city administration and city council to see if the ordinance committee could tackle that. Yeah, thank you for that, Director Spencer. I will know in, we do have a brief excerpt from Charter related to another agenda item in there, your director's report that does have anything, example of what we're talking about here. It's kind of with regards to the clerk. So people written record of proceedings of his respective board and so forth. There's a lot of that gendered language in there. And I think it would be worth a scrub through to make that language our commission, this particular one, all commissions and the ordinance in general more inclusive and welcoming language in that. I say we don't have the pen on the ordinance, but it's my understanding, you know, you can make a motion of support that's the ordinance committee to take a look at this issue. I guess amongst the fellow commissioners here, questions, is that enough backstory here or have more comments and clarifications that commissioner will be? I'm not sure what we're voting on here. Are we just voting to generally support the effort to look for gender, you know, pronouns that might look like they're excluding one or the other or is that, because we do have an item on the next agenda, you know, a vote about the clerk position. And it was odd that it was a clerk, it was called the clerk when it was a male, but it was called secretary when it was me as a female. So it was sort of an odd thing. So is that what we're talking about here? I'm not sure exactly. Yeah, I would say not specifically about the clerk or secretary, but just in general, us formally recommending that the ordinance committee take this on. So they'll just review through the whole city ordinance looking for places where there might be a he or a him, that kind of thing. And then, because that sounds like a great idea, but this one was sort of a subtle one. It had nothing to do with the language. The ordinance says clerk, but just coincidentally, it became secretary when the title was, you know, when we had the vote before. So we're moving forward with that, but I think it's a good idea. I will support that gender review. Yeah, that's the gist. Anyone else questions or concerns perhaps somebody more eloquent to myself? Director Spencer, do you have sort of suggested language here? I know there's not a mandatory item. Looking to formally state from us to the ordinance committee that were in support of more inclusive language. Yeah, I would think a motion could be to advise the city council that the public works commission recommend city ordinance be updated. To have more inclusive language and less gendered pronouns and fewer gendered pronouns. That's a good one. Yeah, but I like that language. And I as a potential question, I didn't share as chair in a position to make a motion or we need a motion from somebody who's not administering me to him. I'll make the motion as director Spencer had read it because I didn't write it down like you. But I fully agree that this, it's too bad that we had to wait this long to do this kind of thing. I'll second. I'm gonna call the order here, please. And my call to order is I have no idea what we're voting on and what we're deliberating on. I think there's a larger discussion at hand based on commissioner over be hinted at just a couple of the problems. In our last presentation, we just heard of another, right? Where Foreman was represented. So are we going to look at things like that or chairman? So I think I'm hard pressed to support it without knowing to what extent this will go. Will it correct those types of matters or it's just gonna stop at he, she. So I personally, I'm extremely uncomfortable not having seen anything ahead of time on this and voting on it, which could be only a half measure or maybe it overshoots. I have no idea to what extent we're working here. So I'm really confused on this. Well, I'll say that my motion was specific to what director Spencer said where we as the DPW commission are making a recommendation to the city council to review the city ordinances and make changes so that it's not gender specific. So that it's gender neutral, I guess, so that where it says he, him, it would further define it so that it's not just male oriented or just female oriented or whatever. That's, it's somewhat clear to me and I can't say that we would make a recommendation here in our commission to change the entire city, everything in it. I think we're just looking at a start, if you will. So. That's, I'll defer to the chair because I'm not sure it's my place for discussion here, but I do have further questions. Chair Hogan, your call here. I hear your questions, go for it. Yeah. I mean, so what, here again, we are a public works commission. So what are we recommending then that only those codes that fall within our purview be reviewed for this? Are we recommending that all city ordinance be reviewed for this? I question our role here without more specific direction in language. You know, any commission can advocate, I guess any position in which is we can advocate for controlling climate