 All right. So good evening, everyone. Brendan Hogan chair of the Public Works Commission calling to order this January meeting of the Public Works Commission at 6.31. Good evening all. The first item on the agenda is the agenda itself. Mr. Goulding, you were to share that. There we go. Right. One step ahead of me. Thank you for that reference there. And welcome any motion on the agenda. Hello, commissioner. So moved here. This is Vice Chair, Neil Vivonco. I make a motion to approve the agenda. All right. Thank you for that second. Seconded from Commissioner Muntanu. Thank you. Is there any discussion around that motion? All right. Thank you. I will, as we are all by a phone call roll for the vote on this one, go down the list here. Please, Commissioner Bose. I thank you, Commissioner Kennedy. I thank you, Commissioner Overby. Yes, I thank you. Vice Chair, Neil Vivonco. I thank you. Commissioner Muntanu. That's fine. I for myself makes six. The agenda has passed. Thank you. With that, next item on the agenda is a public forum period. I will ask the interest of members of publics. Please keep their comments to three minutes, right? And I know there's interest in a lakeside. Our situation will notes that there is not a warranted agenda item on that. So we will not be having a discussion or debate amongst the commission at this point, but certainly interested and would welcome public comments on that parking situation or on anything else that's on your mind. And we have a couple of people in the room and potentially some participants. I see one hand in the virtual air here as well. Mr. Goulding, could you help facilitate our public comment here? First thing, Chair Hogan, I know the folks in the room I think are mostly here to talk lakeside. If it makes sense, I'll promote the person. For now, that's virtual. They have another topic and then we can come back to the room and have everybody speak in sequence if that makes sense. Works for me. Thank you. You're welcome. And just for other members of the public who are joining remotely, if you intend to speak during public comment, please do use the raise your hand feature on Zoom. And you can find that at the bottom of your Zoom screen. And you might have to hit the hit the three dot ellipses or some other means down there. But hopefully no trouble there. So to start with Karen Long, it is you're up to speak. How's that? We can hear you. Can I unmute myself? Yes. We can hear you. Yes. Welcome. Thanks. Well, this is different. I'm seeing, I don't know, lots of other people that aren't. It's an advertisement I'm looking at. Anyway, I'm coming and I'm not sure if I should wait and speak after you talk about the Great Streets and the TIF proposal, the downtown TIF. I've heard a presentation at City Council and I've heard one at my ward one eight NPA and Brian Pine claimed unequivocably unequivocally that two projects were permitted and the third was anticipated that were enough to fund this TIF bond that is being asked for us. I called zoning and one of the projects is the YMCA Hotel, which was approved in August 2019 and they have had two extensions and they will not be allowed another one. So that's kind of on hold. There is no other project in the queue to be that's going to help pay for this TIF bond. So I want to know about that. I want to know why Brian is going to all our NPAs and sharing these rumors. So that's it. And I also question the need for the Main Street, you know, that much money that we are going to spend because we need a high school much more than we need a Great Street. So I really hope that DPW will hold back on this. I know that Laura Wheelock is going around also at the NPAs and promoting this. I asked her about the parking we would lose and she said she didn't know, but I went to meetings, DPW meetings about Great Street several years ago. And I know that you folks have a number of parking spaces we would lose because diagonal parking, you can put more cars than parallel parking. So I'd like you to come forward with truthful facts, please. And let's hold off on borrowing any more money until we get a high school. Thank you. All right, thank you. Chair Hogan, if it works for you, I'll turn it over to the folks in the room. I know that I think everyone's signed up to speak here. Yes, please do. Hi, everyone, it's Maureen Fry again, meeting number four. So what I want to boil this down to is I've been working this issue since October. Since October, I've gotten to know many, many more of my neighbors and what's come out of the conversations, what's come out of the change.org petition, what's come out of the letters that have been dropped off in my house mailbox. The bottom line is I came to you in October talking to you about single-sided street parking because I don't think that Lakeside Avenue is safe. What has come out of my research is that not only is it not safe and many, many people agree with me on this, my neighbors mostly, is that it's not just that issue anymore. It's the creeping of hula tenants and guests, creeping into the neighborhood and taking the very limited parking that's happening in the Lakeside neighborhood. So it's not just about safety and single-sided street parking. It's all about, it's become as well about the fact that the hula organization has way more than 500 parking spots. I looked at the impact study that was requested from hula in 2020. It was approved by you guys for the zoning of it. And they talk about how they only need 308 spots and yet they have 360 spots and they actually have 370 spots. This is all on-site parking, okay? Since that time they have acquired 125 Lakeside Avenue. When you guys approve the parking plan, I mean, when you guys approve the traffic impact plan, it was based on on-campus parking and there was supposed to be no impact to the neighborhood. That's, that was one of the approval conditions. Conditional approval will adopt conditions associated with parking management plan to assure success of the plan and to prevent any on-street neighborhood parking with the expanded building. So what has happened is I have come forward and tried to get my data in a very transparent manner. And I reached out with Burlington, Vermont Public Acts Records Act request. I got information from DPW. I got it from Burlington Police. I've had conversations with safety officials at Burlington Fire Department. The bottom line is the metrics of the street based on the information I got to be able to present to you commissioner chair and all of your commissioners and to work with the director is that the metrics don't support what has been happening on the street. This spreadsheet that I got says that there has only been one car towed in four years. I have pictures of five cars towed in five months. And so when I reached out to give DPW a chance to go back over their data, they're standing by the fact that there's no discrepancies. So Lula has plenty of parking they have 125, they have on campus parking. The reason they were able to build the building that they did was because they told DPW and all of you that they were not going to encroach on our neighborhood. And so here we are in January of 2022. We have a lot of activity on the street. So my point to you, my request of you, director Spencer Chapin and director Hogan and all of your commissioners is that you go back and you verify the data and you cross check it to see what the actual activity in the neighborhood is because it is not reflected in the metrics that I received. And so I have actually deferred judgment on this situation in December because I couldn't be here to present, but I gave the information that I had available and I told you I was gonna be reaching out for the metrics. Well, I've got the metrics now and I have 113 people, 85% of which are from the neighborhood or from Vermont that have signed a petition that says we agree, Lakeside Avenue is not safe and something has to be done. And so in a perfect world, if I could wave a magic wand, it would be single side of the street parking on Lakeside Avenue and it would be tenant only parking in the rest of the neighborhood. But done by due diligence, I'm asking for the public officials to weigh in. That's all I can do is to ask you to dig down and do your due diligence and really find out what is happening on this street with one avenue in, one egress route, with a bar and an organization and commercial traffic and three different waste management companies, delivery companies, people walking and biking and running. And I can tell you this, now that Oakledge Park is open, thank you for that. You did a great job, got that done. But the truth is, the activity on Lakeside Avenue on the bike path is gonna double in the spring and summer. And so if you choose not to acknowledge the activity on Lakeside Avenue as it is today and as it has been, then this summer is really, really good to be active. And so my request to you is that you do your due diligence, you take a good look at this. If you need me to chime in again, I will, but I have to tell you, I have put in time and energy and resources, I've spoken to my neighbors, they have told me they want the same thing. And here we are in this environment where nobody can be here really to talk about it in person. I think you would have seen a whole different side to this discussion if the room was full of people. So I'm begging you, please take another look at this and really evaluate it based on transparent metrics. Because I can tell you, if I reach over and grab my phone. I can ask you to glue it on me, like I'm hearing your time here. Okay, will you yield me a few minutes? Two minutes of your time. We've got seven minutes, eight minutes. Now, when I ask you to conclude your remarks, I've heard what you said, I've got your emails. Okay. We will do our due diligence. Just do your due diligence. Just check out what's happening on Lakeside Avenue and in the neighborhood as a whole. Got it. Thanks. And Hula. Thank you. All right. Anyone else signed up to speak? Is anyone else interested to speak? We got a couple other hands in the air. Is anyone in the room like to speak? Signs around the room. There's someone on the chat. I think you folks are next up in queue. So we're gonna keep talking about the Lakeside Avenue with anybody that wants to talk about it and then they'll move on to another stuff. Okay. My name is Beverly Kehoe. I moved to Lakeside to Central and Wright Avenue in September. I'm also a tenant at Hula. I joined Hula in June when I was here on a temporary basis and I fell in love with the Hula, with the Lakeside neighborhood as well as Hula. I have seen the parking from my perspective and I think that there are issues but I think that they're solvable and I know there's a lot of history behind some of this data and I would actually love to see what you have because I agree with you that the actual metrics are important. I have anecdotal information. So from my second floor apartment at the corner of Wright and Central, I never see not a parking spot. There's always a parking spot available in when I look out. I also know that Lakeside Avenue gets busy, it's empty in the evening and I don't know if there's parking that's a problem for residents that happens during the day but it seems to me that residents are more out during the day and Hula is there more during the day. Where I've seen the greatest impact on the street is actually when St. John's Club has events. So that's been there forever. I'm sure it's grandfathered in. So I'm interested in finding more information about what's happening but I love Hula. It's an incredible place to work and support it and but I also understand that Lakeside Avenue is needs to preserve the quality of what it is but there's also been historical from what I understand historical data that there were commercial ventures there and it's been converted to residential. So there's an ebb and a flow that happens and I agree that it needs to stay in a consensus framework for how that happens. I don't know what would have happened if Hula didn't buy that building and that's a whole nother story I guess but in terms of providing an environment for high tech jobs I think you know that Hula is an incredible resource for that and it seems to me that there are solutions. I find that the more dangerous part of Lakeside Avenue from me walking from the end down here is this first path with the underpass and the condition of the road and the sidewalks, you know no sidewalk on that side of the road. So when I've actually walked up here this has been a more dangerous part. I don't know if there's other solutions. You're talking about having one half be like parking on one side, right? And which side are you talking to? The side with the houses on it? There's only three houses there and there's only, there's four houses there but there's only two houses that are affected because- Is there anything further? Okay, so in your corner. So for example, a solution might be that you actually require parking on the Hula side because then what happens anecdotally again, I've heard that people are having a hard time coming out of their driveways. That would alleviate the problem and provide more parking because there's more parking spaces on the Hula side. So there's a lot of choices and I'm willing to be involved and work with you on a, not an official basis but to see if there's something that can happen or if there's anything that the commission can review is something that I might be able to look at or look at solutions but I would like to do that informally but that's terrific. I want all cars, I want to be transparent. Everybody to have input. I want stakeholders from all walks of life to be able to have some input. I think, let's move forward. Is there, I guess who's next on the, Justin, thank you for the comments. Both us, Ryan, Ms. Keoh. Do you want to talk? Yeah. Your whole body was wind different from the one Harrison Avenue. They utilize that road virtually two, three, four times a day. And it is tight at certain times. But it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be a bad thing at all. It was a one-side practice. And if the other option would be to understand that there was access to that area at one time from Harrison Avenue, but that's no longer. I don't know if that can be fixed or not. But that's my point of view. I didn't have a support for it. One thing that I have a neighbor with, Harrison, is that it's kind of closed in. So I like the idea that it's avenue, but it opens it up. So the balance is really important. Sorry. Right. I think next we have a few folks online. Yeah, please. First in queue is Jim. We're going to allow you over to speak. Can you hear me? Yes, we can. Jim, welcome. You say your last name as well for our record too. Yeah, it's done. D-U-N-N. Thanks, Jim. Welcome. I live over on Central Avenue at the end of the street. And I've written it a few times as well. I've been here for 12 years. And you know, when Hula came, everyone was excited and we still are in fact, but if I am, as people have said, it's an amazing facility and opportunity for Burlington. But we all knew it was going to create some traffic issues. And, you know, I guess I hadn't really thought about the idea of them parking on both sides. The street itself, you know, if you've come up into our neighborhood it's a little bit awkward, you know, you get swung over to the left a little bit. Chapin will know this since he lives in the neighborhood. And cars that are parked at that end are literally sticking out in the road. You have to make a bit of a turn to get over into the lineup of the road to begin with. And then with cars on both sides, some of them pickup trucks, particularly with snow on the ground where they can't get that close to the curb. I mean, it is a very tight busy street. I don't know about dynamics in terms of the right size to make it parking on one side. But I will know, and most of you may know that historically there was only parking on one side because on the blodged side, there was no curb. And it basically was their parking lot right to the street. And people would pull in and bring their pickup trucks and point them out. And then they would leave and just go straight out. And so there was no parallel parking on that side of the street. So not only did they build that side of the street out, but then they extended it out with one of the pedestrian barriers. And overall, the street is substantially narrow now. And combined with the amount of traffic that's going through there, it does, I mean, again, you need to slow down anyway. But there are times when there's been delivery trucks that stop and it literally is impossible. And I have to think at some point or another, there's some emergency vehicles could have some difficulty getting in there as well. The other issue that I have written about, and I don't want to take much time here, but is at the end of Lake Side Avenue, we now have a very busy intersection. Before what we had was that you get to the dead end street, basically, you could go into the St. John's parking lot while you could turn left on Central Avenue. Well, now we have a right turn that takes you in behind Hula. We're all, or at least some of the cars are parking. And that is a constant in and out flow. So what you have, if you can imagine, is coming up Central Avenue, you've got cars parked on the right so you can't see ahead. And as you approach that intersection, you've got people coming up out of Hula and pulling right out onto Central Avenue and turning. And it is just a matter of time before there are gonna be accidents there. I had suggested, I think, click fix or something about a stop sign getting put at the exit where people are coming out from behind Hula. So they at least stop and look before they pull out onto Central Avenue. So there's some things that can be done here. It is a problem. I mean, I'm not one to complain a lot, but it is a serious problem. Everybody's happy with the neighborhood with the addition to this. Parking in the neighborhood, I think there really does need to be a study to look at whether or not residential parking is appropriate there because we were promised there would no be no impact. And there is an impact. It varies from day to day, but there is a significant impact as well. So I would ask that you take a look at that. And I think if there was a resident only parking, it would force people to do what Russ said that they would do, which is the park on their own property. They have the property, they have the space to do it. It's just a lot closer to where they work if they can park right in front and walk in. So I think some of that needs to be done to incentivize what Russ created back there and to use that space. So thanks very much. I appreciate your time. Thank you, Mr. Dunn. Chair, next in sequence is John Callow. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, I can, welcome. Hi, John Callow here, like Jim, I live in the neighborhood on Central Avenue. Been here for about 10, 11 years. Been in Burlington a lot longer. And I've also been involved with the development of Hula representing the owner. So I think I can perhaps shed a little bit of light in terms of context, in terms of what happened out on Lakeside Avenue. You know, I think that historically, this is a factory town. So to characterize it as this standalone residential neighborhood is somewhat misleading in that the neighborhood is created to support what was the Queen City Cotton Company, which is now the Innovation Center. And that coupled with Blodgett, which is now Hula, and Harbor Watch Condominiums, which started out as the Northern Oil Terminal, a bulk oil storage facility that had jet fuel, as well as number two heating oil, sort of like the mobile installation on Flynn Avenue. So you can imagine that there has been a lot of mixture of truck traffic that historically has come through this neighborhood. And there's probably only a handful of Lakeside residents that really kind of recall this history. But you can imagine long tandem tankers coming through the neighborhood. And again, that was then, this is now, and but I just bring that up to sort of just provide a little bit of historical context. With regard to Lakeside Avenue, Jim pointed out correctly that when it was Blodgett, there was no curb cut. There was no sidewalk. There was no traffic calming. There was basically at the end of a shift, it was like the starting gun at the Indianapolis Speedway, just multiple cars exiting at one time. So when we went through the planning process, which I don't remember actually coming before the Public Work Commission for approvals, but we worked closely with the Department of Public Works in the design of the improvements of Lakeside Avenue. And I shared some of the concerns that have been raised here. And but however, the end product, having parking on both sides with a green belt and a pedestrian sidewalk on both sides, creates a safer environment than what was there prior. I agree with everybody that says it's tight. And that was my initial reaction. I remember when the road was first installed, the curbing was first installed, I called the engineer and had them come back out and measure it because I didn't want to be in a conversation where it was like, oh my gosh, we screwed up. It's two feet narrower than it should be. But in fact, it is exactly within an inch of what the design drawings were. And the design, it wasn't that Hula came up with this design. This was the city of Burlington's design. And again, at first I was somewhat reticent, but I get it. I mean, it does slow the traffic down. During the wintertime, it's tight, it's narrow, but it functions. And if it slows us down, that's a good thing. Some of my neighbors have a tendency to speed up in the neighborhood, which I don't like. But that's human nature. So in a way, this is not a bad thing despite the amount of traffic. I'm not sure with regards to the safety issue that Maureen has raised, whether or not there's any facts that can back that up. And I know V-trans maintains logs of traffic. And I know that when we first came to the city, we had to uncover it. And that intersection was an exceedingly safe intersection. I don't know if that's changed in the last year, but that'd be interesting to see. With regard to, it's not a perfect solution. And I agree with Jim and Jim's observations. I think having stop signs at all approaches at Central and Lakeside would be a good thing. But I must point out that what's out there was approved. In other words, it's not that somebody forgot to do something. It's installed the way it was approved. Now, that doesn't mean we can't change things. And if I had to do over, I for sure would be interested. I think I'd like to see stop signs at Central Avenue, at Hula, and coming out of the so-called St. John's Club parking lot. And maybe even on the westbound on Lakeside Avenue. I think the other thing too, is that we may want to- Mr. Goh, you're out of time here. Could I ask you to conclude your remarks? Okay, I just think that there is the ability to maybe improve sight lines too by eliminating a parking space or two. But I do think that we have safety is one issue and parking management is another, but let's not conflate those. And if the final remark is that if the city is interested in residential parking only, that's fine. Hula will not object to that at all. Thank you. Thank you. Next in queue is Madges, joining us remotely. Hi, can you hear me? Yes, you can. You're welcome. Cool, thank you. I am calling in to ask about putting in a stop sign at the intersection of South Union and Adams Street. Every single other intersection along South Union around that intersection has stop signs and Adams is really steep. So when you're driving up it and you're trying to make a turn on the South Union, this car is parked along South Union and it's hard to see oncoming traffic from either direction. So I feel like a stop sign, like a three-way stop would be really useful in preventing any crashes or anything around there and to make it safer. And that is all. Maddie, can we get your last name as well for records? Matthew. Maddie, Matthew. All right, thank you. Yep. That is all. Using cube, chair. All right, great. Thank you all for the remarks with that. I will close the public forum and move forward to item four on our agenda, which is the consent agenda. We are there are two items on the consent agenda, approval of minutes from the December meeting and parking removal on Caroline Street. There was a couple of minor edits to the original draft minutes that were circulated earlier today. Yeah, I can pull those up, Chair, and I circulated a copy to everyone with one additional change, misspelling of a commissioner's name and we correct it so I can pull that up and have that up for everyone. That'd be great. Thank you. All right, we got Vice Chair O'Neill's name corrected. Thank you for that. Let's scroll down and highlight it. There's a couple other key edits. Five or nine, six or nine, sure. Very good. Light rewording on commissioner comments. Sure, okay. Thank you for that, Mr. Golding. Is that an entertainer motion if anyone is so inclined? I'd like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda with the edited updated draft minutes. A motion from Vice Chair O'Neill Vavaco. Thank you for that. Is there a second? I'll second that. Thank you, Commissioner Kennedy. Is there any discussion around that motion? All right, seeing none, we'll go to a vote. Commissioner Bose. Aye. Thank you, Commissioner Kennedy. Aye. Commissioner Overby. Vice Chair O'Neill Vavaco. Aye. Commissioner Mutano. I wasn't at the meeting, should I abstain? You're welcome to vote if you're... Oh, aye. If you've read it. Yeah. Take an aye and an aye for myself. Right, the consent agenda is passed. Thank you. Moving forward, item five, revised capital plan and main streets, main street gray streets, proposed bad items. Thank you, Chair Hogan and commissioners for giving us time at tonight's meeting. Fortunately, we had a light agenda and have an opportunity to delve into two very significant proposals to dramatically reinvest into our city. And I wanted to make sure the commission had the opportunity to weigh in on these items before the council decided whether or not to place these on the ballot for the town meeting day 2022 election. And so we have two presentations tonight, one on the revised capital plan, which has been reduced in size and scope since we presented to you last, as you recall, the special election did not receive the two thirds majority for approval of the original bond proposal. So we are returning with a smaller proposal and want your input on it. And then the main street, great streets project, which has been a project 10 years in the making and has a way to fund a generational upgrade without impacting property tax loans or property tax payers, excuse me. So I have with me tonight the city engineer, Norm Baldwin and senior engineer, Laura Wheelock and engineer, Olivia Doris, who are going to present. And if it's friendly to the chair and the commission and maybe have the two presentations follow each other or we could do questions after either it's your project. Kind of taking one at a time. That is fine. We thought we'd start with the revised capital plan and city engineer, Norm Baldwin, do you want to give the overview? Yeah, sure. Thank you. One favorite time. So as you're aware, there was a December bond vote seeking to propose a bond vote for the next three years of fiscal year 23, 24 and 25, valued at $40 million. All that vote, 57.3% voted as part of it. The bond vote did require majority vote, so it failed. 57.3% is in our eyes is certainly a vote of some measure of support for what we're proposing, what we're asking of the voters. And so the mayor taking this to heart, understanding that many people see that there's opportunities with potentially federal dollars and the challenge of building a high school that there's some hesitation on the voter's part. So in reflection, we still have a continuing need to address significant serious issues and ongoing obligations that moving forward. So what the mayor has proposed and asked us to do is prepare a revised capital budget or bond vote that in working in the capital committee came to a value of $25,900,000. And that had a number of elements, both public works and other departments that were in play. And I did say, do you want me to share the presentation while you're talking through these changes? Yeah, if you could share the spreadsheet that shows it indicates the revised numbers, that'd be great. Okay. And I can talk specifically about public works elements. So for public works in these different categories, our interests in serving infrastructure that we're responsible for, there was a category called local match, which includes a number of federal projects that we're managing that require local match obligations to be paid moving forward and continuing here and into the future. As you can see, the local match had changed from three and a half million in the previous request to four and a half million in large part due to increasing, or capturing some of the dollars that were within the bridge segment to fund federal dollars for, local match dollars for federal funded projects. You'll see streets and bridges, we went from a million forward to two million. That was to fund immediate need bridge work and additionally a one-year paving program or enhanced paving program. Transportation improvements plan continued to be two million 500,000 and then bridges were striked out because we're removing that money into the local match to pursue federal funds and delay some of that work that is not as urgent. But certainly we have bridges that have an urgent need. Laura has pointed out to me that there are two particular bridges even more recently, Queen city had a vehicle impact railing and it has to be replaced. There's also bridges on the belt line that have been damaged through in the past year. So these are new developments but we've accounted for them in this revised plan. When presented as the board of finance on January 10th, board of finance asked us to reduce what we resubmitted at 25 nine to potentially 20 million and to understand what the consequence of that would be. In addition, they asked us to provide further specifications within those specificity within those categories. In other words, listed individual projects to really assert the need is there and what the consequences is if we don't move forward. Staff has since that January 10th meeting been working on preparing more detailed listing and we are scheduled to go back before the board of finance is coming Thursday, January 20th. So there has been a significant amount of work to improve and sharpen the numbers within these categories, but there is a strong urgent need. And in fact, today I looked at some of the local match obligations. But I think we're frankly not fully funding all our future obligations moving forward in the next three years. So those things need to be identified, understood in part of that decision-making. We plan to present some of those pieces of information as we refine that information. I don't know if there's any other questions, but that in some total is where we're at. So I think city engineer Baldwin, one thing to add on this presentation is just the general impact of property tax payers of this smaller bond. Previously, the $40 million bond peaked out at impacts to property tax payers of an average new median valued home of $13 a month. You'll see here with this smaller bond proposal, it peaks out at around $7.39 a month for the median value homeowner. So we have a larger presentation here, but we can hit it with any questions and thanks for your time. All right, yeah, thank you for that introduction here. We'll cycle through fellow commissioners while this particular one is fresh. Let's see. Commissioner Kennedy, would you like to start? Yes, hi. Sorry, my roommate is cooking like right in front of me if I look over there, that's why. But yeah, thank you for presentation. I was disappointed to see that the initial budget wasn't approved on the ballot, but I look forward to a lot of the changes that have been proposed with this new budget. And I'm kind of confused about what we're planning on doing with this meeting. I couldn't find it in the packet regarding this is just more of a discussion that we're reboting on a change now. So we're just trying to keep the commission informed of the quick moving parts to these conversations with the Board of Finance and the administration engaging the Board of Finance and Council. Obviously the commission has a vested interest in some of the infrastructure systems that we maintain to make sure that we're seeking to address any issues that go with the deficiencies of our systems. Great. I mean, I don't, I'm not sure that I have any real questions, but yeah, I appreciate being kept updated. And thank you. Thank you. Should the commission want just for context, should the commission want, we would certainly welcome a vote of support to recommend this going on the ballot on Town Meeting Day as the council will be deliberating on this at their 24th, January 24th meeting. Thank you for that. I'm just going to ask you for that. That's why it was warned as an item with a vote. We have that option. Yep. Thank you. All right. Commissioner Mutano. Hey, yeah. Thanks so much for the presentation. My question is about the more recent, I guess kind of cuts that the board of finance is considering to go from that 25 nine number down to 20 million. If I understood that correctly, where is that money going to be taken from since it seems like primarily the biggest change is getting rid of that 10 million some from Memorial Auditorium