 We will get started and sorry. Okay. How about now? How speakers are on. Okay. Great. Work. I think you're up. So I guess rather than swear both of you in at the same time since sort of different media here. Okay. All right. I am not on zoom. Counselor to be alfano, but I assume you're up there somewhere. So I will, I will swear you in from the screen. Okay. This doesn't get you off the hook for coming and signing the big book. Happy to have the big book. Okay. So there are two oaths. I don't know if you would really mean it. So if you would raise your right hand. Oh, do you prefer to swear to God or affirm under the pains and penalties of perjury? Do you solemnly affirm that you will be true and faithful to the state of Vermont and that you will not directly or indirectly do any act or thing injurious to the constitution or government thereof. Under the pains and penalties of perjury. I do. Do you solemnly affirm that you will faithfully execute the office of council member for the city of Montpelier and will therein do equal right and justice to all persons to the best of your judgment and ability according to law under the pains and penalties of perjury. I do so affirm. You are officially sworn sworn at. All right. Okay. We'll go down there. That's nice. And get the mic. I can mark really loud. Yeah. Okay. You prefer to swear or affirm or should I put it both? All right. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will be true and faithful to the state of Vermont and that you will not directly or indirectly do any act or thing injurious to the constitution or government thereof. So help you God or under the pains and penalties of perjury. I do. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will faithfully execute the office of council member for the city of Montpelier and will therein do equal right and justice to all persons to the best of your judgment and ability according to law. So help you God or under the pains and penalties of perjury. Thank you. Thank you. We'll get you in the big book maybe after the meeting. So we're not slowing down because the big book doesn't mean anything. It's just cool. So we're learning talent. Oh, right. You all are. You can do individually. Together. Okay. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will be true and faithful to the state of Vermont and that you will not directly or indirectly do any act or thing injurious to the constitution or government thereof. So help you God or under the pains and penalties of perjury. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will faithfully execute the office of council member for the city of Montpelier and will therein do equal right and justice to all persons that you will not directly or indirectly do any act or anything injurious to the state of Vermont and that you will not directly or indirectly execute the office of council member for the city of Montpelier and will therein do equal right and justice to all persons to the best of your judgment and ability according to law. So help you God or under the pains and penalties of perjury. I do. I do. I think you're both in the big book already. I remember signing that. I guess. Okay. We'll kind of get you in the big bus. I heard it's cool. I think we're very close. I think we're at the big screen. I swear I affirm both. Do you solemnly affirm that you will be true and faithful to the state of Vermont and that you will not directly or indirectly do any act or thing injurious to the constitution or government thereof under the pains and penalties of perjury. I do. Do you solemnly affirm that you will faithfully execute the office of mayor for the city of Montpelier and will therein do equal right and justice to all persons that's to your judgment and ability according to law under the pains and penalties of perjury. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. I'll call the meeting to order. And we have two members. Who are appearing remotely. So I asked them to identify themselves. I'm Carrie Brown. I'm a counselor from district three. I'm Sal Alfano. I'm a new character. I'm a new character. I'm a new character. I'm a new character. I'm a new character. I'm a new character. I'm a new character. I'm a new character. I am counselor from districts three. I'm Sal Alfano. I'm a new counselor from district two. Great. Thank you. Before we get started, I just want to make a couple of. Comments. I am grateful for the support and confidence that the voters have placed in me. conducted. I want to congratulate and welcome our two members and congratulate and welcome back our two returning members. I think I appreciate everyone's dedication to the city. I also want to appreciate everybody who ran for office whether they were elected or not. It takes a lot to make the decision to put yourself before the voters to expose your ideas to the public and to take the chance that you will either be supported or not supported by the voters and I think it was there was considerable amount of interest in the election this year and I appreciate everyone participating in the process. We've had years where we've had hardly any contested elections and I think it's very healthy to have people contesting and running for every office to really make give democracy a chance to work. So thank you all and I'll call the meeting to order. I'll mention a few logistics. If anyone is joining remotely, please indicate on your screen your name so that we know who's who's addressing us. Anyone who is called upon to speak please state your name and and where you live. We ask that that everyone keep their comments to two minutes or less. If you're speaking about a specific agenda item, please keep your comments germane to that topic. Anyone who wishes to speak must be recognized by the mayor. And if you have multiple questions or comments, please state them all at the same time. Anyone who speaks out of turn goes goes over or speaks of on germane topics that are not germane to the subject may be asked to address to adjust their comments. And and that's it. First item before us is to approve the agenda. You've all seen and received the agenda. Are there any changes that anyone wants wants to post hearing none? The agenda is approved. Next item on the agenda is general business and appearances. This is an opportunity for any member of the public to address the council on any topic not on tonight's agenda. Comments are limited to two minutes and in length and counselor bait will assist us with timekeeping. I see Peter Kelman's hand up. So we'll start with you, Peter. Thanks, Jack. I'm going to run slightly over two minutes. I'll tell you just ahead of time. As a Montpelier resident and the author publisher of Penn, the Montpelier public engagement newsletter, I'd like to welcome our newly elected mayor, Jack McCulloch, and newly elected city council members Tim Heaney from District three and Sal Alfano from District two. The residents of Montpelier, all of you are fellow residents, a real debt of gratitude for being willing and able to put in the time and effort required to carry out the substantial responsibilities of being a city council member or mayor. At the same time as our constituents, we expect you are duly elected public servants to exercise your due diligence and fiduciary responsibility to oversee the efforts of the city manager and the departments that report to him and to hold them accountable for results, not just good efforts. We are looking to you, the mayor and city council to lead thoughtfully, creatively and equitably as together, our community faces some enormous challenges, repeated infrastructure problems affecting city residents, a housing crisis at all levels, especially for workforce and lower income folks, the imminent sales of most buildings on the College of Vermont College of Fine Arts campus, the evolving plans for the now city owned country club roadside, taxpayer uncertainty about the impact of property value assessments, the specter of significantly increasing homelessness in our community, increasing municipal and school district budgets and their impact on property taxes and more. In addressing these and other issues, we are looking to you to ensure that our city government will be more proactive in matters such as the city's loss of VCFA and NECI be more accountable for planning and implementation of ways to successfully address critical needs such as affordable housing and resilient long term water, sewer and traffic infrastructure and will communicate with the public more effectively with greater clarity