change, right? And, you know, what of it? To what extent, why are we doing this? And what are the benefits? What's the background to this? I just really feel uninformed on this particular matter before us. Sure. I don't know, I think, yeah, we obviously don't, we don't need to take any action here. We could communicate separately with our city councilors, but this is something that sort of came up in our review of ordinance related to this commission. It seems appropriate to make a recommendation as a body here, but we... So, I mean, my understanding was similar to Commissioner Barr's, which is why I seconded his motion. My understanding was as Director Spencer had outlined that it was a recommendation coming from this body to city council to pursue the work of kind of exploring the language of ordinances, to look at making them more gender-neutral. And again, I mean, to Commissioner Archambault's point of, you know, what is the scope or what is the scale of this kind of examination? I think that it is important not to perhaps have language that reflects these kinds of biases, potentially, I guess I'm not entirely sure what the harm we by contemplate there would be in encouraging city council to act in this fashion. As you said that there's no, I'm sure there's nothing binding on city council to take such a recommendation from us. But I think that, you know, the more bodies like this that would make such a request of city council to me would be for the better. So, and I really don't see a downside to this as to, I feel like it's fairly limited what we're asking for at this stage. So, thank you. And I just put like a comment on the scope. Like I don't, the language that caught my eye in review was general and speaking to all commissions. I don't, I don't mean to limit it. I mean, if this sparks a broader review of city ordinance beyond just commissions, by all means, that would be fantastic. I don't know, I just look into sort of written, I just probably raise the issue with the ordinance committee comments. Commissioner Niel. Yeah, no, I really do support this just promotion of gender neutral language to be as inclusive as possible. And we represent the public infrastructure and all our users. I don't think it's an overstep if we are suggesting to city council that the language that we have that sets the parameters and rules for our infrastructure is inclusive of all our citizens instead of just he and him as a she, her. And as a they, them, it would be great if we all felt like we were really and truly acknowledged in this. And to commissioner Arshambo's point about then dealing with, you know, what different members of city staff use. I don't think that that necessarily falls in our purview but this ordinance language that we sign on to, I think we do have a voice in that. Commissioner Overby, thank you. I was gonna add that I can understand where commissioner Arshambo is coming from as far as what's the boundary of our authority but and what we could just say something about climate change and what good is that. But in fact, you know, it is the same thing. I mean, we really are just suggesting and I took at face value the wording that we are gonna recommend as the agenda said, recommend that the Burlington ordinance language be reviewed to address gender pronouns. To me, that's sort of general and in fact, it's sort of a general support for that as if we were to say we wanna generally encourage that we do any kind of public works activity, buying of vehicles or anything for climate change. So I'm okay with voting for something that seems to be sort of generally reviewing the way we do things. We're not setting a policy. We're just saying we as a group have thought that it's an important thing to be done and so we're adding our support. So I don't have a problem with it according to the way it was worded in our agenda. Thanks. Any other commissioner discussion on this? I mean, I think the only thing that as is Chris, the only thing that came up that might seem appropriate in terms of an adjustment to the wording is not just gendered pronouns, but gendered roles and other descriptions that are in ordinance. So I'd just be cautious of only addressing the pronouns and if we wanted to modify it just to say gendered pronouns or gendered roles and titles or something like that, we go with that and that would be my proposal. Maybe that's a motion, I don't know. Motion to adjust. I'd be okay with that amendment to my motion. Thank you guys. So we had a motion that was seconded suggested revision to that motion from commissioner Gilman that seemed friendly to the motioner, commissioner Barr. Is that revised language friendly to the seconder? Commissioner Bose. Yeah, sure. Thank you. Commissioner Archer and Bose hand up a moment ago before. Commissioner Archer, but where, did you have another question and concern or points for us? I do. This really other than the agenda, which contained this item, we have no other information. I'm just curious to know why language was not proposed that could have really thwarted any of my concerns. And again, I'll reiterate that my