and basically pairing that, you know, decimating kind of that project. So where, where would additional cuts come from and how might that affect public works infrastructure? So in my opinion, based on what I've seen to date, it's going to impact their ability to fully fund our local match obligations. If, if in fact money is not reassigned to that purpose, it's going to impact our ability to be able to do an enhanced traffic calming. It's going to impact our ability to, to pave. And we were, I think our first priority is to preserve and protect the investment in our sidewalk system. And yes, Memorial Auditorium did get reduced significantly reduced. But some of our bridge work is being deferred. To less immediate action to pursue federal funds. All right. I mean, thanks so much for that update. I mean, I support, I mean, the plan as it is now, I don't think, you know, we, we really want any further cuts to delay any of these projects. I feel like maybe a big reason behind the hesitancy among the voters that did make it out to the special election was the uncertainty in the Memorial Auditorium project, since it wasn't immediately clear what that $10 million would be covering or really the anticipated use for the space. So I feel like any further cuts to your current infrastructure and really, you know, I guess need right to actually public works, roads and sidewalks and such should, you know, should not be considered as further cuts. That's all for my comment. Great. Thank you. Thank you for that. Commissioner Bose. Thank you for that. Chief, and could you put the, the slide back up? Yes. One moment. Thanks. So a couple of my questions have, have already been asked, but I'd like to follow up a little bit. Because again, you know, that big, a big chunk of that reduction is coming from not having the Memorial Auditorium line item in there anymore. What you have already said. Norm about the local match and the inability to, to maintain that local match. I found quite concerning, you know, you've written in here in the revised budget and increase. And so just to be clear here, if you see that further reduction to the 20, not only would that local match go down from the increase that's in this revised budget, but it might go down even further. Is that, is that what I'm hearing you saying? Correct. Okay. The administration is still working on what would be the best way to do that. I think that would comprise that lower amount. And I'm not clear whether there will be cuts to the local match item versus other assets. But city engineer Baldwin is correct that if local matches cut, it may hinder our ability to chase federal dollars coming through the infrastructure and jobs act. So I mean, one of my questions really follows up on that in another area of the city, but I think that is the funding of, you know, a lot of this money that is out there that is going through different kinds of agencies. And I know because of the ways in which local municipalities have been affected, revenues have been affected in different kinds of ways. I know that a number of the federal agencies have been more flexible around match. So I'm just curious to see, you know, how that plays out, but I think one of the things that has been said is the desire to be able to get some of that money. So I'm just wondering, you know, how much flexibility there might be. Yeah, it's, it's important point to clarify here. There is what is already existing obligations. And then there is what is captured funds to capture federal dollars, which is a perspective decision as opposed to. We have an existing obligation. And I think that's one of the things that I think is really important is that there is a lot of support. Right. Two categories within that local match. That's being currently listed and funded now. So, I mean, that's really helpful. And one of the things, because I've given a lot of thought to, you know, why this, why this failed. When it was presented to the voters, albeit, you know, there was still significant support, but why did it. And I think commissioner Montanot gave a, I think one of the reasons that I agree with very, that people were less clear about, but there's also very much this kind of narrative. And I mean, you've, you've heard it here in the public comment period as well of like, why are we asking for more money? You know, what is it that we don't already fund? Right. So this, there is very much this kind of sense that like, what we're asking for is gravy. We're asking for more money to do more things. And there is a sense that this is, you know, these are all worthwhile projects, but should we do this now? There is this kind of playing off this again and again, you hear this versus a school. And so, and I see here that you've got a slide that's kind of addressing this. And I think that that's, I know you mentioned this earlier on kind of parsing out what, what happens if we don't, you know, don't actually pass this. And again, to go back to your previous slide just for a moment, I was thinking one thing that would be helpful in, in making this clear, there are things in here that I think are fairly straightforward, fire trucks, fire and police radio system. But when it says civic buildings, and even that, you know, decrease it from six to 4.3 million. And it says prioritizes urgent facility repairs, differs others. I think one of the questions, you know, people looking at this will ask is what are you talking about? What do we currently not have in the budget to address these kinds of things? So I just think like giving a little bit of detail about that, even the parks going from three to two, you know, people will say, well, wasn't there a penny for parks or this or that? So just, I think some more detail. And I realize you're placing this in front of us. You're placing this in front of, you know, the board of finance, but giving a bit more specificity might be helpful because when you explain these, I mean, you're speaking to, you know, an audience here, not going to have to convince, but I'm just thinking that in terms of the general public, that would be helpful. That was one of the tasks we're working on right now is to list and identify specific products within these categories that were intended and listed within here. And what the consequence is to reducing it to 20 million. And it's, it's a, it's a real challenge. I think the civic, civic buildings as well. It's managed by parks, but they have significant deferral of many capital investments in our public buildings. And so even our original ask in the first five years was whittled down to a point where we're just trying to get by and fix some things, but not everything. But that, that's always the challenge, right? That like people notice it when it actually falls apart. People notice it when you have to, you know, you're responding with an emergency, but so much of this narrative has been about, why are we, you know, we're tax to death, we're, you know, blah, blah, blah, all of those kinds of things, which I, I understand. But yeah, I think that a little bit more specificity will really help in the, in the broader. And I would support as you, I guess I'm saying this to the chair, but when this, you know, when we get the, you know, when we get the newer option as well, the 25 and the 20, that we bring this to the commission as, as an item for, for voting on. That's it for me. All right. No, thank you for that. Mr. Overby. Okay. I, I, I also have, I had some confusion about from our materials about how much of it was going to be TIFF related on, TIFF sort of supported versus general obligation. And this is somewhat clarifying that question that this proposal is about the 25.9 general obligation debt, which is not anything having to do with the TIFF project at all. So we'll talk about that separately. And I, I want to second commissioner Bose comment about the lack of specificity in the expenditures. Really is a part, has been a problem for me. And I think it may be also as a problem for other people that it, it basically comes across as just a sort of open line of credit for the, you know, the city to, to fix whatever happens to come up as a need. It doesn't, it just, it doesn't sell very well. So my, my, my comment would be actually, I think that we know that you work hard to, I think that we know that you work hard to identify these specific needs. The, the calculations that you came up with, you have the details that we might not. And I've tried to get them as well. But so I don't, I don't really want to have us go to the voters to be honest in March for a $20 million thing. I feel that particularly because of the, the overhanging question about the high school tech center costs. And, and particularly also how we're going to use any remaining COVID relief funds that the city might have available to it. So my, my sense is that it's not a good idea to go for a general obligation bond before we actually have a price tag on the potential costs for the high school. And I guess they're coming with a plan in the middle of March. The timing is a little interesting. So I don't think it's a great idea. And I wouldn't support frankly going forward with it, with this $25.9 million general obligation request because I would want you to actually get it. And I don't think it would fly. And I don't think we, that people have enough information about what their potential exposure is on, on top of the 70 million we've already signed up for, for the high school. We could maybe get another 50 million if, if city councilor Mark Barlow's numbers are correct. And that's what he thinks potentially. So I, that's my comment. I don't have particular questions other than I think it is important that you work out the details. But I do think that it's not a good idea to put a general obligation bond like this on the ballot in March. If we really want to get it. And I would really like it to actually be something that, that could be passed say in November, or at the point where we sort of can put all the numbers together, the high school numbers we're looking at, the code relief, the max, what are we going to be able to get that money all figured out, figure out all of our expenses. We still got the another $10 million potential borrowing of TIF for city place. We've got TIF, we're going to talk about next. So, you know, a lot of money floating around. I do want to get this money for projects that you guys have proposed. I don't think having a general obligation bond valid item for March is a good idea to get that. So that's where I'm at. I would just, I would just caution you on that in respect that we are seeing bridge projects that really need our immediate care. And also we have not within our department, but the fire and police in terms of their communication systems is in significant jeopardy. And so it needs, it needs to be taken into account. It needs to be taken into account. Those are significant needs and are not wants, but they are actual very real needs, immediate needs. So when we delay a bond vote, there's a consequence to carrying that risk. And, and, and maybe that's for, if, if those are the priorities, the, you know, the, the, the communications equipment, that wasn't one of the items on your, on your 25.9 million. That was, that was stripped out as far as, that's just some part of a, other disciplines within the city. Right. I would go, yeah, I mean, if it sells, if you think you can sell it, I just don't feel like it's going to sell. Anyway, shape or form unless you're really detailed and it's. You know, not 25.9, you know, I mean, I just don't think it's going to work. So that's just my opinion. I'm sure you can, you know, do your best job at it. But I would love to see you get that money to do those things that need to get done. not knowing what the rest of our expenditures are gonna need to be. So, you know, and if the radio system is important, then that shouldn't have been taken out, you know? That's a tricky thing. So thank you very much. I don't wanna take more time. Yeah. Thank you for that. That's great. I do just wanna clarify for Commissioner Overby and for everybody, and it may not be clear that what's highlighted here in the column of proposed items are items that have changed in value since the original bond item. Everything in the column listed proposed item adds up to the 25.9 million that includes the fire trucks, the radio system, the sidewalks, everything, it's just highlighting what has changed. Hopefully that's helpful. That explains that because I did not take it that way. I took it as those are the items that are gonna be funded and I didn't do the math. Thank you very much for straightening me out. No problem. Thank you for that. Vice Chair O'Neill-Vanke. Okay, I might need you to put that back up again, Chapin, in a minute, maybe. Yeah, this is also complicated, right? I agree with Commissioner Bows and Commissioner Overby about clarifying what it is some of those line items are and certainly the folks I spoke with before the special election, and fair enough, many of the people I know have kids in school. It's the uncertainty of the high school. And on the heels of many of us are homeowners who also have kids in the school district. So to be hit with the tax bill that really hit homeowners a lot. And then this and then the school it was tough to swallow, but certainly important. Like I look at the $10 million for Memorial Auditorium and having lived here over 20 years and having been in Memorial Auditorium and see $10 million is just to like be able to open the doors again, not even necessarily fully inhabit that, but a lot of that was deferred maintenance. And so I think about are there ways, in my work, we look at return on investment, right? It's easy to look at, okay, I invest this dollar into this piece of infrastructure, transportation, whatever it is, and this is the yield on it. How can you communicate the, what would you call it, the return on the lack of investment to really communicate in some real terms, you had a page up there, Chapin in the slide deck of what happens if this bond is not passed. These are real things that we're gonna still have to pay and not only pay in monetary terms, but when we have failing infrastructure, it impacts our water, it impacts our tourism, it impacts our schools, it impacts mobility, when we can't even have sidewalks that people with strollers or walkers or wheelchairs utilize. So the crumbling infrastructure is certainly a problem. So I guess to really underscore, take the time to identify those specific projects, what it is this money is going for on that right hand column that you had so that the public has a better sense of really what these investments are in clear terms. And I think on that second sheet on the slide deck where what happens if we don't, are there some dollar amounts that you can put like kicking this can down the road actually has a potential incremental cost of X, right? We don't necessarily know what it will cost, but it will cost more than it does now. And then I think of, so then on the bright side, I feel like I'm Debbie Debbie downer right now, but on the bright side, I'm looking right now at the federal infrastructure bill, in particular the bridges, are we as a city eligible for some of that funding? I think you had it in your, you had a little half a sentence in there, but Vermont is expected to receive 1.4 billion for federal aid and 225 million for bridge replacement and repairs. So is there some of that that we can really leverage? That was the intent is to shift money from what is local funds to fixed bridges that are immediate need. There's different levels of bridge repair, there's the immediate need and then there's what we can, I guess hold our own until federal dollars come. Okay. But the federal dollars, I think for a while there, it wasn't clear as to what would be eligible, truly eligible what would not, to really kind of change the placement in this spreadsheet. And so we now believe that they will be eligible under the federal infrastructure bill, but when we first drafted this, we didn't know for sure. Okay. So that's why you have some of these changes. Okay. All right. Yeah, I'm just looking at the bid on Vermont on the infrastructure bill. Anything else? Yeah, I mean, I think some of these investments, it would be helpful to know like, what are the pieces that are going to impact, you know, that are going to make Burlington more resilient to some of these, you know, weather events. These are all things that I think have kind of a better, you know, a better, how do you call it? I don't wanna say marketing, but a better message to voters. Certainly we've all suffered through some of the combined sewer overflow and it hasn't been in a while. But again, putting some of this money or explaining where this bond money will go, really does, will go, I think, a long way. And I think any information, and I know these are separate worlds, but any information public works so the city can get from the superintendent on some numbers before this ballot goes out, I think it's gonna be vital. Again, if it's coming so close to when the number is gonna come out, if it's gonna come out after from the school district, I think a lot of folks might be sitting on their hands wondering, oh, what am I voting for? Am I going to, are we going to, you know, allocate this money here and then not have enough for the school, meaning, you know, the increase to taxpayers on their property bill. So I know you're aware of all that. I'm just trying to kind of represent the parent voice here. But I do, I do, you know, I love infrastructure and I do support this and I really think the deferred maintenance, I look at that $10 million and I was like, that is because we kicked the can down the road. So communicating that I think is key. And I would say that the million dollars that's listed there is to continue to kick the can down the road. Yeah. Because that facility is leased to BT for their servers and that building needs to be reasonably preserved and heated while that lease is in place. And there's a consequence to giving notice to, I guess, notice of trying to back out of that lease. So there's a financial decision there as well. So at least from my perspective, that building has been on my radar for many years and it makes me extremely concerned that we continue to kick the can down the road as this building progresses. And we need to make sure it's secured and safe and not representing a hazard to the public. So there's a significant amount of money within that million dollars to deal with all the masonry elements on the outside and exterior that with structural steel corrosion and expansion that the parapets and elements have that potential of separating from the building which we don't want to have happen. No, we don't want our assets to become liabilities. And yeah, I agree. But I do, so I do support this and if this came to a vote, I would support it. But like Commissioner Overby, I want to see it succeed. And I think in order for it to be successful we need to kind of fill in those blanks on more details and see if we can push the school district to get a number out beforehand. Just so we know what we're looking at when the voters go to the ballots. But thank you so much for all your work on this. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah, thank you for all that good discussion thus far. It's really emphasized. You know, we have an interesting challenge in front of us to make sure we're all telling the value story here and making these things pop in ways that they don't necessarily at first glance of the spreadsheet here. Like, you know, the things that you'd suggested I was going to ask why, why is our, you know, aside from Memorial, why is the rest of our stuff getting cut by stuff like the fire trucks and the EMS is not. And you've got, you know, there's a good reason for that, right? But like, I don't, I think you got to put that out front, front and center in the sales pitch. I think, and I don't know if it's directly transferable here, but I often think about, you know, the cost that we incur when this deferred maintenance catches up with us and the cost to go in and dig up a road and the still of winter to fix a burst pipe that, you know, had previous generations of us really been more diligent in funding and staying on top of the deferred maintenance of those costs aren't there. So the, and I know in the past we've talking, it's come up about, you know, how much over time we're paying our maintenance crew to keep a plow fleet that's past it's expected lifetime up and running and things are out of, you know, it would get you, you know, for cycling's two days later, really, we only have five functioning plows instead of seven. I mean, those are, we've addressed some of those issues these days, but those to me, those types of anecdotes may help some of this stuff pop. You can, you know, really get at the costs and in pain of not doing this. There's certainly no good time to ask voters for more money. And I don't see that that dynamic changing significantly between November last year and February of this year, unfortunately, but hopefully we do a better job of the messaging. And I think, you know, with regards to the high school, probably a safe bet it's gonna cost a lot, right? I don't know what a lot is, but nobody's gonna be pleasantly surprised with that price tag just the same way. I think nobody's, I guess, let me put it this way. Last time around you said the peak estimated property tax impact of this, like that maturity was 20, something or 17 or something. And now it's down in the like six or $7 range. I don't know that people that decline in support this last time around were like, okay, they know 15 is too much, but you know, seven I can get on board with, I can get excited about a $7 increase, right? So I wonder, you know, in our messaging over the next couple of months is can that be part of it? Like sort of doing some outreach, sort of like opinion surveys of people, like amongst residents that didn't, I mean, we sort of hear the complaints about the concern we don't know what the high school cost, but like, are there people saying that now I'm cool with a $7 increase, but I wasn't with 23 or like, yeah, seven is generally more palatable combined with the value story for like boom, boom, boom, these increments and it's not a big, not a real big unknown hit for, hit for unspecific things on Memorial or hit for unspecific things on this or that. I think as staff we're challenged with just providing factual information versus advocacy and we can't cross that line. And so if we have members of the public who see and understand what we're saying from a fact-based explanation, it's really on that, hopefully on them to step up and speak up about the consequence of these decisions, but it's a very hard place for us to be where we can't cross the line of advocacy, but we certainly have to make sure that we're providing good fact-based information that is detailed enough to have the public informed of the consequence. Yeah. So that's where I think we're trying to focus our effort on is to improve our fact-based explanation of the consequence. Yeah. Even though we have our strong opinions, that's not, we don't have a place in that conversation. Right. And we also don't have a place. We, like we know it could be a different game if this was, if things played out differently with regards to the property tax changes and shift in burdens last year. And I know there's separate conversations in the city about channeling that outrage into changing policies or structure there. But I wonder, it's all, when we're talking forecasts, there are estimates in the future, there's always a layer of speculation, even though speculation is based on the best information we can, I wonder if it's worth talking about the impact or just looking at the impacts under different estimated recovery trajectories, right, if the city's coffers in different buckets are still down relative to pre-pandemic times in the hopes, and that was the basis for all this like recalculation of our tax burden. And then looking out the next five, eight years where the horizon is of this bonds, what might we be looking at under different structural thing is that may change the estimates there. Yeah, we are constantly updating as we get new information about where we're at. There is a confluence of ambiguity that we're living with. Well, I think my last point here is, I wonder if, would another strategy be to, I guess maybe plan more proactively in our normal budget that doesn't, isn't driven by just bond votes, right? This is, I mean, some of the critiques we've heard from the public about the last go-arounds here was that the city should be funding its stuff ordinarily. Why do we keep needing these extra? Yeah, I would agree with that. And I think that's what we've been trying to shoot for, but unfortunately we're living with a capital backlog of deferred maintenance. And so we're trying to address the backlog, then get to a sustainable position where we have a fixed amount of investment capital that keeps those systems in reasonable condition, but we're not there yet. And the 10-year plan was really to kind of buy down the long list of deferrals. And we're only at year five completion. We still have five years ahead of us where work needs to be done. And, you know, there's been some conversation about, you know, increasing the overall general capital on an annual basis without a individual listing like this. But it doesn't, but there's still quite a bit of deferred maintenance that needs to be addressed in a bond vote. Yeah. Can you remind us of that, you know, where five or six years ago when the first sustainable infrastructure bonds was put out of what the messaging around that was? Was that pitched as part one of multiple? That's another critique that I've heard is like, okay, we just, we had this bond five years ago. I thought that was going to catch us up. It has caught us off. I think we've done a fantastic work with those extra resources, but... Yeah, the original document, the white paper explained and framed a 10-year effort to address backlog. So I'm not sure why people got that impression. Yeah, we probably didn't get the message out broadly enough, but there is certainly language that talked about the ongoing need, but it is hard to make a complex discussion and in a short public communications channel. Now, thanks so much for this. Nothing else on my hand. Wish you and all of us luck in putting a plan together that that future to us will thank us for. So with that, we'll go for next presentation here. Thank you, everyone. And then we'll have a open up for public comment after that. Great. Chip, do you want me to just start sharing the screen or? Please do. All right. Yes, we've had an opportunity to talk to NPAs and talk to the city council and board of finance and Laura's going to run through with Olivia here. Quick overview of this generational upgrade to Main Street. Hi, thank you all. I'm Laura Wilox, a senior public works engineer. I had the opportunity to work on some of the past downtown TIF projects and I'm here tonight to take my side of giving a TIF bond presentation but also talk a little bit about the projects that are behind it. So what we hope to cover tonight, again, it's pretty similar to what's been going on through the NPAs with a couple different graphics and slides just based on some of the feedback that we've been receiving. So we can hopefully answer some questions but generally talking about what TIF is tonight, the approved projects, a little bit more about the downtown TIF's financial mechanics and what's going to go ultimately into the 2020 bond vote or at least go in front of the council on the 24th. And then time for questions and answers. So the city has two TIF districts. The first one that we went and had performed through was the waterfront TIF shown in orange on the screen. This TIF district was extremely successful for the city which led the city in 2011 to work towards the downtown TIF. So basically it's grabbing areas of town to be able to grab their tax money above and beyond a certain amount to put towards dedicated projects. And it also makes use of some state funds to kind of give it its a boost. But fundamentally the idea is that the projects would need to occur within the area that the TIF district is that is funding it. So waterfront projects, significant number of projects have been done. It grew the district exponentially beyond what any city or state expectations were and the revenues that come out of that are beyond any sort of background growth. And we're hoping to do that with our downtown TIF district. And so that's this area in blue. It really takes the properties that could have development potential and adds them into the district. There are still some holes within our designated downtown or surrounding areas that you can see. But these were the areas in blue where they thought that new projects could occur to really kind of catapult the way that the system works. So speaking to the area in blue the district was established in 2011 between the city and the state for my economic council. I'll refer to that as VEPC. The voters authorized this in a March ballot item. We incurred our first debt against this district actually with the marketplace garage repairs in 2016. And then ultimately the idea behind the district is they want you to incur the debts within a short period of time. Usually it's 10 years because of COVID, we got 12. But basically so that we put the private improvements or the public improvements into the street which will then continue to catalyst more private improvements. And so that looks somewhat like this circle over here. And there's a lot on the slide but it's really out there more so that it's a standalone piece of information. We'll talk about most of what's here but it allows people to see it after the fact and know what we were talking about. But really what we wanna do with TIF is you wanna take a municipal bond put a large infrastructure public infrastructure project in our right-of-way. That reinvestment in our infrastructure spurs private development projects to build, construct, improve within that blue area and ultimately we'll take their property taxes. Their new property taxes, not their existing but their new property taxes to pay back what was invested. And so that's kind of represented over here on this chart. This is the original taxable value of all of those properties in that blue area in 2011. This will stay, it continues to be divided into what goes into the city's property taxes as well as the state's ed's property taxes. What's happening from this point up is the city is basically starting to collect that increment and it gets reserved. It is a dedicated special reserved fund. It's not the general fund. It's not a general obligation. It is a special fund. And so the city has been collecting since 2011 the increment as other projects within this district have developed. The Hilton Garden and the downtown Stratos, Champlain College, there's a few other significant ones that have occurred that have already started generating increment in the district. And the end goal or the end projection with what went into the city council back in October is that the end value of this district when everything completes, we pay back our bonds is that the taxable value went from 170 million to 346 million. And again, really this is the city doing good on our own infrastructure and getting an amazing project in our public rights away and encouraging private development. So I've added in a couple more really nerdy slides that came from the city council presentation on January 10th that were in your packet. So I will provide the new one but this is hopefully to answer a few questions. Essentially, as of the start of the fiscal year that special revenue that the city has collected but can't use for anything else is already at 1.7 million, almost 1.8 million as of the start of the fiscal year. As we do our revenue projections over the life of the district, these numbers could grow up to the 2.4, 3.5, annual revenue coming into the city from this district until the end of its life in 2036. Based on the project that I'm about to talk to you guys on Main Street, the bonding, it's kind of a bit of a curve as to when it's its most expensive. The highest annual debt that we'd ever have to pay back on a bonding is about 3.1. And so essentially this is trying to tell everybody that the amount that we have coming in from the district can more than cover all with like the one or two really most expensive years, everything that's needed. And then just as a snippet, more probably as a find and seek item, this is some of the really nitty gritty math that shows our cash flows from what's coming into the TIF district from our funding sources, Champlain College which is what this 260 looks like because they have a special deal. The bonds that we already have for our existing projects are estimated third bond which could be Main Street and this shows the surplus. So this shows those few couple of years where that bond gets really expensive but after that the district is always in the positive until we pay out our final year and our remaining balance. So when the district was originally approved in 2011, the city went in with a couple of projects in our original kind of base revenue is what we think we could do. The projects that we've completed to date, Great Street, St. Paul Street. So two blocks of our downtown renovated and restored. The marketplace garage repairs, cleanup on the Browns Court parking lots. That was a city owned parking parcel that had some dirty dirt but we contributed to paying for that to allow the development above it and public parking