and transparency, especially by explaining in a timely manner and in plain language, the many technical financial and legal matters that we as residents are asked to approve by vote, such as budgets and bond issues, or those that you as city counselors are required to approve, like city contracts, large equipment and other purchases and the approval of various infrastructure improvement plans. Once again, I want to thank you all for all you do and hoping that you will lead the city to be successful meeting the many challenges that we'll face over the next several years. Thank you. Thank you, Peter. And you were well within the two minutes. Well done. I forgot to introduce myself. Peter Kalman, six Mountain View. Thank you. Two minutes and 44 seconds. Oh, I'm sorry. I just saw the yellow sign and I'm very sorry. Exactly two minutes. We're going to change. No, no, I'm not the one minute usually goes up at two minutes. So most people have at least three minutes often for thank you. Okay, I don't see anyone else with a hand raised online. Steve Whitaker, are you seeking to be recognized? Steve Whitaker, I can't do it as quite as nice and polished as Peter, but I wanted to cover some of the same things. You will, especially, you know, new members of the council will see our petition to get certain things on the agenda or requested certain things on the agenda that you may have heard before, but I'm counting on the new composition of the council to begin to hold the manager accountable for those. We have a new mayor who served on the police review committee, who helped suppress the information of the lying, thieving, harassment, and even killing that was swept under the rug and not included in the police review committee report. So those are real serious issues that need to be debated, the public records access issues, the flagrant violation, recurring flagrant violation of the city to public records requests. I'm going to change topic engineered by our city manager in meetings that were not open to the public was this effort to dissolve central Vermont Public Safety Authority and move to withdraw that has been even that process of voting to prepare a plan to dissolve and voting has been bungled. So you've got an invalid process going on that is reckless. You've got I believe that one of the city appointed members told me today that he's going to resign. But Donna and Doug Hoyt have timed out their their term limited. Thank God, they can't wreak havoc there anymore. But there's a need to reinvigorate that council, even if it's only for a time period required to do disillusioned to pay the bills to manage the money to manage litigation. Those cannot be just left to, you know, the manipulations of your city mismanager, you've got to get engaged, you have to understand that we are a member. We Montpelier is a member as is very city. And that process has been totally bungled with a conflict of interest to try to entrench or preserve the cash revenue and defeat oversight of the current dispatching operation. So you will hear more about it. I would encourage you to ask and educate yourselves probably offline. It's less quote combative, which I have never been. I've been critical, but I haven't been combative, despite what Digger says. So plowing ice and snow, we keep moving our cars back and forth and our public works does not plow. So I'm having to park, you know, several feet into the roadway because, you know, they have a nice warm day and all the trucks driving by on Main Street and they don't plow. So what's up with that? Why are we paying for this service in this department? And why are we moving our cars for this ordinance if you're not going to do your part? And it's, I shouldn't have to say that again and again and again, but that's on you. Thank you. Any other member of the public who wishes to address the council? All right, we'll move on to the next agenda item, the consent agenda. Just really quickly, it was my best intent to get you all minutes and liquor license stuff. But I just was too wiped out the last week. So I will owe you a lot. So we do not have minutes, we do not have. Oh, we so do not. And and none of the businesses are are facing any trouble by not having their liquor license issued. No, there's a whole new process with that. And I actually have to wait till I get money from them before I can prove them anyways. We're all working. Okay. Okay. So is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? Make emotionally approve the consent agenda? Second. Okay, move in second to approve the consent agenda. The only items being items C and D. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Can I make a comment? Yes. I would just like to thank staff bill and who and the others who did the loan. It really changed how much we're paying and interest and gives us options to go longer or less time. So I guess it's one of the consent agenda items I just wanted to not acknowledge we have it because our staff is always looking out for it. Thank you. Okay. Next item on the agenda is to elect officers. And the officers we are electing starts with the council president. Yes, I would like to nominate Lauren. I would happily run for that. Someone give me a second. Second. All right. Are there any other nominations? All right. All those in favor electing councilor Pearl be council president signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? This could be awkward. All right. I don't actually have a list. Vice president is next. Yes. Is there a nomination for vice president? I would nominate Donna to be vice president. You're willing to do it? Sure. I'm sorry. Sure. Okay. Any other nominations? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. And now to elect a parliamentarian. Kerry, are you willing? I am willing. Yes. Thank you. I would nominate Kerry Brown. Okay. And any other nominations? All right. All those in favor of Kerry Brown signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed? All right. For the benefit of the public, those of you that are watching at home, and even the new members. The president serves as the as acting mayor when the mayor is not available or runs the meeting. So that in so that as we've seen former council president McCullough was running the meetings after Mayor Watson resigned. Often will appear for the mayor if the mayor's out of town. We've been cutting those kind of things. The vice president similarly performs those duties if the mayor and the president are not available. And the parliamentarian is the does have the final say in the meeting about any parliamentary disputes or helps us sort out parliamentarian. And I think we also decided that if the mayor, president and vice president were all missing, the parliamentarian would run the meeting as well. So that's what their job is, what those jobs are for those that are just as clear. All right. And the rules of our documents indicate that the rules of parliamentary procedure are governed by the most recent edition of Roberts rules of order, which at present is 12th edition. Next up rules of procedure. Is the plan here to just readop them or just to up to you? Okay, it's your rules of procedure. We have the rules. So I will say this before you go on to the next few things. We typically adopt a rules of procedure, ethics policy and the standard and groups norms each year, even though they're often the same ones as the prior year. The idea is that this particular group of seven as a group has adopted them as their rules for this year. So they're not just, you know, it's clear that everyone had a chance to read them to vote on them. I wasn't going to mention when we got there, but since I have the mic, I'll say it right now. I will know not that I have any problem with the standards and group norms, but I would say that those were developed. I think council member bait may be the only one left from the time that those were developed. So if you know, I just toss out that if the council would like to have some sort of retreat or whatever to talk about those kinds of things, we could do that if you don't, that's fine as well. But I did want to mention that they go back to a couple of a couple of mayors ago. I just wanted to comment further. I wanted to comment like Bill, I feel we need to adopt the procedures and maybe norms, but we need to then amend them as we get to know one another. We have a new council and I definitely want us to have a retreat. I feel it's really been something I've missed to have a real serious retreat. And the current rules of procedure that's in