concern is that this may or may not support only a half-hearted effort. Commissioner Gilman actually just referenced it well, I think that could we identify roles in this or titles, you know, too. So my concern is that we might approve something that is only half-hearted and maybe a feel-good measure and maybe doesn't go far enough. This is why I think it's a bigger discussion. So back to my original question, why not just have the language in the packet? Why are we just hashing this out now? Director Spencer. Great, happy to answer that. Commissioner Archer and Bose. So the chair and I had been discussing this concept for a while and I sent out the agenda to the chair and the vice chair and commissioner Hogan had suggested that we add this to the agenda I had forgotten to. And we had felt that it was a relatively straightforward and simple kind of advisory to the city council. I am more than happy to delay it. We can write a memo if you'd like. This was an item that, you know, the chair had asked that, you know, we put on the agenda. So I did and we're happy to do with whatever the commission would like to do. Okay. We could always punt and come back with more documented examples of exclusive language and specific proposed. We do have a motion that's been proposed and seconded. So I think that before we withdraw that motion, we should vote on it or, I mean, I don't think it's appropriate to simply like pull it at this point. I think that if we decide that we don't want to move forward with it, we should have a vote and make that decision on that basis. Yeah, fair. Thank you. And commissioner O'Neill, you have a comment on that. Can director Spencer read the whole, or chair Hogan read the whole statement with the addendum to it as we go to a vote? Because I didn't get the additional language and I just want to kind of be clear on what we're voting on. Yeah, do you want to take a shot at it again? I've tried to write down what I had understood the potential motion to be, which was to recommend the city council review and update the Burlington Code of Ordnance Language to be gender neutral. Or if people want to list gender or to remove gender pronouns and roles, I just thought it was easier and maybe cleaner to just say to have the language be gender neutral. Leave it at that. So recommend the city council review and update the Burlington Code of Ordnance Language to be gender neutral. Is that fair? Okay. Yeah, so we do, we have a motion that has been seconded around that, around that language, which is to take the two of votes on this motion. Commissioner Barr. Aye. Commissioner Bose. Aye. Commissioner Gilman. Aye. Commissioner O'Neill. Aye. Commissioner Overby. Aye. Commissioner Archambault. Abstain. And aye for myself. Six, four, and one abstain. Motion passes. Thank you. All right, moving forward, related notes. Todd has been a catch us in a review of the agenda that was labeled in the agenda also as item six, a vote on the clerk position for DPW commission. Dr. Spetcher, should we call that 6A or something? Does that numbering matter for us at this point? I'll just chime in and say that there was a clerical error on my end, filling in for Val that I mislabeled that. So apologies that there are two numbers. No worries. Thank you, Bob. Did I catch it earlier? All right. So the numbered, the lettered system is just advisory. You're free chair Hogan to proceed, however you'd like with this item. Okay. Great. Let's, are we going to get in trouble if we call this seven and come in everything else from here on out? I don't know if anyone knows that. You could also just call the two sixes, A and six B, six A and six B. So we just finished six A and now we're on to six B. Then you don't have to renumber. Yeah. That work? Yeah. Let's do that. Six, about six B here, vote on a clerk position for DPW commission. Backstory there's a little bit in, was touched upon in the director's report, but we had a vote in July, commissioner will be since reviewed what was written up as the role in the ordinance and so forth and then discussions offline. Perhaps that goal could be is in effect been served largely by a staff member and that we could formally adjust our officer list thanks to reflect that. Director Spencer, is there anything else to want to add on this one? Staff is happy to fill the role. I think given the review of ordinance with commissioner overby, this seems to make the most sense given how we generate minutes currently. And we're fine with having customer service supervisor, Val Duchamp be the clerk if that's the commission's interest. Thank you for that. Commissioner, I was just gonna say we reviewed the way that the ordinance described the role of the clerk and it's pretty much difficult to do the note taking and participate as a commissioner as well, which is why this is taking place. So I think that's a good decision that we vote for having Val as a staff person do that so that anybody who takes that role as clerk can do that role and not have to be simultaneously trying to participate in the meeting as well. So I think it's important that we make this vote. Is