still at surface level. There's also stormwater improvements along Main Street at the city hall park edge. And what's not shown here in this slide is that there were still six other downtown blocks in our original approved proposal to Pepsi. So we went in with eight blocks total. We did two on St. Paul. We have two that we're gonna show you for Main Street in just a few minutes as well as some additional. So the Main Street project, when we went in with the original project was actually from Pine Street up to Union. That's what we received that's the approval for. We also had had the two blocks of Winooski but after reviewing consideration and discussion we're looking to add in the, we took those out of the district with the state of authorization and we're adding in the lower blocks of Main Street just because it makes a more complete project. It ties our two TIF districts together. It has the best potential for generation of revenues throughout the entire city. And ultimately it will help actually even the waterfront district and the state will make some benefit there. What we do have the opportunity to add in is the ravine sewer. So this is something that we hadn't previously brought in any other public communications but the district has the opportunity and the capacity now to be able to help address a concern that the DPW has had about developing on top of the ravine sewer. While it is not in poor condition, nowhere in our horizon for infrastructure improvements you also really can't build on top of it without doing something substantial and that is cost prohibitive. City has many municipal buildings already on this block and so that does present a bit of a challenge. So this is the area that we're talking about. Essentially we're looking for voter authorization of the two blocks in the pink as well as the sewer ravine. The portion here in red, the voters actually acted upon back in 2015 with the first phase of our approval. So what is Great Streets Main Street? Some people may or may not remember when we went around back in 2016, 2017. Really the goal is a rebalancing of the right of way. And it supports the TIF message by providing alternative transportation, bicycle, pedestrian, vehicle, transit, providing public amenities on the street, really being able to respond to community needs and creating spaces. And again, the above and beyond that really wasn't in the original, really old original approval is, we're able to do a lot of this more from the bottom up. We're able to add a lot more stormwater components, water distribution, sewer service replacements and main improvements. It's a total street bottom up to the very tippy top work. This one takes a little bit longer to load. There's a lot of photos on the next slide. And why is this important? There's certainly been a lot of concerns about the destruction that happened on St. Paul Street for construction. But what's important to remember is that Main Street is not in good or great condition currently. There are many surfaces that are very poor. There's failing green belts, failing wide green belts, trees that are struggling to survive. The sidewalks do not have the width that are necessary for what's happening in the downtown needless to say any growth in the future. Accessibility is challenged throughout the city in this area with aging infrastructure and historic doorways that just don't make the same grade as the street. Trees struggle to survive on Main Street. It's, you know, whether they're in our tree pits or they're in the green belts, they are all struggling. So this message here is that, you know, we have the opportunity with this TIF funding to do something substantial in a two to three year construction period. Or we have to face the fact that we have to do these improvements over 20 to 30 years because that's really the timeline that the city could potentially afford to do this without something else to pay for it. The ravine sewer to hit on a very DPW item. So it is the sewer is between, it cross cuts the whole city, but this project would be to look at the sewer that cross cuts the block between college and Main Street. This photo is a picture inside of the ravine sewer just behind the fire station. It is an old redstone tunnel in various different shapes and cross sections throughout as it goes through the city, but this is what it looks like in this section. And it is about 20 to 25 feet down on the ground. And while that seems like that might be out of the way, any sort of developments or improvements in today's current construction is gonna run into that by digging into the ground by low ground parking and really being able to maximize whatever might be able to happen in this area of the city. It's our gateway. It is not the most attractive block that exists within the city. And it's what people are greeted with when they come into the downtown. So this project is really about being able to prepare the area, not about what happens to an afterwards. And that's just an important message to remember that there is anything that would happen afterwards would be an entirely different process, very lengthy, but this is really to get it ready. The project as it's currently scoped would either potentially be a relocation of the ravine sewer around within our existing street network and reconnecting where it crosses on Wenuski or rehabilitating it in place in some fashion. So what we are looking to go to the voters with to be able to get authorization is about all of the streets with improvements, the lighting, the stormwater, transportation, seating within Main Street including the subsurface utility upgrades and reconstructions, placements, extensions as well as the relocation of the ravine sewer. The project cost is estimated around $30 and a half million dollars to do the design, the engineering, and the construction. Where this math gets a little tricky is the voters back in 2012 already approved $10 million towards the first slug of the work. Of that 10 million, there is four and a half remaining. So the previous projects, St. Paul Street, the marketplace garage, Brown Sport, stormwater used 5.4. We already have four and a half in our coffers remaining and then we just now need the increment above that. Also going to the voters by state statute we have to specify out something called related costs. So we have the 30 and a half million capital costs. We have 1.47 million in related costs. These are admin legal fees to be able to manage the district. Project management costs for staff and this is until the end of the district. So 2036. So it's 1.4 million over a really long period of time to have to manage this. So the breakdown slide, what's going to the voters is the Main Street, Great Streets and ravine sewer. The new debt request, the bond request that we would be asking for is $25,920,000 as well as the approval of $1,470,000 in related costs. And that is not a new bond. We would pay that directly from the money that comes in annually from the increment. The bottom line is that there's been lots of math run on this one and that the new projects that are occurring within the district, the ones that have already occurred within the district have more than enough increments to be able to pay for the proposed improvements of this project. And then fundamentally, it doesn't increase taxes. So this is a special revenue. It is not the general fund. It is not your tax rate. It is something that is already coming in as an above and beyond cost. And it's just coming in and being collected. And we have the opportunity to either use it or lose it. But it doesn't change anybody's taxes. So that's the spiel with a little bit more detail. So I thank you for the additional time. I will stop sharing for questions, but can always go back. Great. Thanks so much for that. Let's start with Commissioner Mutano. Anything on your mind, Chair? I don't have any comments at this time. Could you come back to me? I was gonna take a close look at some of the numbers. All right. Yeah, I think we will first cycle back to the end. Commissioner Kennedy. Yeah, thank you for your presentation. I love this project. I love the St. Paul project as well. And I'm not sure if there was more of an in-depth presentation like before I joined the commission on the intricacies of the project, but I'm curious about what sort of changes we made to make the street more accessible, like logistically, how will we make the sidewalk more level with different businesses and stuff like that? Yep, so the previous effort in 2016, 2017 took survey of at least two of the blocks, the part that was approved at that time, and worked on a concept plan to be able to actually raise the whole street up so that the doorways that do connect and be more accessible, which we did a lot along St. Paul Street working with adjacent property owners. There's only one property that the door jump was really significant and what we did in that area was make sure that we saved space in what's called the frontage zone, which is usually like the first two to three feet of the sidewalk so that they could build something out from the face of their building so that they could always be accessible so that there isn't that push the button to get into my building situation. That's really the way that that would change the grade along Main Street to try to accommodate accessibility into storefronts. Yeah, great. I don't really have a lot of questions. I'm like very much in support of this project. I think it would make it sort of like church street has like this draw from like tourists. I know my parents whenever they come visit me here they just want to go to church street, but this would like kind of extend the like downtown area for those that aren't from here and would make the city a lot more like aesthetically pleasing and accessible for people that do live here. So yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, I do want to touch on something that Karen had mentioned during the public comment if I could about the parking question. So the way that Great Streets has proposed this and again it is a proposal is that we try to look at the spaces that are maybe not being as heavily used. We took parking occupancy counts back in 2016. We've taken them now and can factor them up to really explain about taking the space within the right-of-way that's not being optimized and used fully and repurpose it towards something else. The previous concept did have really ballpark estimated numbers for parking loss by just doing the flip of the spaces, but we really are not ready to revisit what that number is at this point in time until we are into the concept level development. And so that introduction to the public is anticipated to start in February, work through the months of March, April and then hopefully end in May with an approved concept. And so during that timeframe is when those really specific details would come out. I don't have them at this point in time. Our design consultant is focusing on our intersection designs and safety, which could change some of those previous assumptions. Yeah, thank you for that. Commissioner Bose. Yeah, thank you for that. Following to some degree on the heels of this, I'm kind of curious, you led this off talking about some of the experiences you've had with past projects and especially around the idea of disruption or kind of communicating out what is going to happen to the broader public. And you've touched on that a little bit. So I'm kind of wondering what some of the lessons you've taken from that and what you'd like to apply here, both in terms of kind of general, generally making this known to the public, but more kind of in progress updates. I've certainly noticed that as the roundabout has been going on, it's been interesting to see how regularly I get updates. We've talked about some of the other projects and some of the both hits and misses that have happened. So I'm just wondering if you can talk a little bit about what some of your strategies might be. Well, thank you for that. Olivia and I work on the roundabout project and they will appreciate hearing about the outreach effort because it is definitely something that we've pushed them into a little bit, but I do think it's helped it be successful. And really that understanding that you're seeing on the roundabout came from our experiences that we've had with St. Paul Street and City Hall Park and constructing some of the larger projects in the city as dense as it is at the moment. And so with Main Street, there's gonna be a lot of initial outreach as it relates to working on the concept plan, but there's an equal amount of significant outreach that we have planned as we work through the design and the construction phases. And understanding that the conversations are different. We don't want people to feel like they have to tell us their voice about all of their beverage deliveries that they get. That's a mechanical thing that we can address during construction. How is my delivery truck gonna be here? We wanna make sure that we come back to people often enough to have these conversations. And then like you said, during construction, the opportunity to have weekly updates, holding meetings at the kickoff of our restart of a season and really being able to explain to people what's happening. So in addition to kind of just the general volume of outreach, we're also changing up the ways that we are reaching out to people with the Main Street project. It does reach a lot of our different community members, both from businesses, to residences, to people who come in to eat and dine and shop within the area. And so the outreach is gonna have a lot more smaller focus groups to serve all these different groups within our community. I mean, that's really helpful. I was thinking to some degree as we've even heard some of these anxieties or concerns come up and a lot of times it's around parking, but it's, and I was thinking, I love going down St. Paul. I love the way that street feels. But I'm not sure that I had any real sense. I mean, I certainly, the roundabout has something I've had to navigate in, especially on a bike and other kinds of ways. I've always had a sense of like, this is a problem. I really want this to get solved. But with St. Paul, even though, I mean, you're speaking to a friendly audience here. But I really had very little way of imagining what that could be. And I think that's a really interesting thing for me in thinking about even the notion of kind of redesigning the city in these sorts of ways is it's not just about convenience. It's not just about accessibility. It's about all of these different kinds of things. But it's hard to visualize that in your head when, whereas with like a terrible intersection, you're like, this is, I hate, I'm navigating this. So that's not really offering you anything useful, but it's just as I've thought about how you introduce projects like this to the general public, how do you work through that kind of idea of imagination rather than problem solving, or at least some sense of both. So anyway, I love the project. So thank you. No, it's a helpful observation and feedback for us to be able to hear, because it will allow us to be able to speak with our community members in different ways. Everybody learns things differently and hears things differently. And so being able to explain it in different ways and from different perspectives is really helpful to have that feedback. So thank you. Thank you. Vice Chair, O'Neill-Vanco. Okay. I was just looking up my IT, curbside management practitioner's guide. No, I love this. And yeah, I don't want to geek out too much, but I think to echo what Commissioner Bose, which was talking about St. Paul Street, I think it's an excellent example, because while it was, what did Tiki used to say? You're tasting the cake while you're baking it. And now it's baked, right? And I have driven on it, I've biked on it, I've walked on it, and it's so pleasing. So I think pointing to that as this example of sort of this is the kind of the space and a general concept of what we're moving towards, and that kind of communication would be really helpful. I think, and I don't know if you mentioned the failing trees on Main Street. Hold on, I'm like too many tabs open here. And the worn green belts, but then in the description of, like your kind of bullet points on the budget, streetscape, lighting, stormwater, is that the streetscape, is that the trees, or is that something Parks and Rec does? Just because I feel like thinking about climate resiliency and thinking about urban heat islands, our trees are really, really important, especially our urban trees. So I don't know if that, I don't want to die on that hill necessarily, but I do feel like, if it's not us, is it Parks to make sure that we really get some viable and resilient trees along Main Street? It's still us. I apologize that the bullet kind of glosses