your packets were initially adopted in 1963 and amended several times over the years since then. And I would entertain a motion to well, I'll entertain a motion to adopt the rules of procedure as they've been circulated. So moved. Is there a second? And is there any discussion? Okay. Sorry, Dacey. Steve, do you have a comment? Yeah, just bringing them prior and I didn't highlight them. But there's something in there about the time allowed and it's it's a 10 minute allocation. And I continue to protest and think it's unreasonable that I think you need some discussion around this issue of whether two minutes is adequate, especially when someone who anyone who is informed and is bringing up multiple issues, each of which could necessitate two minutes of to adequately inform you of what's going on or what's going wrong. And so if you've given yourself 10 minutes to talk about those items, you might know which clause that's in. I couldn't find it. It's number not eight. Really? Yeah. Go ahead. Well, it's number eight and it actually says should should be limited to no more than 10 minutes per subject, unless extended by majority vote of the council. I think that's a valid point worth discussing. Steve, you may recall that last year I made a different proposal for for comments under general business and appearances and at some point in the near future, I'll be bringing that up again. Any further discussion of the rules of procedure? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? The motion is passed and we have adopted the rules of procedure. Next up, we have the ethics policy. And again, this is a policy adopted by the city council initially in 1999 and generally it's been reaffirmed annually. Is there a motion to adopt this ethics policy? I move we adopt the ethics policy. Is there a second? Okay. Any discussion? Any discussion among the council first? I see Linda Berger. I see you have your hand up. So I'll recognize you now. Thank you. I'm Linda Berger. I live on Lower State Street. I believe that there's an omission in the ethics policy, which is there isn't any mention about conduct towards the general public. And can you tell me what you mean by that? I've looked at other ethics policies from different councils across the country and they have a section about conduct towards the general public by the council members. And what does it tend to say? It tends to say that the public should be treated with respect. I think it has also to do, I think in our case it could relate to the amount of time people are given to speak, how they're cut off or not cut off, how the comments or the information that people and the public are trying to present is listened to or the perception of how it's listened to by the public. Okay. I think what you're talking about is more along the lines of council policies and standards and group norms, which we do have next on the agenda. The point is taken, but I think the ethics policy really is intended more towards our ethical obligations as fiduciaries of the public. It's also addressed, I think, in the code of conduct that was adopted this past year. And actually we should have put that on the agenda. We'll do that for the next meeting to reaffirm that because that talks specifically about that. Steve. Thank you. Steve Wittaker, my pleasure. The ethics policy, I think it's easier to talk about the ethics policy now that it's not directly pointed at any council member because of a term limited expiration of, but when you've got a conflict of interest, when the city's council's obligations towards preserving revenue for the city dispatch operation is in conflict with a effort to create a regional fair equitable transparent system, you need to acknowledge that conflict or the members do. And because you just continue to ignore and pretend it doesn't exist is corrosive. It actually corrupts the process. And we've, this is what has crippled Central Vermont Public Safety Authority is not only mismanagement in the, by the officers, but this idea that we're trying to preserve working for two bosses, work for a boss that says, you got to get rid of this thing, you know, Brian Pete put it in an email six or eight months ago, we're going to try to dissolve CV PSA once we get this grant locked in. But also the falsities that are in the town report that were representing the fact the events of recent years for Public Safety Authority, that can't be allowed. Nobody vetted that for truth. You just took somebody's word for it and nobody, even other board members could have told you that's not true. That's not true. I've been talking to the Department of Public Safety and there's many things that are not true in that. So how do you, how do you resolve the ethics of your own behavior of. I mean, the ethics of saying that, you know, we didn't violate a public record law. I'm going to sweep it under the law, the, the rug. That that's unethical, especially for an attorney. So I'm raising these issues because you need to really examine and police yourselves and do it publicly and in a transparent way. But acknowledging these ethical conflicts is the place to start. Thank you. Thank you. When I read the ethics policy. One of the things that strikes me is that the definition. Of, of a conflict of interest really is. Whether a public official. Has has a potential to receive either a direct or indirect financial benefit from the, from any action coming before the public body and any action that the public official might take. And I just. It hasn't come up. I don't know. I think maybe at all in the. In the time I've been on counselor just a very few times. I, and I just cautioned people. That there, there are two sides of the ethics policy. One is clearly we not allowed to take action that has a potential for directly or indirectly financially benefiting us. But also I cautioned people to not be too. Too many things about that. And it would give a lot of interest because anytime. You recuse yourself. That also means that the people. Do not have the benefit of your participation in the decision. So those are both parts of the. Both considerations for ethics questions. So any other discussion before we vote on the ethics policy. Hearing none all those in favor. Do I understand that boards and commissions are also under the ICMA code of ethics? I could jump into that. What's the commissions follow the city's ethics policy? The ICMA code of ethics only applies to the city manager. That's an International City Manager's Association. It's a code of ethics for city managers and I try to apply it to our staff. It has nothing to do with the council or other commissions. Yes, boards are subject to the ethics policy just to give an example. If you're on the review board and you or your neighbor are proposing an improvement to your property, you couldn't vote on your own permit, that kind of thing. Thank you. You're welcome. All right, ready to vote? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? All right, we have readopted the ethics policy. Next up, we have our statement of standards, general policies, and council policies and standards and group norms, which was adopted first in 2017 and revised once since then. Is there a motion to adopt these? So moved. Second. All right, moved and seconded. Is there any discussion? I have one suggestion and it's in line with what Donna just said. In the list of group norms, in the lead up to the election, I received communications from, you know, in the last several months, I received communications from people saying that they may not have, you know, they might have sent us email, emails to members of the council and not gotten prompt responses. And I think that people are entitled to expect that if we get, we're going to respond to what their concerns are. So I would suggest that we add a statement that we would strive to respond promptly and respectfully to communications from the public. Everybody. Willing to add that. And all depends on how you define prompt. Life has a lot of challenges. Yes. And that's why I didn't say within 48 hours or any fixed term. Yeah. I would say respond. I just, the prompt just makes me think, oh my heaven, some weeks. Yeah, I hear you. I don't, I've not, I haven't been perfect on doing this either. I don't think anyone is. So. Okay. So we okay with adding that. I can't hear you. Can we see it in written form before saying yes or no? Is it. Yeah, I can get it to people next time. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll take this up next time. Okay. Next, we are to. Okay. We'll just wait until next time and then we'll have. Okay. Yeah. Without, without objection, we'll leave this on the table. All right. Committee assignments. You all have. The list of. The current committee assignments. For members of the public who are watching. One of the things that comes with being on the council is. Serving on a whole range of committees. And so the time we spend here in the room is not. All the work that we're doing. And with a lot of turnover. Well, what I've noticed is that there's a lot of people. There's a lot of committees who. Don't have any council representatives now because they're, they're gone. And, and this is the current list, Kelly. Okay. Great. So. We have the Americans with disabilities act committee. I'll just. See anyone want to. Volunteer to be on that. This is one of the few committees that meets during. Business hours. Can we just say the ones that we have? First, then we can decide which are, which are left. Is it better? Because. I have. Two. You know, committees in my mind, but I want to help. City and city council to support. With other committees. Sure. But I don't know how much. Time. I have to spend. Sure. So that's why. Our names and see. Thank you. Gary. I see. Yes. I had just a. A quick correction to what it says here. So it has me on the Montpelier alive board, which I do not believe that I'm on that board. And it does not have me on the housing committee, which I am on. So we should just make that quick change. And then. The restroom committee is not on here, which is another one that I. Have been going to and would like to be on. Okay. Can I just like. Donna has another correction. So let's get it. Yes. I mean, some time ago, I resigned from the community justice center. And the citizen advisory board. Because they changed your schedule. And there are some others missing. Like, I don't, maybe I'm not seeing it. But there's a complete streets committee. Yeah. There are lots of committees. These are the ones that have council reps. Although I've actually noticed we have the solid waste district, which you have a council appointment. Yeah. And there are some others missing. I don't, maybe I'm not seeing it. Your infrastructure committee. Transfer transportation. Oh, I see on the bottom. Okay. Yeah. But. But there's a complete streets committee. Yeah. And there's a solid waste district, which you have a council appointment. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. I'm just wondering, like, I, I know when I first started, I signed up for a couple of committees and they ended up being at times that I just could never do and felt bad. Like I'm wondering if we could maybe get the schedule and look at it for the next meeting so that we can actually make sure that they're meetings that we can do like sometimes during the day I could do, but oftentimes I couldn't. So I'm just not sure what I could commit to yet. Okay. So do you want to just put this off completely until next time? Laura. Maybe, and I mean, I. Trying to think of an open meeting law compliant. If there's a way to like send our initial thoughts or something to the city manager so that there's some like starting place. Or we could see where gaps are. Or we could send me their requests. Then we can kind of see everybody. We don't point to me. Yeah, I could be like, just give us a very place. We could come back with a master schedule. When they need. Make sure this double check these and see if there's any remissed. I'm happy to do that. Okay. Can I at least. Announce the ones that I am interested in. Okay. So. In our last say J meeting. Carol mentioned about community justice center. So I want to be. You know, in their meetings. And also I want to be in the monthly or alive board. And homelessness task force. Thank you. Cool. Okay. So we'll have this on for our next. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll have this on for our next meeting. Anyone. Submit. Jack. Sorry. I didn't see you. So I like Lauren's idea. So. Bill, the idea is that we'll send you. Committees that were everyone will send you committees. And you'll have them on a spreadsheet or something. And we'll be able to then see where, where there's. Duplicates and where there's. Empty. Empty seeds. Okay. Great. Thank you. Next item on our agenda. We have. Appointments to the. Energy advisory committee. And. We have. Sorry. Sorry. Jack. Yes. Could I just go back one? Sure. Okay. Okay. Great. Thank you. Next item on our agenda. We have. Appointments to the. Energy advisory committee. And. Sure. Will we, will we know which, which committees when they meet? Is there a, is there a time schedule somewhere? We'll put that together. Okay. That'll help. I think in some cases I can do, for example, non-business hours more than some. So. Yeah. Donna. Well, I'm just going to tell sound. If you have some that you're interested in, go to the website and find when they meet. Yeah. Okay. We'll put together a master list for Friday's packet anyway. Okay. Great. Thank you. Okay. Are we ready to move on to the. Energy advisory committee. We have. We have two applicants. And they are. Amanda Sardonas and Chris Leppler. And I'm. Trying to see if they are. Present. I am not. I'm sorry. There's a different name listed on the. Agenda sheet, a KC Dean. And then there's these two that have separate applications. Am I reading the wrong one? If you go to the council committee, but I'm not sorry. Emmy. See appointment cover sheet. I only see a KC Dean there. Right. And there are two different. Applications for KC Dean. And then there are two other applicants. With full application. I'm wondering if this is an old one we made. Casey's been coming to the meetings. I believe she already was appointed. So I think that would probably was the last time we use the old cover sheet or not updated the names. It'd be my guess, but we can also delay this. I think for two weeks to be sure. Yeah. Why don't we do that? Yeah. Okay. And next up. We have a. Possible appointment to the community fund board. And there's. When applicant Dan Groberg. And I am not seeing. Dan. I'm not seeing Dan Groberg. I'm not seeing Dan Groberg. I'm not seeing Dan Groberg. I'm not seeing Dan Groberg. I'm not seeing Dan Groberg. I'm not seeing Dan Groberg. I'm not seeing Dan Groberg. I am not seeing Dan. Carry your hand is up. Is that from last time? No, I want to move that we appoint. Groberg. Well, second it. Okay. Is there any discussion. Okay. Yes. I was going record is opposing that appointment. This, I think most of y'all are not aware. But what really happened when the public toilet signs went in the planners is Dan Groberg organized a Facebook flash mob and it all came out in court and there was no conviction. But basically this is a person who's embedded with the merchants and facilitating their agenda even to the point of getting four or five of them to come into court and purge of themselves. This is really not the kind of person of ethical integrity that I mean, and there's a good paper trail. This was done through discovery and evidence and I'm happy to provide it. But I would ask you to postpone action and seek some other members to that board because this is a very important passing money out to your friends and people who've complicit in your purgery and false charges against people. That's not the kind of people we need to keep appointing to boards. Okay. Any other discussion from young members of the council? Ready to vote? All those in favor of appointing Dan Groberg indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, we've appointed Dan Groberg to the community fund. We have an appointment to the Conservation Commission and Paige Gertin is seeking reappointment and I don't see Paige in the meeting either. Paige does really good work. I'd like to nominate her to be reappointed. Yeah, I agree. Second. Moved and seconded. Any further discussion? All those in favor indicate by saying aye. Sal, were you seeking to speak or just voting? I wanted to point out that she asks for a, to be named an alternate member. I don't know the significance of that, but she was saying that she resigned, but she had a grant that she wanted to complete and wanted to be named an alternate member. I'm not sure why she sought that designation, but I just wanted to point that out because I wasn't sure why it was important. We do have alternates on the conservation commission, so you could want her to that position. You're right, that is what she sought. So can we amend the motion to name her as an alternate member? Yeah, that's fine. Without objection, we'll