that a nomination or could we get a nomination? I guess I would ask, can we nominate a staff member? Or is that, okay, let me just say I'll nominate Val Duchamp to be the BPW commission clerk. Thank you for that nomination, commissioner Barr. Second. Seconded by commissioner Gilman, thank you. Are there any other nominations we should consider? All right, so we'll move forward to a vote then in voting to elect Stephanie Val Duchamp as our commission's clerk. I will call, call roll and go down our list. So one at a time here, commissioner Bose. Hi. Thank you, commissioner Gilman. Hi. Commissioner O'Neill. Hi. Commissioner Oberbe. Hi. Commissioner Archambault. Thank you, sir. Commissioner Barr. Hi. And I for myself, okay, passes unanimously. Congratulations Val and thank you in advance for taking us a clerk position for us. All right. That closes out Jenna, relabeled agenda item six B on the clerk position, moving forward agenda item seven approvals of the draft minutes from October. There was one suggested edit that we've received thus far. Ms. Grover, our director Spencer, are you positioned to share that for the commission's benefit here? I believe public information manager Goulding is able to share the one suggested edit in the minutes requested by commissioner Archambault. Got it. Well, we saw your screen for a second there and then lost it. Yeah. Just pulling up the suggested change. We did not have that in a Word document with Val out things just fell apart on our end. So we still get everything put back together but we do have the change here up on the screen. Got it. Could you increase the font size, Rob? I think if I do that, we're going to lose the, we're going to lose the ability to see the entire message. Do you want to read the added sentence from commissioner Archambault? Sure. Commissioner Archambault asked if we could add the latest sentence to the language from the October minutes under section 4.1. If you can see it, it's in red and it reads, commissioner Archambault expressed concern about loss of revenue with the removal of meters at a prime parking location, as well as safety concerns at a location with excessive traffic. All right. Thank you for that. There are any questions around that edit or other corrections to be considered from my fellow commissioners here? I think we were all present last month and thus all eligible to vote here. Seeking a motion if anyone is ready to make one. So moved with the edit. It's like commissioner Archambault submitted. Thank you. So the motion from commissioner Barr, second from commissioner O'Neill. Thank you for that. All right. That we will bring it to a vote. We're going to approve the minutes from October with the one edit we just reviewed. Is there a discussion around that? Commissioner Overby. Can I just make another suggestion that you edit the title of the commission chair from secretary to clerk, referencing our gender role at the top of those minutes. It doesn't say clerk. It says secretary. And that's, it's a minor thing, but it's relevant to what we've been talking about here. Just the word secretary should be clerk. I'm not the secretary. I wasn't the secretary. Now I'm not either. Thank you, commissioner Overby. I definitely accept that amendment. Thank you. Is that friendly to the seconder as well? Yes. Thank you for that, commissioner O'Neill. Any other discussion around the motion here? Just real quick, that sort of emphasizes my whole point about that discussion, about not having advanced discussion about which communications might be addressed here. So I was going to put it out there like perfect example. Thank you, commissioner Overby. Well, what's interesting is that the ordinance is clerk and nowhere does it say secretary in the ordinance anywhere, but it says clerk. But the gender kind of assumptions kicked in when it was a female clerk, that it was secretary and when it was commissioner Gilman, it was clerk. Which is just, we do these things. We all do it. So it's just, I just- Could I ask the question too? I think it would be interesting to get that straightened out. Could I ask a question just since we're kind of discussing it now, is that, is it a difference in who might have typed up these minutes? That the new person that typed them up just saw that as the secretary role. I know that it's a role that we need to change, but I don't, I guess I'm just- I don't know. And it doesn't really matter because it's resolved. Yeah. It is just, it's, we all think if you talk about a doctor that you visualize in your mind that it's a male and it just things happen. And that's maybe what happened. Yeah, and I can just say that I've been second- fixing it. I don't disagree with any of that. I just, I would say that like in other committees that I've been on, the term secretary has also been used for males, right? I mean, the role or position of secretary is not necessarily gendered. I'm not saying that that didn't happen in this case, but I mean, it's like, I didn't realize that I'm still relatively new on this committee. I don't know what historically clerk secretary, like which terms