over, that's the high level versus the details. And I should know my audience a little better on that one. Main Street proposes an eight foot tree bow, which is wider than, certainly what's on St. Paul's street behind me, probably closer to the width that's on some sections of Main Street. The tree belt wouldn't be green, it would still be a pervious, pervious tree belt, but have the civil cells below to be able to support really healthy tree development. As you guys have mentioned, you've been on St. Paul's street, but I don't know if you've ever looked at the like crazy harried trees, because those things are growing. I think Vijay, our city arborist told me that one of those trees out there grew four feet on a limb this year, because it just loves its space that we created for it. He's just like, this is phenomenal, and I have a lot of pruning to do. This is a good problem to have. This is a good problem to have, and it is certainly included along the whole corridor. The historic images of Main Street clearly indicate with the elms, this gorgeous canopy as the gateway to the city. And I'll tell you that there are many city employees and people who have spoken to us who really want to recreate that whole environment and special feel as the gateway from the highway to downtown, to the waterfront. And we want to make that happen. And the good news is the utilities are already undergrounded, which gives us the ability to really have those canopies grow full and vibrant. No, I think that's great. And again, it's that kind of those urban heat islands that we're seeing more and more. So good on that. And then, let me see. I think, you know, the parking issue, I think, I don't know if I sent it to you, Chapin, in Northampton Mass, they have this parking sign that is digital and it tells you points and arrow, maybe I did points and arrow and says, you know, 234 parking spots, you know, turn right here. We're not there yet. I'm not sure that's gonna make it in that bond for March, but the idea of as we reallocate this public right of way, how do we tie into our existing parking infrastructure? Because there is parking. If you look at the state of the system, I know that we weren't doing parking counts during, you know, the height of the pandemic, but there are parking spots available. It's helpful if visitors and residents know, oh, you just have to walk two blocks and because it's right there, you're not circling, you're not circling blocks or going one way, one way, one way, but that you know, there's a car park and there's available spots there. So I think kind of integrating that would be great. And then a question, a big question about the impacts of the ravine sewer. What does that look like for like, what is it, it goes under like the library and what does that mean for those existing businesses and organizations during that rehab in order to get things up to snuff? Yep, that is a, that's a great question. And you know, we've done kind of really high level planning on it, but we have somewhat held back to wait for the bond vote so that we can really do this effort with a professional consultant as well as some data collection that's necessary to understand what the rehab or relocation would look like. But ultimately the investigation would be finding out what is connected within that block. And the plan would have to be to reroute and relocate or reconnect anything that is within there if the pipe is relocated. You know, with the bond vote passing to be able to use TIF for that project, I would expect a lot more public engagement around that specific part of the project. Again, the really nitty gritties of the details that I didn't get into on the TIF bond because TIF is not DPW's economic purview. It's usually in our CEDO department, but there are a few developments within the city that are recently permitted or we anticipate to be permitted or maybe kind of sitting on their permit that weren't in the original economic model for the downtown TIF district. You know, these are projects that we didn't know about 10 years ago when they created the projections. They're ones that we know about now. And so what we're doing is taking these anticipated projects to be able to get that extra bit in there, that ravine sewer and some of the other additional underground utilities on Main Street. You know, we're taking that opportunity that we've been pretty successful today and our previous investments are returning well to be able to do that, but it's gonna require a little bit of studying and investigating and figuring out what happens with those because anything that connects to that is also old. Yeah, next question was about the Y, the old Y, the hotel Y, I think Karen Long mentioned that as well. That development or whatever permits are kind of still in limbo won't, will, do they impact or could they impact this project for this, for the ravine sewer piece? Do you know? The way that the project was permitted previously would not, I don't anticipate it would significantly impact our ability to do the ravine work. So as it relates to, you know, construction to construction, I don't see it being too much of a challenge. You know, we do believe that there are connections back to the ravine from that project. And so it would basically interrupt the ravine at College Street and kind of be able to redirect it and it's significantly beneficial all around to manage our water flow in these blocks of the city. As it relates to what Karen was mentioning, you know, whether or not it's a viable project to be able to grab its value and its above value as it, as it redevelops. We wouldn't have put that in until a couple of years out anticipating that it needs to still be constructed. It needs to get its certificate of occupancy to even start generating that new tax dollar value that goes into our district. And even that was done with a lot of conservancy. Our gift experts that we hired from Whitenburg actually says we wouldn't even need those three projects, but you really would, you would hit the like end of your availability for bonding and for funding. And so really those are kind of our conservancy factors to be able to have those additional permitted projects. But essentially what we have already in the district could afford everything, but it's gonna, those lines would intersect or come too close together to really feel like we should be borrowing that much money. Okay, that makes sense. And again, we have 14 years for them to come online and to start, you know, putting anything into this district. Okay, that's really helpful. Thank you so much for this presentation. That's all. All right, thank you. Commissioner Overby. Okay, I appreciate all this information as well because my early question, my first question was what actually are we gonna have on the ballot? And it sounds like if I'm clear now, we have one item that's gonna be for 25,900,000 for the basically the general obligation fund. Then we have a separate one for the 25,920, which is for TIF. So we've got two that are, they just, the numbers are the same. So that's confusing. And then we have one more that would be for that 1.4 million. So do I have that correct? The TIF part I agree with. I'm seeing where a lot of the confusion is coming in with how close those numbers are together. But there is a general obligation bond item for 25,9 right now. That's the number now, it was 40 million. And then we have a separate one, another one for the TIF, which is 25,920 million. So we've got two different ones that are within $20,000 of each other. So it's like, whatever, 26,000 twice, correct? Okay, so we're not overlapping and I'm not. So I've got that right. So we really have whatever, twice 26,000 that we're asking the voters to vote on. I was not clear about that until you guys just did this presentation to me tonight. I didn't get that out of what was in our materials. So I'm glad you got that straightened out. That's, again, gonna be, in my opinion, not gonna bode well on the March ballot. I think my first comment is that we really need to do a good sales job and that really should be on the November ballot and you've got a lot of time to really get it together to show the details. Cause I think the same concern that we had about what's the details, supporting these things. You may have a lot of details about the YMCA hotel. I know Chapin sent me, I asked a list of what are the projects that are intended to be, it's generating the millions of dollars of revenue that we're gonna need to pay these back. And the YMCA hotel was won, the VFW Champlain Housing Trust was won, the South Champlain Street Development, those are three that were on this one slide. But there's no real, you know, and I think this was referred to by the comment earlier. There's no, there's no, you know, there's no meat there yet. And so it's not believable to people, not believable to me yet, that it's actually going to be able to recover the investment. And so that to me is a very risky proposition to go into a vote on this. And I think, I just think it's gonna be problematic to go there. And I would say, if you really wanna have it happen, we can't do it this way with having it sort of general. And I know I asked, I just, I don't know, I just worry about things when it looks like we're just trying to ask the public to sign on to something that is a huge chunk of money and just trust us, we're gonna do the right thing for you. You know, that's just doesn't work for me. And maybe it, you know, it has worked in the past, but that to me is not a winner. And I would highly suggest that this is, if it's great, we do the work to get enough detail that people really can understand it, that it really will be that the YMCA, I heard from Brian Pine something different. He said that the YMCA now wants to do affordable housing there. That's what he told the Ward 2 and 3 NPA last Thursday. Now, that's not what you're saying is gonna be the project. Now, we don't really know what the project is then. To me, that's like hypothetical, anything. The VFW thing, there's apparently, and I didn't check this myself, that there's no permit application for anything about housing. So we don't have any idea. And the South Champlain thing, maybe that is a public thing. I don't know if there's a permit for that. And some of this, the Champlain Housing Trust housing, a lot of that's not taxable. So we weren't, we're not gonna get an incremental boost in our tax revenue. So I don't feel like it's very fleshed out enough to be believable. Now, I want it to be believable. I want you to have the opportunity to make it believable. And I just don't think that's gonna be possible in the next month that, between now and when the city council has to decide what to put on the ballot. So that said, I do have a question about sort of little nitty-gritty about that six foot sewer thing. Do you know how long it is? Maybe your answer that we haven't, you haven't had time to do the research yet, is where is it six feet? Is it six feet the entire distance that we're talking about renovating? Do we know? Not exactly. And I would love to unpack a little bit of what you had previously just talked about because there's definitely some nuances and some explanations that I think would help. But as it relates to the ravine sewer, it's estimated to be about six feet tall in that area. It's a 60 to 72-inch-ish capacity sewer. It changes size and shape often through there. And it has no pipes inside it. It is actually running sewer. It resembles a tunnel. I wanted to make sure I was a little bit more clear in the presentation because that image got grabbed by somebody and put on Facebook on the Burlington Historia Group and said, look, it's one of Burlington's lost tunnels. And I was like, don't go find that. That's bad. Well, if you've seen the movie Lost Rivers, you know what's going on with that. Yeah, someone else was smart enough to point out there was running water in it, but it scared me a little bit. So I wanted to make sure it was a little bit better explained. I've seen historical maps about the whole ravine going all the way over to the Riverside Avenue and cutting over and cutting down. So that's a lot of history that a lot of people are familiar with. And so, go ahead. But I would love to kind of back up a little bit if we have time to explain some of the questions and the other assumptions that you have. I understand it seems like, and it is probably really poor timing and everybody has asked that, you know, all bonding and everything wait until November. But if we really wait till November, I don't think it's reasonable to go to the voters with a TIFT bond of 26 million, a general obligation bond for infrastructure of 26 or 20 million, a school vote of whatever it ends up being and I think water and sewer may go to or need some needs. So to be able to respond to all the other federal infrastructure stuff that's coming. And so I think that bringing that to the voters in November is also scary and all of those things can't all wait or wait even more after that. TIFT specifically has an expiration. Our district, we've been blessed that the legislature granted some debt extensions for COVID, but we have until next March to bond, which means that we have either this opportunity in March or November to be able to go to the voters to get authorization. And really what needs to happen is we need to be able to have time with our design consultants to design and vet our concept plan to have a construction estimate. So we estimate that the project might cost 30 and a half million, but we may end up through our public process or through our design consultants coming up with 27 million that we want to bond for. And then that's all that we would bond for. So really we need the time and TIFT is going to struggle to wait to do that because then we won't have the time between November and March when we have to actually sign the documents for the funds. As it relates to the Cambria hotel, the, what Brian mentioned in the, the war two, three NPA is accurate. The developer is looking to expand upon their existing permit and see if residential can be added to that project. But as it stands permitted, you know, it is a hotel. They are, they did struggle with COVID and they have been sitting on it, but they are still very actively talking to the city about what's happening there. And so there's not concerns that something won't happen. It's just what will happen and how soon. As it relates to the VFW, that is an agreement that CHT is signed, I believe, with the, with the VFW to be able to develop that. But Champlain Housing Trust, you know, has other hurdles and hoops that they have to be able to go through for their funding. And so yes, they've not started their permitting, but the year that we put them in that they start including increment is, is a few years out. And so we're not planning on needing any of that money or receiving any of that money until always into and well past probably when Main Street would be constructed. The property as it exists now is tax free, tax exempt. And as it develops, Champlain Housing Trust is not tax exempt. It's Burlington Housing Trust. And so this would actually create increment for the city on this parcel. It's pure increment actually, because we get nothing for it right now. And then the South Champlain Housing Development, it does have an existing permit. They're actually talking about going back in and expanding their permits, add more units, which would add more capacity, but they do anticipate starting construction this summer. And do they, is there a reason why there's no actual dollars on what the incremental, you know, assessment is for us to have that in front of us? I mean, because that would be credible, that would be helpful because then we can do the math. I think in the math, yeah, knowing that we're spending right now for the downtown tip, we're spending whatever $470,000 right now for that $5,200 that we already owe. So we're spending $470,000 a year to pay for the bond, the debt on that already. So if you add another 26,000 on there, you know, that's a couple of million dollars more that we're talking if we're talking that same roughly interest rate. So I was just, you know, it's just not yet believable because there's no financial numbers here that says the hotel slash YMC hotel and apartments would be the X, you know, millions of dollars of tax revenue and the VFW. You know what I'm saying? That's where I'm getting it. I do know what you're saying and for, you know, apples and oranges kind of comparison. I'm, you know, being an engineer, I'm really good at math, but I'm not really good at economic accounting math. That's not my forte. I am an engineer. I can design bridges and I can design parking garages and I can build you guys roadways, but that is different math. And so the questions that you're asking, I don't have all of the answers to because I