order that. All right, all those in favor of appointing Paige Gertin as an alternate to the conservation commission signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, and we have appointed Paige Gertin as an alternate to the conservation commission. Next on the agenda is the presentation for city council orientation. Do you have an estimate of how long this is gonna be? Could be a long time. But at 8.30 we'll stop. Yeah. Okay. 8.15, whenever the break time is. Yeah, it looks like it could be a long time. And Bill, these slides are available for anyone who wants to download them on the city's web page. Okay. I'm gonna point to that thing now at the final meeting of people, so they can show it up on the screen. Yes. Yes. Great. Okay, thank you. So, best practice in my profession is to help orient, take over the house normally, an entire council when they command. However, the way it's set up in most communities is there's some lag time between the time there's an election and the time that people actually take office. And in Vermont, of course, you get elected in that night you've been or in this case, the meeting is the next night. But given the fact that we have two brand new council members, a person serving as mayor and you and a council member who's only been with us a couple months, council member Brown's only been with us for a year. And we haven't really done this in a full public session for a while. We thought it'd be a good idea to go through a big overview of your roles and those sorts of things. And also we have the departments here to give a very brief presentation about what's going on with them. So we do expect this to fill up some time. This isn't a short presentation. I will give you the bad news is you will have to listen to me talk a lot. You will have to, you're gonna hear a lot of terms and I get a lot of information thrown at you. The good news is there's not a quiz at the end. And all of it is available to you in other forms including the handbook and things that you get. So this is not the only place then you will have this thing. But the idea is that if nothing else, you hear a term and if it comes up again, you say, I heard something about this. This is something I should pay attention. So with that said, we'll get started. So first of all, welcome you all to the city council and thank you for serving. This is the Athenian oath from ancient Athens. And while it's not the oath that you all took for city council, perhaps it should be. Not gonna read all of it. You can see it, but it is really again a guiding principle that those of us in my profession use. And I think the last one that I highlighted was, thus and always we will transmit the city not only, not less, but greater and more beautiful to us than it was when transmitted to us. So as you all have taken the reins of this community, your oath, your goal should be to make it better by the time that you leave and that we will do right by the public at all times. So today we're gonna go through five separate things. Some are longer than others. We're gonna talk about sort of the mechanics of governance, the rules of city government, how policy making looks from your perspective, an overview of city operations departments and facilities, and then a quick summary of some of the active projects. There'll be question times at the end of each section about those sections and overall questions at the end of the presentation. So we don't, so you don't have to hold your questions for everything. So governance, who knows what Dylan's rule means? Okay, someone hasn't been on the council. All right, Council Member Hurrell. That means if we want to change our city charter, we have to get it approved by the legislature. So there are two types of states in the United States, a home rule states and Dylan's rule states, and about 40 of them, including Vermont, are Dylan's rule. And what that means is that a town or city does not have the authority to do anything unless it's expressly granted to them by the state government. So despite the fact that we all think of Vermont as a home rule state with town meeting and all that stuff, we are actually, like most other states, tethered to the state government. So I think that's just a very important thing to understand when people say, can't the city just do something? Sometimes you can't. If we have not been authorized to do it, we can't do it. So we have our city charter, which you shall have available. That is enacted by the legislature. So what any charter does is creates variations from the general statute. So it gives certain authorities or certain procedures or certain variations from what applies to all cities and towns. And most large communities have their own charter, but that's ours. We operate what's under what is known very commonly around the country as a council manager form of government, basically all larger communities of Vermont, except Burlington and Rutland use this form of government. We'll talk a lot more about that as we go on. But the city council is the legislative or governing body. And I use those terms, because when you look at statute, you will see references to those terms off. When the governing body meets are the legislative body, that's referring to you or a select board. If you look at something in statute, if it's not the charter, it talks about the select board, that's still the city council. And the city council is the mayor and the six city council members. So the seven of you together comprise the city council. So just to be clear, some people think the mayor is somehow not a council member. That's not correct. And the authority, any authority of any of you come from the council as a whole. So while we certainly will meet with all of you and talk with all of you and want to know what you're interested in that kind of thing. Unless the council has voted it or said it as a group, it's not an action of the council. And similarly, it takes four votes to pass anything. And you think that's simple. When there are seven of you here, of course it takes four votes, but if there's only four of you here, it takes four votes. So it's not a majority of who's president. It's a majority of the body. Just something to remember. So even I think at our last meeting, we had a vote, it was three, two. And I was like, well, the president needs to act to make a fourth vote. Otherwise it would have been defeated even though it had a three, two majority. So there's that. So the city council only appoints a handful of individuals. So you appoint the city manager, the city treasurer, city attorney, and then various boards and committee members. And then there's a long list of those. And we'll talk a little bit more about that. And then the city manager is the chief administrator of the officer of the city or the council. Again, more on those when we get to rolls. So let's talk about the mayor since there are different. They are a city council member. They preside over council meetings. And what is somewhat unique and popular is the mayor may veto an action of the council as long as they do so before the start of the next council meeting. And that veto may be overridden by five votes. It has happened very sparingly during my time here. I don't believe mayor Watson ever exercised it. I'm not sure mayor Holler ever exercised it. I think maybe mayor Hooper once or twice, mayor Caparis maybe once. So really not a frequently used thing, but it is there. The mayor votes to break a tie or make a fourth vote. And I'd like to be clear. This is not by charter, not by state law. The mayor could vote on every item. It's been by tradition and practice here in Montpelier as how the mayor's voted, so to speak. I don't, it's fine, it works, but just to be noted, I think one thing that differentiates the mayors that they are the only city-wide elected official on the council and as such, I think are viewed as the sort of political leader of the community and a spokesman for the community and as such generally serve as a spokesperson. Even in times of emergencies when we have staff handling things, we'll generally get the mayor involved and have them talk to the cameras, talk to the community. People want to see the person that they voted for communicating with them. And if something unusual happens, there are a very tiny bit of a few appointments that are the mayors, I think say the T.W. Wood Gallery, that maybe the investment committee did a couple. There's a couple that are the mayors only, but it's not that many. The mayor can, I should put it in, they