have been used or haven't been, but I know that on other committees I have been on, secretary is not necessarily a gender term, but it doesn't really matter. As you say, the point is- If it's written down, there are secretary roles and that is a taxable corporate role, but it's not in the city ordinance whatsoever that it's secretary work or clerk secretary. It is clerk. And we've had clerk for the last eight years until this one. So I'm not complaining, we've got it fixed. It's great. We're making progress. We're good. Commissioner Barr, is there- Yeah, I just wanted to say that I've been a member, I'm still a member of two organizations where in one of them I've held the role of secretary twice. One is the national organization. I've held the role of secretary. So I kind of think of it, yeah, it's fixed. Like you said, commissioner, it's fixed. So moving forward. Moving forward. Okay, we have a motion that's been seconded. Any other discussion around that motion? All right, for completeness here, I'll call roll on the vote to approve the minutes as modified. It's commissioner Gilman. Aye. Thank you. Commissioner O'Neill. Aye. Commissioner Overby. Aye. Commissioner Archambault. Aye. Thank you. Commissioner Barr. Aye. Commissioner Bose. Aye. Aye, for myself, minutes have passed unanimously. Thank you. Item number eight, director's report. All right, great. You all saw the director's report in the packet. We are continuing to do some hot mix patching of the road system before winter really sets in. And I just thank the crews for working as late into the season as we're able to do it. There also was an update on our financial performance to date. The general fund performance within DPW is trending toward consistent with budget this year, which is a big success for our team given COVID. We are, as the report discusses, seeing a large revenue shortfall in our traffic and parking facilities funds as activity downtown has slowed significantly with COVID. So I expect that next month we'll be at the commission with a financial report from the parking facilities fund and the traffic fund and our proposed actions to resolve that financial situation, or at least to start to do so. I provided some update in the packet around Green Mountain Transit. Currently, it's operating as fair free service. There's been significant interest in the community and among some city counselors maintain fair free service. I serve on the finance committee of Green Mountain Transit. And I have directed with the board to staff to try to put together a budget for FY22 that could look at continuing a fair free service for 22. I will say it is not looking promising given the financial situation, fares do cover over $2 million a year of GMT's operation. But we are trying to see if the state or other sources could help continue a fair free service. We'll see if there is any federal stimulus or other effort to support transit entities with the new federal administration. And lastly, I just want to draw attention to the fact that the city council on November 9th approved a few reclassifications for DPW staff that had been in limbo since March when our reorganization package got held up by COVID. And I want to thank the council and the administration for allowing these to proceed. One of the reclassifications was to have public information manager Rob Goulding reclassified as public information and customer service manager. So that our communications team and our public, excuse me, our communications and our customer service team are an integrated team and can communicate and coordinate with our messaging. There are more ways than ever that the public is expecting us to communicate across multiple channels. And it was no indication of any sort of performance issues. In fact, it's really an opportunity to take two strong teams and make them stronger. And I'm really excited to have Rob Goulding fill this managerial role and look forward to continuing our efforts on reaching underrepresented communities and other efforts to improve what we are doing to get our message across to the public and engage the public in decisioning. Thank you. Thank you for that, Director Spencer. Without going to commissioner communications. Commissioner O'Neill. Okay, I think just two things. One is the fare free transit for GMT. I guess what's the projection on how much longer GMT can continue to offer a fare free transit just because I do know from other conversations across the street state that there definitely is a lot of conversation about making GMT fully fare free. So what needs to happen and what is the role of the city and the public works commission on either supporting this or advocating or what's our role in all this? I'll just quickly provide a response. There's no formal role for the DPW commission. Largely it was an FYI the public is certainly welcome to advocate and support a position where GMT can continue to operate the fare free service. The FY 21 budget, which goes through June 30th of 2021 does allow for fare free service to continue through that point, which is another seven or eight months out. I