don't even understand it. And so the slides are just designed to be able to try to speak to more of a general audience. And we hope that we can have more one-on-one conversations with people who do understand that next level. And so there's kind of an odd balance between the people who are overwhelmed by it and people who are underwhelmed by it. But the details that you need, they're in a council packet from October 25th and we will send you the link to that, but it's the submission that we sent to the state and it has more math and more economic projections and increment projections on all of these parcels and when they hit the spreadsheet and what year they, you know, to become effective. And it's there, it's public record. That's great. And if you have questions on it, I'm not the person, but I know the person to connect you with. Well, that's great. And I actually requested the, you know, the city's annual TIF report, which was, which I guess is, you know, in the works and it's due on the 15th of February. And I requested that from VEPSI and they said that, well, I should get that from city attorney Hessler. So that's what I will do because that basically tells us where we're at right now with the downtown TIF and also with the waterfront TIF. So we know how much debt we have and how much we've borrowed and all that kind of stuff and which projects and where they're at, right? So I've been waiting for that and I have not been able to get that. And I was hoping I had that before this meeting because that's some of that information that I think is critical for me to make a decision about whether I would want to bless this as an item on the March ballot. So. I've seen this document. Yeah. I would suggest you should ask for the 2020 report. There's not a lot of updates for the 2020 report. I have the 2020 report. Okay. Yeah. And there's not a lot now. Well, it is actually quite different from the 284,284 million, you know, the amounts don't add up. So that's where I'm having questions. But in a good light, I wanted us to add to the comments of the other commissioners that mentioned how wonderful they feel about walking down St. Paul and the fact that it really is a good model of what the vision is for the Great Streets project. And I totally love the idea as well. I'm not against the concept of Great Streets and doing those kind of things, absolutely. I mean, some of the details, maybe we should look at, but I wanted to second their comments that that really does give people a visceral experience of where the money will go when that kind of project gets done. I just, I really, you know, I want to support that. So I just do think that I know your thing about every tax thing showing up on the November ballot is problematic, but I really, what will be the consequence if everything fails in March because everybody is fighting their nails about the school expense? And so is that a better outcome for you or a worse? And to me, you know, I don't think that's a good outcome if they're both voted down. I really don't. So that's my reasoning that this, this doesn't seem to work now, particularly because there's a lot of this work that we might be able to sell people on it if we have the time to do it and we won't have the time to do it. And we'll just be praying that they think it's fine. And I just don't think people are gonna think it's fine to have $226,000 items on the ballot for them this time around in March. So anyway, thank you very much for, you know, making a great effort here to try to explain it and all the technical part that you did is great and the pictures are great and, you know, and I know you've worked very hard to make it explainable. So sorry I asked you questions that were not in your area of interest or expertise. So I will find, I have been trying to get that information from other sources and it's not yet available to me. So I will have that as well. Thanks. All right, thank you. And thank you, Laura, for the offering to point us to additional reading materials and the real geeky spreadsheets and so forth. So I like the preview here. To me, I gather there's opportunities now with the bonding deadline in 14 months and exciting opportunities to take advantage of that for exciting stuff with minimal to no tax increase. You know, I'm imagining that the gateway block is really underwhelming at the moment and certainly taking care of the plumbing issues on your grounds with the ravine and sprucing up the face of it. I expect is, you know, is exciting that that could spark a transition in this sort of key intersection and gateway to the city and certainly make it a more attractive place to redevelop. But certainly there's been nibbles in conversation about potential things going there and concerns coming up about the kinds of things that like this sort of investment could help. But that's what, you know, it's an investment, a little seed here spruce things up to pay dividends and spark opportunities down the road. So I'm excited about the opportunities here. Thank you for the presentation. You just talked me through it. I gather that under this TIF, downtown TIF framework, things need to be bonded by May, we should be back from March 23. And then the, what's the 2036 thing that's, is that the timeline to like settle up and repay these bonds? Yeah, that is the timeline that the city basically in that increment, the above the 170 value basically collects the tax dollars, the additional tax dollars from all of those properties within the downtown and also the portion of the Ed Fund taxes. And so that's where this really provides the opportunity for significant investment is because it's using both of those tax bases to put into the public infrastructure. It's not all the Ed taxes in there. It's only a portion of them. But we are collecting that as well right now to be able to put into these projects. Gotcha. And then in 2036 is when we stop collecting the Ed Fund and it goes back 100% for the state. Gotcha. The term of the loan is basically through 20, the bond to through 2036. Yeah. So in up through 2036, the incremental increase in tax revenue goes towards that fund. In 2037, is that a big bump then to the general funds? Essentially, yeah. The general fund would then take whatever increment it was putting towards that dedicated use and district and area. And it goes back into the general fund is my understanding. And the state Ed fund. And yeah, the state then takes their portion back. But we've exponentially increased versus having just background growth get to that area. Gotcha. Thanks. And you mentioned that there's a couple pieces of good news in the story here that were not anticipated when this downtown TIF was set up in 2011. Would you be able to speak to just like a couple of examples for reference of other things kicking in to the budget here? Right. So the three projects that were listed on the council presentation slide and that we've kind of talked in length about are ones that were not anticipated. I mean, they're parcels that are within the district because we knew that there was potential although I don't think the why was potential. But there are other parcels that we have as a, you know, they're underdeveloped, they're underutilized, they could be open areas. There are also ones that are more speculative than what we listed, you know, there's the cathedral property, there's the boats property. Oh, maybe Chapin can help me. There's a few others that are in and around town that have the opportunity that they could become real projects within the timeframe that this district is. And so maybe some of their increment will come in to help us, not their full potential, but. And what we hear from our consultant, David White from Whitenberg, is that even if none of the three projects we've discussed, Champlain, the VFW, or the why happen with background growth in the district that has occurred, we will still have enough funds for the Main Street reinvestment here. So the conservative attributes in the formulas to really make sure that we don't get beyond our skis is baked into all these calculations. Yeah. Okay, thanks. Some question, what's VETC? V-E-P-C Vermont Economic Progress Council. Gotcha. Pepsi, that's how we. State entity that administers the TEF program statewide. Council, thanks. Pardon my ignorance in not calling it VETC. I spilled it wrong for a while too. So, you know, this is again, this is something a program that CEDAW really has developed and administered throughout the life. The last two-ish years at CEDAW have been rough for the department that administers this, as well as their directors. And so DPW who used to take the supporting actress role or actor role in these projects has been pushed to the forefront to help ensure that this project has a chance at success while they're bringing their staff up to speed. Right, thank you. And Sage to say you mentioned that there's some early design work ongoing. Is that Sage to say that that expense is in the expense column for this TEF thing? Is that being funded out of TEF? That is being funded out of kind of the increment that we've already collected. And really that's a necessity of the timeline. You know, we need to be able to have concept designs and deep engineering designs to understand what our end estimate is gonna be to be able to bond in March. And really it's not bonding in March, it's going out with an RFP in January and finding lenders and going to the city council and signing documents by the end of March. So it's a lot of information to be able to find by the start of next year. But then we've got a few years to. And we have a little bit of time to spend it. Yeah, to spend it because it'll already be bonded for. That's what I mean, built in next year, gotcha. Very good. Okay, I think, yeah, nothing further on my end at this point. To pass through the commission, open it up to public comment and then bring it back and see if the commission is inclined to, you know, to make a motion to explain this. Oh, yeah, Commissioner McHenry. No, I just have a quick question. Well, a lot of my questions that I didn't even know I had have been answered. But my question, I was actually looking for that slide when you called them, when I was called on the first time but the year by year breakdown and sort of that like lag period in that 2023 to 2025 timeframe. I'm just wondering about that and how sort of like the time to complete the projects is sort of considered before that increment that might benefit either directly or indirectly be seen. So like what is the timeline for these, for the Main Street project and for the sewer and where are the projected increments kind of downstream of that kind of already planned for in that timeframe. Right, so it's important to note that just because we improve Main Street it doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna change people's property taxes. So there's not necessarily increment generated because we do the project. It's more the fact that people want to be in Burlington because we've done the project. The spreadsheet was set up assuming that construction on Main Street, some part of Main Street would start as early as September of 2023. Recognizing that, you know, we've pulled the bond and we're paying interest on it but, you know, without substantial construction. So pretty feasible that, you know, we can certainly start construction, especially on what I call the lower blocks but that's really kind of the St. Paul Street to Battery Street end. It's the simpler part of the street. There's less utilities. There's businesses are set back a little bit more. A lot of the times there's less encroachments and the ravine sewer's not next to it. Construction is gonna take a minimum of two years and that was the estimate before we added the ravine sewer in. I think that the ravine sewer is gonna add a complication in some time for the design as well as the construction on that area of the project. And I don't have a guess on that because we don't have a solid plan as to what we're doing. We have to still study it a little bit. And as to speak to the whole, how the increment generates around, I can tell you the timeline that was used and the way the map was run that way and that's the base answer. You wanna know more of the specifics of the numbers, I think we're gonna probably have to get back to you. That is quite a rain. What's up? All right, thank you. With that, Mr. Goulding, we go to public comment if you can help us administer that. I see one hand in the air. Sure thing, Chair Hogan. I'll promote over Chair-in-law. All right. Welcome back. Thank you. Actually, I really am impressed with this commission. You guys are a lot of new faces and you're all paying attention. I've gone to many of these meetings before and I felt like a lot of the people sitting at the table were just kind of sitting at the table not paying attention. So I appreciate that. That's really cool. But I listened to the whole meeting and I've gone to a lot of these. I've lived in Burlington probably, I think about 44 years. If you wanna pass this, you need to build trust. And I really sincerely mean that. That the city of Burlington has lost people like me because I don't think you guys, and I'm not talking to the commissioners, I'm sorry, I'm talking to our employees. I don't think you're always honest. And I think you try to sell things to us and you think we're stupid and that by pushing this through really fast, we're not gonna have time. So I like the way that some of the commissioners said, we should really do a good job and pay attention. But one of the things I don't like is that when you asked for the 40 million, you gave a median price of a house at like, I don't know, it was around maybe 300,000, something like that. And that we would pay like $14 a month more or $15 a month more. Unfortunately, especially since reappraisal, there are not a lot of houses in Burlington that are 300,000. So when you give a price of what it might cost most people, I think you should be really realistic and we might believe you. I also heard Chapin say this and Laura say this and I heard, you know, Brian Pine say it and David White say it, this will not impact property tax payers. Well, that is not true. And I have talked to the state auditor and I mentioned it being at the city council meeting. And he said, you know, is that like taped? And I said, yeah, city council meetings are taped. So you folks are not really being honest because TIF funding is all speculative. And Laura said that too, that this, you know this is if it all goes well. So, you know, look at city place, look at city place to me, that is what destroyed my hope in Burlington city government because we got very divided when we passed that zoning change. And for 14 stories, well, they can't even build 10 stories now. So how much money, how much more money do we have from city praise property now? We are getting less money and everybody knows that. We now have a pit and we are not getting the money that we got before they destroyed our little mall. So there are no permits for the VFW site. I talked to Scott Gustin, that is a fact. There, the YMCA hotel, I already mentioned that. It was permitted in August, 2019, it's stalled. So, and I do want, Chapin, if you could please send me, you said that we don't even need these projects, which is not what Brian Pine said, but please send me the projects we have that will pay off this, I don't know, $26.92 million because I really want to see that. And this is back to the first thing when you're taking out the 10 million from Memorial, I think Memorial would be something people would vote for. Memorial, I mean, we should have never let that go down and that is what the city administration has done. We can't take 10 million for that, but we could spend six million on City Hall Park. And that was another very divisive move that this government did. So, I mean, there are a lot of things that are, you really, like I say, if you want this to pass, you need to build trust. And, you know, the costs are prohibitive. I really want to see how it's going to get paid back. And also like that timeline two years on Main Street, can we survive two years of construction? People want to get back out. We want to walk on the streets. We want to ride our bikes downtown to the waterfront. I just don't know if this is a good time to do it. And, you know, and another thing, I've always thought about this, and it was interesting to sit and watch this whole thing. It's kind of easier on Zoom. This city administration, this DPW group, I believe before we had maybe two engineers. And again, I've been here 44 years, Steve Goodkind and Norm Baldwin. I would really like to know how many engineers we have. You guys, Laura just said it. I'm good at making plans, making drawings. You know, you're a designer, but who do we have on the ground doing all this work? Do we have enough? Do we have too many