can't have mayoral proclamations. There's that, but they don't have any real administrative authority. And I think that's just important for people to understand. I know most of you in this room know that, but sometimes I think people assume the mayor has more operational authority than they do. So the council structure, we'll go through a little bit of the structure. You've just already done the first part of this. You've elected your president, vice president, and parliamentarian. And I've already explained what those are. And you've adopted most of the next things. One thing that is important is that any council member may add an agenda item. So that includes the mayor. Again, there's a some misperception that only the mayor makes the agenda. Actually, if you look at the charter, the charter is the city manager, we'll prepare an agenda for the council, but it, our rules and our charter says that any council member, in effect, any resident can add an agenda item by request. So the council may create committees, subcommittees, and or appointed council rep to other committees and also establish a charge in deadline for committees. That's often how the council does work. So they'll say, we're going to create a task force or we're going to create a group. This is what we'd like you to do. Here's the deadline we give you. This is the report we'd like to see in such time. Typically the regular meetings of the council are on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month that does change from time to time. It typically changes at the holiday season because the fourth Wednesday is usually the night before Thanksgiving and the fourth Wednesday, December is usually right around Christmas. So we often move those to the third. Typically in the summer, we drop at least one meeting in one of the months and sometimes two depending on what's on our docket. And sometimes just because of people's schedules, we will choose to change it, but generally it's the second or fourth meeting. You will get a weekly memo on Fridays from my office, from all the departments talking about issues that have happened, various activity status of certain activities. And at the end of it is sort of a laid out schedule of upcoming council meetings. So people can see at least the tentative schedule for items that are coming. And it's usually two or three months out. So people can see what we're thinking of what's in the queue. And obviously any viewer invited to ask, communicate with me at any time if you have any questions about that. And then the council engages in the annual strategic planning. And I'm going to talk about that later. So I'll let that go right now. So we're in the middle of a council meeting now. This is kind of a typical council meeting. So we will start, you get the weekly memo and the agenda by email on Fridays. That comes with cover sheets, we'll talk about that. We then go over the provisions for remote or hybrid meetings, which Mayor McCullough did already. And, but the basic part of that is most fundamental rule is if you are a council member, you're a member of the council and you are participating remotely as council member Brown and council member Alfano are you must identify yourself at the beginning of the meeting remotely. So if people hear your voice, they know who you are. They know you're speaking, they're a member of the council. So that's why that's on there. We have an agenda review. It's usually approved and that's the time that things can be added if necessary or changed in order or taken off. But just making sure that the agenda that's been published is still good to go. Again, we're already partway into this. We have general business and appearances. And this is when individuals from the community can address the council on issues that are not on the agenda. They can raise subject of concern. They can make an announcement. They can do whatever they want within the allowed time. The consent agenda is usually tonight was small, but sometimes it will have contracts, bid, awards, any number of things, any number of items. And it's really meant to be items that are non-controversial somewhat administrative in nature, but because of their size or whatever they need to be approved by the city council. Any one member of the council can pull an item off the consent agenda if they wanna talk about, ask about it. So it's there for convenience. It's not there to avoid anything other than use our time wisely in a meeting. Urge you to, if you have questions on a consent agenda, we appreciate it if you can get in touch with me or our staff early so that we can either be, we can either answer your question for you or be prepared to answer it at the meeting. We don't mind if you wanna take it off, that's your right, it's really a nice courtesy if the mayor calls me and says, still I'm gonna pull item C off the consent agenda. Can you be prepared to speak to it or have your staff? And that way you get the answer you want, public gets to hear it and so there's that. Public hearings, so then we move on to just regular agenda items. Those are, there'll be a topic, there will be a cover sheet that goes with it. I'm gonna talk about that in a minute. And typically the council will, the item will get framed. The council may allow public comment, typically does, but it isn't required. And then we'll at some point cut off public comment and have a council discussion, motion and make a decision about what happens. That's that will, whatever that action is, we'll guide the follow up. There are also public hearings. There are certain, some grants require them. We have them for the budget, we have them for bonds, ordinances require public hearings, zoning, those kinds of things. So those actually require a specific part where a public hearing is opened and the public can speak and offer their comments. And typically at that point, the council just listens to the public comment and then closes the public comment section and goes on to the council portion of the discussion. At the end of the meeting, we have what's called council reports and each of you will be given the opportunity to say whatever you want, really. And you're certainly welcome to pass, but it can be anything from, today's my daughter's birthday to like to thank so-and-so for this or this group for doing such and such. Or I think probably most appropriate is when you are on council committees, that's your chance to say, hey, the transportation committee met last week and just so you know, they're gonna be talking about this is you don't give your fellow council members a heads up of what might be coming before them. And then lastly, we have executive sessions from time to time where the very limited set of reasons for which you can go into executive session and we follow those. And they're usually for appointments, personnel issues or some sort of negotiations, perhaps a land purchase or labor negotiations, those kinds of things. We spend our practice to try to use them as only when necessary and obviously in line with the law. So we'll talk to the cover sheet. You will see these in your agenda when you get your agenda for each item and they are pretty self-explanatory. We'll have the subject, the submitting dark department and the staff recommended action and then it will try to relate it to a prior goal or a strategic plan, tell you how much money is needed, where the money's coming from, if there's any law, legal requirements that relate to it and any other background information, if there's an attached document that might say memo from DBW directors and like that. And then we just try to do our best to think who might be interested parties and we will reach out to them. But so council has a sense of who might be showing up at the meeting or who they may want to talk to about it, like say, monthly or live or downtime businesses or something. So council member might say, well, I think I'll take it upon myself to go talk and see if they think about this. And then it's electronically signed. We actually do need to, it's supposed to, our rule is if it's not signed, it's still got submitted, but it means I didn't see it and sign off on it. If it is signed, it means I did. We've gotten sloppy about that. So one of our new years, new council years resolutions is to get back to that so you know whether it's actually gone past my desk or Kelly's desk or not. So some things that are important, I'm not gonna go through all of these. I'm just gonna call these out of these are things you should become acquainted with. And all