will say that the board could choose to enact a fair earlier in order to save some of our money in FY 21 to provide an easier budget year in FY 22 as the FY 22 budget is very constrained. But at this point, the plan is to continue for the next six, seven months and then absent of any additional revenue being able to be secured that GMT would go to fair service at that point. Okay, thank you. And then my second comment question is any updates from Queen City Park Road and the Burton higher ground proposal? I know that was sort of in the cooker and yes, you would ask that that be an agenda item and it did not make it onto this agenda. And for that, I apologize, we will get it on next month. We have completed the repaving of Queen City Park Road and it is a huge difference. I was very pleased that we were able to do the sub base work so that this is not a short repaving project and then to have it fall apart. And it is a very durable improvement for a few decades to come. And happy to talk about our review of the Burton higher ground traffic impact study in front of the DRB and we can work with Chair Hogan to add to the agenda next month. Okay, thanks. That's all. Thank you. Commissioner Overby. I had two questions on the director's report. Has there been any ridership change with the fare free? Do they, do you have stats on that? Yes, ridership during COVID has decreased significantly because there are fewer commuting trips and also because of the desire for social distancing. The buses did early on have a maximum passenger limit leave of 18 passengers on the larger buses. So it's 50% of the seated capacity. So ridership generally has been trending around 50 to 60% of normal. So even with fare free service we've seen a dramatic reduction in ridership. I was just curious that it's just that with the COVID situation that fare free test it would have a different result if we didn't have the fare free. I'm just curious about how to get more people to try to ride the bus. But this has not been a good time to test that due to the other constraint. A second thing about the e-bikes now with the green ride bike share that's obviously been completely sort of discombobulated also due to the COVID situation. Do we have any sense that the e-bike situation will happen ever? Thanks for that question. So you saw in the packet report that ridership there were over 4,000 rides this year even with the pandemic and the services being provided without any municipal contribution at this point. We have been expecting the introduction of the e-bikes from this vendor and there have been circumstances that have delayed the introduction of those e-bikes and some missed timelines from the vendor. Again, this is a vendor for whom we're not paying anything to provide the service in Burlington. So we're evaluating our options for next year given that the vendor has not been able to bring the e-bikes to market as they had discussed. And at the same time, there is some service being provided at no cost to the city currently. So we're working with CAPMA, UVM, South Burlington, Winooski and trying to figure out the next steps. I was just curious if there was any update on when they would want to deploy them and now it makes more sense to do it in the spring anyway so when the weather's better for riding. And the last thing of the commissioner communications is I wanted to just make sure that I shared with other folks the roundabout sample. I happened to be fortunate to go to Ohio where they had a roundabout that's similar to one that I think would fit nicely at the intersection of Cambrian Rise and North Ave. And so I provided Val those, the three pictures which I also sent individually to the commissioners and to engineer Baldwin. So I don't know if you wanna show those. I sent them so they could be shared with other people as an example of what a roundabout would look like that is a small one because there's confusion about that sometimes. Is that something that was made in a form that could be shown on a computer? Yes, public information manager Goulding, are you able to open up those pictures and share them on the Zoom platform? Yep, I've got them up right here. I'll take them one by one. While you're doing that, I just wanted to, it's always interesting to look at things in a theoretical way. And I know there's discussions about what's a safe intersection at the entrance of Cambrian Rise and North Ave, the South entrance there. So I just wanna continue to provide information that might be useful for the decision-making process to the general public to understand what one looks like and it's been in operation for probably five years and on a street like North Ave in Athens, Ohio at College Town and the dimensions. So this is a picture that shows you how you approach coming up to the roundabout and this is sort of the nature of the road. There's university buildings, there's residences, there's small homes, there's a couple of restaurants and bars. So this is what you see as a driver coming up to the roundabout. The next one, this is a picture of the entering the roundabout and you'll notice