good ideas and not enough money and not enough people to do the work? So I really think, again, that kind of goes back to building trust. Can we all afford to stay living here in Burlington? Stratus, people brag about Stratus. I looked those up. They are called luxury condo, a two bedroom, 1,090 square foot condo is 429,000. How many people in Burlington can buy a two bedroom condo on St. Paul Street for 429,000? I mean, I think a few of the people on the commission could. I imagine there's a lot of people. I know my daughter couldn't. She's 42 years old. And so anyway, I just, I mean, I think there's a lot going on right now. And I do hope that you'll sit back and really pay attention. I like the idea of really being specific what this money is for. And I really think you should reevaluate Memorial Auditorium, that taking that out, so many people want Memorial to be what it used to be. And it made money. It is one thing that could make money for us. City Hall Park is not making money for us. So anyway, thank you. You do a lot of work. And again, if the city wants to pass this, they really need to build trust for us. Thank you. All right. Thanks for the input. Mr. Golding, do we have anyone else lined up for a public comment? No one else has their hand raised at this time. So there is nobody side up. All right. Great. Thanks for that. Yeah. I'll bring it back to the commission. As I said, this is warned as an agenda item with a vote. We're not obligated to make a vote, but we're certainly welcomed if we wanted to make a formal statement supporting or not supporting this. That's in our prerogative sense. We'd welcome any motion around these opposed non-votes. Just to clarify, are you talking about what are you talking about? Are you talking about which proposal? Because I mean, especially the first proposal we saw until we see the revision, I don't think I'd be. I just want to see what it actually looks like, the multiple options. And I'm not sure, Director Spencer, if we're being asked for a vote of support at this point for either or is it being brought to us just to show us as it's progressing? Great question. We've gotten tremendous feedback tonight, and I've taken pages of notes on the feedback on both items. Given the hour, it is your choice. There is not a timeline that works to have the commission meet again before the council needs to act to vote whether or not to put this on the ballot by charter or by city ordinance. It would need to be by the 24th, the council meeting on the 24th and a handful of days here. So we are fine either way in action. It isn't necessary that we preserve that opportunity by putting it on the agenda for you. But I think the input you've given us has been invaluable, and now we move forward. Thanks for that clarification. All right, any movement? I mean, I certainly appreciate the conversation and the chance to provide input on both of these items, and we'll anxiously follow the conversations that city council and elsewhere over the next few days and hopefully weeks as well. Going once, going twice. Mr. Oberbe. I don't want to make a motion, but I did want to just point out that one of the pieces of information about the education money going toward paying back the TIF thing, it isn't free money. And the fact that we are actually making a decision to, if we do this, any of the TIF projects, basically, we're taking 75% of the money that would otherwise go to the state for the education funds. And we are taking that for the balance of the duration of this till 2036. So it's not without other impact as well. And that wasn't actually brought out. It was mentioned in the presentation. But there is an impact to that. So we are making a decision that these projects are more important than that money for the next, whatever, how many years till 2036 going to this school. So I appreciate that we're not actually making a recommendation to the city council on this, because I do not think we've quite figured there's enough details for us to do that. So I do appreciate my fellow commissioners thinking that through and letting us get some more information on maybe the city council as well. So thank you. Sure. All right. Any other party thoughts here? Just one parting thought, is it? These are all complicated. And while I support them, I do feel like I need a little bit more information. It's kind of a chicken and egg with the TIF and the education fund, if we have more downtown investment and we have more downtown businesses, then that is potentially adding more money into the tax role for education as well. So these two projects or two plans, they're really investments. And we're kind of waiting on the school district to get that number out. But I really do see them both as fundamentally positive things if we look at the investments into businesses downtown. But I do need a little bit more information before I kind of go full. So I'm looking forward to hearing what goes on at city council. But thank you very much. I'd also like to support that, because I don't think the way in which your characterizing TIF financing is accurate. And I don't think it's a zero sum game in the way in which you are talking about it as taking away from education. So I would just say that I think I agree that it needs to be clarified, but I don't think it's quite that zero sum game. No, the math of TIF is that during the duration, you get to keep the 75% of the money that would have otherwise gone to the state. That's just the math. It is not, yes, but it is not a zero sum game. I understand the vice chair O'Neill-Vivanko's comment that if everything speculatively works out great, absolutely it's going to be building more infrastructure and more people in bigger tax base. That's not what I'm arguing. I'm just trying to explain the details of the process, which it wasn't clear that in fact, during that period of time while we are paying back our debt with the TIF increment, we are in effect taking 75% of the money that would have otherwise gone to the edge. That's all I was saying. And maybe that wasn't clear. That's why I was making that clarification. Was I getting it wrong? Am I incorrect from what you're saying? You're accurate in the way that the mechanism of TIF works and it's a state-run program. It's overseen by the legislature. It's an opportunity for designated downtowns to be able to do these capital improvements in public or public infrastructure with this funding source. And so the city went through this process with our waterfront. We chose to take this direction with the city and ask for permission to use these funds in 2011 and kind of provided an update this past fall. And so I don't know everything about TIF, but I see it as, there's many funding opportunities that the state provides and this is just one of them. It was their action that allowed us to take use of those funds. I don't think of it as us stealing education funds. It's an opportunity that was already granted to us. For the tax base. And I think I'm just, my concern is that we do have the situation that was the trust comment that was made before that, and Newport has been through this. We have wonderful ambitions and everything is very happy and we're all wonderfully ambitious and optimistic. And then things don't always work out. And TIF, our wing lands on the taxpayers if our expectations don't work out. And we're waiting five years to see what's gonna happen with the city place project. So I don't think it's unrealistic for us to say, this is speculative, let's just be careful. And I think that's part of that. I do agree it's part of the way that TIF works, but. I don't disagree with that, but just to be clear again that TIF financing and the reason that it's as popular, not just in Vermont, not just in Burlington, but as a pretty significant mechanism across the US is because you're essentially having access at much lower rates to finance. It is in many ways a more affordable way of making certain kinds of investments. So the main thing that I am reacting to is this kind of like, well, we're borrowing from this way and we don't really know how it's gonna play out. And yes, of course, that is true of any of these kinds of investments that we make. There is speculative investment in many of these plans that we engage in, but that is also part of, anyway, I don't wanna get into an argument about this. I think, yeah, thank you. Yeah, no, and I think the state auditor has actually, there's a report that TIF funding is no longer in favor and there's quite a few studies about that. So that could be shared with anybody who's interested. So I think it is not a favorite kind of funding after all in a lot of communities. So I don't wanna get into an argument either about it, but I can send you an auditor Halfer's report that you might find very interesting. All right, Commissioner Alvarez, let's set this one aside. For now, I've got a good, robust discussion over the last two hours, because close this item and look forward. Appreciate all the presentations and opportunity for dialogue here on the staff side and reading you on this, so this moves forward. All right, item six on our agenda, COVID-19 operations update, Dr. Spencer. Great, I'll be exceedingly brief. I just wanted to take a moment to wanna inform the commission of where we are with our general operations during the pandemic given Omicron and also to thank staff for their efforts to work across divisions to help keep our operations going. We have over the past several weeks had a number of employees test positive or be close contacts and have had followed the precautions necessary to keep our team safe, but it has strained our operations. So I let the commission know that if there is somewhat of a service impact that you're noticing, feel free to check in with me and I'll happily help identify whether this happens to be COVID related to date. We've been able to maintain our services, but it's not been without some challenge and we've had employees shift departments and divisions to kind of keep our operations going. And I just wanna give a huge shout out to them for their willingness to be flexible and keep our operations going. So at this time, we are keeping our critical operations for water plant, wastewater plant, recycling, street maintenance, continuing, but we'll keep you posted if that situation changes at all. Yeah, thank you for that. All right, brief director's port. Thank you. Moving forward, commissioner of communications. All right, let's see, how about commissioner Mutano? No updates this time. All right, thank you. Commissioner Kennedy. I also have no updates. All right, commissioner Overby. I wanna say that the snow fighting efforts have been great in the old North end, as far as I can see. And so it's hard to believe that you're having a shortage of staff because I've been very impressed with how frequently they get by with the plows and also the sidewalk plows. So thank you for the efforts that are being done with that. It's been great up here. Thank you for that. Commissioner Bose. I'd second commissioner Overby's accommodations about the snow plowing efforts. I also feel compelled to make a statement about some of the public comments that we've received today. I think, I understand frustration and understand the different kinds of critiques that are leveled against this department and the municipal government in general, but I don't think, I think that if we're asking for trust in the building of trust, I don't think that gets accomplished by engaging in ad hominem attacks on staff. And I've seen that before here as well and I've sort of bristled against it. And I really took some issue with some of the comments that were made today. And I've been very impressed with the kind of dedication, expertise, and professionalism that DPW staff have shown in all sorts of ranges of activities over time. And I think that we can certainly disagree about the directions that we take, but I don't think that should be extended to the ways in which we characterize people who live in our city and work hard to make it a better place. So I just, I really feel compelled to say something about that because I didn't appreciate that. So that's all for me. Thanks. Thank you for that. Vice-Chair O'Neill-Vanaco. Wow, Pablo and I are kind of working on the same wavelength here. My only comment was, well, actually first, thanks for snow removal. I was speaking to some of the guys down at the garage and heard that some folks are down, but I can't tell just from walking the streets. So great job. And also recognizing that the snowstorms have hit on three holidays. So I know that that's also taxing. Yeah, I think I was gonna go back to some of the comments early in the meeting. Maybe I'm just being sensitive, but I just felt like there was an elevated tone. We're all volunteers. We all have lives and jobs outside of this commission. And I guess I kind of feel like maybe, maybe it's incumbent upon the commission or the staff to communicate with the public what it is we do. We don't have magic wands to change infrastructure, to change rules. We don't make the rules. We rely on the data points and information from staff and we have a healthy debate about it. But I don't, I guess I felt like that the commission was being accused of sitting on our hands since October when it's not their processes that need to be followed. So maybe that is a communication piece next time the issue comes up or for other future comments. But anyway, I wanna thank the staff for certainly for their work on that and for their support of the commission as we all support your work. And that we're not rubber stampers, but we do engage in healthy dialogue. So thank you. All right, thank you for that. And I thank you again, Dr. Spencer for the update on the corporations and everything. I appreciate that these are continuing to be extremely challenging times for everyone. And there's times like personally or just like hanging on by a thread here with one thing after another is see these challenges that are schools and medical facilities. And undoubtedly what you all are dealing with in the department and carrying on our critical services in the city. And I appreciate that you all still have fighting spirit in you to so pursue ambitious agenda items here while still having the flexibility and empathy to support your people and your teams on the way. Certainly are none of this. None of our perspective exciting conversations at these meetings are possible without the teams on hand. We need to take care of those people number one. And I appreciate the update that you were doing that and certainly recognizing people's extraordinary efforts to keep the lights on and more in these times. That said, I still like to take a step back and then look at sort of the metrics and where we're at in things. Speak more to it next time around given the hour. But I'll just ask, you know, there was a conversation about potentially going the opportunity to get additional staff member for a council. I didn't see it any highlights out of council. Did that come up since we spoke last or are there still debates around additional hiring requests from the council? Thanks, Chair Hogan. We have gotten the council support if it's in reference to an engineer to continue our capital reinvestment that yes, we do have posted an transportation engineering position. We've recrafted the capital planning position into an engineering position as capital planning is now being carried out cross-departmentally by the clerk treasurer's office for all the departments that are providing capital investments of parks and police and fire that all have capital needs. So yes, we're hiring for that position. We are evaluating, we heard a comment tonight about do we have enough workers on the front lines? And we are in the midst of an evaluation of the needs of our frontline teams as it relates to we've built a lot of new stormwater infrastructure and we need to maintain it. And we, this is a new burden and then there's all the bike, pet and quick build installations that we're making and without a growth in the team to maintain those. And so we are doing that analysis and do expect to be coming back with a recommendation for additional frontline support in the coming months. Yep, it all sounds timely. That was exactly the request in real the location of those patients. Thanks for that update. All right, nothing further on my ends. We'll move forward to the next agenda item nine at German and next meeting date, February 16th. I'll make a motion to adjourn the meeting. We have a motion and with a second from commissioner Montana. Thank you for that. Is there any discussion around that motion? All right. To the votes, please. Commissioner Bose. Aye. Mr. Kennedy. Aye. Mr. Overby. Aye. Mr. Mutano. Aye. Vice-chair O'Neill-Vanaco. Aye. Aye for myself. We are adjourned. See you all next time around. We're adjourned at 919. Thank you all.