of this I think is in your handbook or available to her, but just the open meeting on number one, we operate under the open meeting law and we do our best to follow it. And so just make sure that you know and included in the open meeting law are the allowed reasons for executive sessions. And there are some parts of executive sessions that require two votes. You have to, we actually have to find a, have a finding that any premature disclosure of the information would put the city at a disadvantage. So I think logically like a land negotiator saying we were buying land from the heathens. And you'd have to use yourself. Yes, but okay. So somebody else, and we have a meeting to say, well, you know, they're asking this, but we think they take this and we'll offer this, but we'd really be willing to pay this. Obviously having all that conversation in public puts the city at a disadvantage in that kind of negotiation because of the person here. So, but we have to have a finding first. It says that there are other executive sessions that don't require that finding. They just, you can just go in for those purposes. So those are all there. Public records law, anything basically that you do or write in your role as a city official, email, text, memo, anything that is a public record, virtually all of it is disclosable. There are some exemptions. But I think you should start with the assumption that you're creating a public record anytime you do that. There are rules for providing public records. There's a, we have a link on the email for people on excuse me on the website to make public record requests. We get them when we respond to them. And there's an agenda preparation. That usually goes on just so you know, we're usually into that well into that by Thursday and by Friday morning, we're wrapping it up. We tell, generally we close it off at Thursday except for something that might come in from a council member or that kind of thing or something really important from a department head. But by Friday night, you're getting it late Friday after you're getting the agenda for the next week. So if you want something on agenda, please think about say Thursday before, tomorrow, we don't have any next week, but if we did. And then, so that's how that goes. Budget process, we'll talk about that later, just knowing the annual election town meeting deadlines. There are certain things for deadlines for the budget, certain deadlines for charter changes, certain deadlines for different things that might do. So just know that those things exist. We have a year now and we'll brief you on that again when the time comes, just be aware that there are things, you can't just call a town meeting vote for next week, 30 day warning period and public hearings and all that. Same thing with bonds. There's a certain very specific process for bonds, including a necessity resolution, similar with charter change, ordinance adoptions are laid out in the charter. We use a two hearing process, two public hearing process that is not required by our charter or by state law. And you can actually adopt an ordinance just having one public reading and adopt it. We have, as long as I've been here, held two readings. And I think it's a good process, frankly. I think that gives the public a chance to hear about it. Sometimes the council will make an amendment at the first one, bring it back to the second one. It just allows for good, good process. Zoning is, zoning has a very, even though it is also an ordinance, there's a very prescribed process for zoning amendments, by law amendments under state law. So it's different than our regular ordinance adoptions. I won't go into the deal, but just know that if we're changing zoning, it's not the same as a regular ordinance. And lastly, I know that when you're all ran for an election, you really ran because you wanted to be members of the board of civil authority and the board of abatement. And this was just your way of getting to those great jobs. But congratulations. You are all members of those two boards. And you will be getting notices from the city clerk from time to time about meetings. And those are important meetings, as people that are requesting tax abatements and voting lists and various things. Some of you could explain more of what they do, but you are members and they need quorum. So you signed up. So I'll just point out that because we're going through a town-wide reappraisal, that when people get their new assessment notices, they have the ability to appeal those assessments. And so typically in a year where we have town-wide reappraisal, the board of civil authority is very busy because we have a lot of people challenging their assessments. One year we started meetings on Thursday, August 21st and we met every week from Thursday, from August 21st until end of October, or maybe the beginning of November. So yeah. And this is a reappraisal year. So I want to thank you for that. That's actually helpful and a good reminder that this is one of those years. I wanted to call out, we talk about the authority of the city council, city manager, I think there are certain positions and groups that have some independent authority, even though they fall within the city government structure. So I just wanted to call those out. Again, I won't go into fugitive, but the city clerk. So there's some that are elected. So there's the city clerk who is in charge of elections, land records, licensing, that sort of thing. And you don't really have any service other than budget. They are an independent entity, I guess the only real control you have is amending the minutes that they prepare. The cemetery commission likewise, and I know Patrick will talk about this more, they are separately elected and separately chartered. The parks commission is part of the city charter, but they are independently elected and are given charge of sort of managing the parks. However, they don't have the authority to enact ordinances concerning the park. So there's often the interaction there where they want more teeth than a park rule and they might come to the council. So there is some overlap there, but they do a fair amount of independence. And then as the board of civil authority, board of abatement, I just mentioned, they have very clear authorities because it's not just you, it's also the justices of the pieces that are a part of those boards as well. So those groups have authority that are not just the council. There are groups that are appointed by the council, the rec board who advises the rec department, and even more importantly, the development review board planning commission and design review committee, you appoint them to perform these functions. But once you do, it's really inappropriate for you to interfere with their function. So the development review board is fact as a quasi judicial process. And when they're holding a hearing, it's actually very inappropriate. You should not be contacting members of the boards trying to influence their vote. They are there as a jury essentially and they will make an independent decision. Obviously you can review how you think they're doing when it comes time for reappointments. But once they're in place, they are an independent body. Planning commission, same thing. They draft the zoning regulations, make recommendations on certain things. You get to approve their decisions. You get to make the final say on the city plan, but you should not be as a council interfering with them. I see you can go to a meeting and offer your opinion, but they still have their own say and design review committee is part of the development review board process. Just to point out that even though they're under the city government and you're the governing body, they still have their own lay of the land. And this actually comes through with some of our staff. So again, these are appointed by the city manager, but once I make those appointments, so we have an assessor. I cannot tell the assessor what to do with a parcel, whether somebody can apply for tax exempt status. Assessor makes an independent judgment based on the statute. They go through a process and lay out the grand list. They set people's appraisals and then their people can read the appraisal. Even though I appoint them, I can dictate the outcome of their work. Same thing with a fire chief at an emergency scene. Once there's an emergency scene, the fire chief is the person in charge of that scene. I can show up and I can stand and hand coffee to the firefighters and that's about it. And same thing with the