the fact that there is a crosswalk that is prior to any vehicle entering the roundabout and what's very important to realize and people don't understand this a lot is that the crosswalk is before the cars have to start figuring out how to get in and out of the roundabout, which means that the pedestrians get attention separately from when the cars are trying to look for vehicles as well, which is critical to the safety of a roundabout. This one happens to be 27 feet, the grass area in the middle, 10 foot of brick truck apron and then 16 and a half feet for the derived lanes. So that gives you an idea of what it looks like in an area that is similar to what we're talking about at Cameroon Rise. You can look at the next one, which basically shows you the same idea with a vehicle coming from the other direction. Solvegg, quick question. So you were just commenting on the dimensions, does that mean it's about 60 feet total across? The dimensions, if I do the math? Yes, well, the next one, if you look at the, I can use, there's actually a diagram of the dimensions, but the middle green area is 27 feet, the 10 foot area beyond that around the edges is the truck apron. And then the travel lanes are 16 and a half feet. That happens to be the design of this one. There's a dimensions which are gonna be too small, but if you look at the bottom of that diagram, it shows you the distance, the widths of that. I asked them specifically to show you. So if you look at this, it shows you 27 feet, the grass aisle in the truck aprons and the drive lanes. I just, I'm not saying this is gonna be, we don't take these plans and just implement them, but I'm saying that number one, the fact that the pedestrian crossings are separated from a vehicle gets to give 100% attention to pedestrians and bicyclists trying to get across there as separately from trying to negotiate at 15 miles an hour around this turn. And I think that the critical element is that separation of vehicles that are driving through there are separating their attention in a way that gives some real benefits to a pedestrian trying to get through there. So I just wanted to share this information with you and with the public because we will ultimately be having further discussions about North Avenue and Cambrian Rise in the future. So this is information I just wanted to make available. So thank you very much, Rob, for making it possible for people to see this. That's the end of my Commissioner of Communications. All right, thank you for that, Mr. Obey. Commissioner Archibald. Two questions. Actually, one is the first is just a note. I know we have a regular sidewalk program in place and slowly replacing some of the sidewalks in need. Unsure if you've explored intervail avs around the intersection with Archibalds, particularly as it runs north of that intersection. Those sidewalks are down to dirt on both sides for a pretty good stretch. So I just want to throw that out there. And I know there's a lot of considerations and there's a lot of bad sidewalks around the city. For your Director Spencer, you just maybe throw it on your list for someone to check out, see how that might fit among the priorities to look at. The second thing, so we saw UBM Vet Center over the past few weeks, at least within the last month, get significantly hacked and effectively be taken out. And I guess I just wanted to ask Director Spencer what assurances he might be able to offer about his own department, arguably one of the more important departments of the city in terms of providing infrastructure and systems that support life. What assurances could you provide us on that, Director Spencer, that we might not end up in that same situation? Great, my extreme apologies. My internet cut out. You asked for, could you reset the question? I'd be happy to answer it, sorry. Okay, number one, did you catch the interrail av piece? No, I did not. My internet pretty much got your entire comment. My apologies. All right, let me start again. Yeah, 2020, man. So I wanna put on your radar interrail av sidewalks, especially as they run north of Archibald Street, on both sides, sidewalks are down to dirt, pretty disintegrated. And again, I know you have a whole prioritization list. I'm not asking you to prioritize other than just to give it a fair shot and look at it. It's a pretty rough shape more so than the average sidewalk out there. North of Archibald Street, got it. Yeah, yeah, okay. All right, I was gonna pause to make sure I still had you before I continued. You've got me this time. Okay. We witnessed within the past month, the UVM Medical Center being, boy, almost decommissioned, so to speak, in terms of servicing with the hacking attempts. It did make me question how are arguably one of the more important departments in the city, being the public works, might face a similar situation. So I was just asking you what assurances you could offer that we might not end up in a similar situation. Sure, thank you. The IT department has been taking the lead on the city's cybersecurity efforts. Brian Love, director of that department. And he has been working closely with us and leading up to the election right after UVM Medical Center's cyber attack. We did further bolster our systems fundamentally as we've been instructed. Our number one vulnerability into our system is email and clicking through on emails that are phishing or otherwise providing malware or other attacks into our system. So we've done extensive testing for staff on what to look for in emails, training, sorry. And I am not the IT expert, but I can tell you that we have reviewed the firewall for the city and various protocols in our training staff in best practices to seek to avoid a scenario like the one on the Hill. All right, thank you very much. That's all I have. Thank you, Professor Archambault. Commissioner Barr, you're still muted, there we go. Like you said, it's 2020. So I have to keep my space bar down for some reason. It's not letting me click out of mute. Oh, we got you now. Maybe someone there is trying to mute me on purpose. So I only had a couple of quick comments. One, kudos for excellent results in the pre-winter paving and patching that I think, especially in the East End, the old East End, that area where there was some deterioration, I should say. It's made it a lot better. I appreciate that. The only other item I have is that I'd heard from a few constituents and I'd had some correspondence with Nicole Loesch about this, but the Sharrows and the Colchester Avenue Corridor and the bike infrastructure is outstanding. When it gets to the bridge and it goes across the bridge, it just kind of stops. And there had been some probably a misunderstanding of it that the city of Burlington, DPW might assist Winooski in extending the Sharrows through the roundabout on the other side, but even be that as it may, whether it's a miscommunication or misunderstanding or it can't happen, I guess I would just ask if there could be some more collaboration between our city, DPW and the Winooski city, DPW because we've just started to fix the Colchester Avenue infrastructure and then it just kind of abruptly stops. So anybody trying to go into Winooski just kind of, it's like hitting a big wall. So I just wanted to throw that out there. Great, we can follow up with Nicole Loesch and the city of Winooski and further those conversations. Okay, thank you. Mr. Bose. Yeah, I just had one question, which was about the reopening of the streets, so the removal of some of the signs and the barriers, et cetera, with everything that's going on now, obviously we're heading into winter, but with the surge in cases and everything that's going on, I was just wondering if there are any conversations about all of the different adjustments that you've had to make, but specifically about those two, about the kind of the closing back down of particular access to neighborhoods or access to particular streets, what kinds of communication has there been with businesses that had the extended outdoor sidewalk spaces for restaurants and things like that? I know that again, we're into November now, whatever outdoor, I mean, I don't know who wants to eat outside at this point, but I'm just wondering if you'd had more conversations either about the streets or any of the other infrastructure, thanks. Great, so yes, expanded sidewalk permits concluded at the end of October, we did not hear from any businesses that they sought to extend it past October 31st, so that was telling for us, we did request that they remove those expanded sidewalk installations as of October 31st, and that work's been done. The temporary grab-and-go spaces will continue through the winter, thanks to your support last month, and we have removed the shared streets and the local traffic only streets, designations that were up with cones and or kind of temporary signage as we cannot conduct our winter maintenance activities around those temporary items. So it felt like October 31st was as far into the season as we could keep them up. We will have a robust sidewalk plowing and bike lane plowing this winter with hopes that that helps people get around, and that's our plan at this point, but we are always evaluating. I know the mayor's office is working with several departments on how to do more outdoor activities this winter to help people get outside. So not directly in our wheelhouse, but we're happy to help as needed. Thank you, that's all for me. Thank you, Commissioner Bose. Commissioner Gilmour. Nothing for me. All right, I'll just use myself. I don't have anything further on my end. Close out commissioner communications and bring us to agenda item 10, adjournment next meeting date, December 16th. Yeah, I found out on mute. So motion to adjourn. I'm involved with that. We got a motion from commissioner Barr. Thank you. Seconded. Motion. Gilman, you got me. The race every month. Seconded by commissioner Gilman. Thank you for that. Is there any discussion around that motion? All right. I was in favor of you say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye for myself. Any opposed? All right. We are adjourned at 8.50 p.m. Thank you all. Have a good evening. Thank you. Thanks all. Bye. Good night.