police. We do not, I have no authority to tell police who to arrest, who to cite, how to do it, when to do it, when to have speed patrols or anything like that. They are in charge of those things. The health officer has very independent authority enacted under the statutes and can take independent action. And in fact, you are also the board of health. So there are certain things that can come to the board of health for a health award. And lastly, zoning administrator. Similarly, even though the zoning administrator is in the planning department and technically works for the planning director, they have complete authority to make independent decisions on their own about whether something needs to go to DRB or permit can be issued and their decisions can be appealed. So it's just important to know that we have a city government structure, but we're not a corporation where where everyone can be told what to do and when to do it and how to do it. There are very legal authorities here. So we are managing a large structure to do the work for the public. We also have some independent partners and I just called them out because they are independent agencies, but we certainly work with them, Mobiliar Alive for our downtown, the library is a public library, but it's not a city library. We appoint people to their board or one rep to the board. And obviously they go to the voters for funding. But other than that, we have no control over them. The school district, of course, is separate the Green Mountain Transit of Montlake of cities and towns. We're a member and they represent all the cities and towns are on state. I currently serve on the board of directors of that group, Central Mont Regional Planning Commission. Again, all parts of the state have regional planning commissions. We're a member of this one and same as all waste district, Down Street housing, they don't have any regulatory authority, but they typically are a partner for affordable housing and we'll work with them to get grants and provide units. And then the Capital Fire Mutual Aid System, which we work with the relative neighboring communities on fire. We were members of Central Montlake Safety Authority until yesterday and then we chose to withdraw from it. There are only two members they both chose to withdraw and that is dissolving at this. Now, I'm just gonna, you have this list. I think Mary sent you a link to most of these and some of you have hard copies. I just say these are key documents. You know, as long as you've read them all by say Friday, you'll be good and have them all memorized. I just call them out. These are important things that we'll get referred to from time to time over the course of the year. It's things that you should know that these resources exist and you can refer to them as needed. I would really call out the first two, the city charter, because that really is sort of our constitution and the Council Handbook, which we've put together over here, which contains a lot of this stuff and it's really meant to be a one place resource with a lot of information, open reading laws in there, the public records law, so a lot of our policies are in there, kind of a lot of what I'm telling you right now but classes are written down in there. So that that is meant to be your, but so key documents, know they're out there and use them as needed and feel free at any time to ask any staff person for the appropriate staff person for the help of them. So with that, any questions about governance or all of the board functions and all of that? Anyone from, I can't see the screen, so anyone from Zoomland? Perfect, quiz's coming. I mean, we'll do a quiz. So the next thing we're going to talk about roles and I've divided these up as external authority, their vision and capacity and I will explain that more on the next slide but basically the external authority for you or state and federal governments, those should be all one line, our voters, residents, taxpayers and businesses and then for staff and me, the mayor and the city council are external authority because that's who we take our orders from and then in terms of vision for the city and the organization is really up to the mayor and the council to do that and then internally more of the city manager and staff and then dealing with capacity to get stuff done that's really on city manager and staff, volunteers to go and do work and what I mean by that is this. So an organization that functions really well lines up these three things and then, so the areas in the middle that all three overlap are what you do the best. So my favorite example is Snow Plow. I believe that it's the vision of the city council, the leadership that we ought to plow snow here in Vermont and I believe that the external, of improving authority, residents, believe that we should plow snow and support that in depth and we as an organization have the capacity to plow snow. We have snow plows, we have sidewalk plows, we have sanders, we have people to do it. So they're in the middle, we're all lined up. It's something we all think we should do, know how to do, people believe we should do it. It's not controversial at all and we do a pretty good job of it. So that is where you're aligned. Where this comes in is now there could be something where you as the council have a vision but we've got to go to the voters to get approval and we may or may not have the ability or capacity to get through it. So as we think of these challenges or who are responsible for these times, where do you follow on these roles and as we deal with these problems, you know, there's something we could do and people want us to do it that the leadership doesn't want to do it. They don't have the vision that we should do it. So sometimes as we sort through some of these problems, it's good to just take a step, say is this an authority issue? Like you could do this, we just don't have the approval to do it or the state doesn't allow us to do it or gee, we all want to do it. The voters want us to do it. We just have the people we don't know how to do it. We don't have the capacity to do it. So just to kind of a snapshot, I don't look at that. So as you go back to this then you can see. So we're getting just kind of laying out who falls into which category and how we divide. So break this down a little bit now. So our voters and our residents and our taxpayers, so what do they do? They elect city officials. They vote on budgets and bonds. They engage in local authority and discussion. So they are our external authority. They're also owners and customers. And by that, I mean as owners, they're stakeholders. Everyone who, the taxpayer here is a shareholder in the city of Montpelier. So they have a say in policy. They have a say in things. And so they, there might be controversy over things. Often there is, what are we gonna do? People have disagreement about what we should do. They're also customers. So it may be that they got a flat tire on a pothole or we plowed something in inappropriately or did something. And so they have a complaint about the service that they received. And those are different things, but those folks are the same people. So, but we'll talk about this in a minute. So the man in the city council, your role in all of this is you do establish the vision, the policy, the values and the goals. The biggest things that the top two policy things that you do are determining how to collect and spend other people's money. You know, all of this is public money. So how we tax, how we set fees, how we set rates. And then what we do with it is the single biggest policy action that you take. Right up there with it is what regulations, zoning ordinances, city plans that you put on. So how to tell people how to behave, how to tell people how to use their property. And so that is how you, those are the big issues in how you enact policy in the community. Now, obviously there's things trickle down from those, but that's really at the end of it. It's kind of telling people what to do and how to spend their money. So you think of it like that. You also have fiscal oversight. So you get larger contracts and bids. You get monthly financial reports. You will see, you'll get a copy of the check warrant each week. So you can see if you want to go through, you can see every bill we're spending and can ask questions and you oversee the city manager. Someone already exhorted you to do that. That's exactly right. That's your job. Is the policy being implemented? Is what you've asked being done or getting done on time? Is that vision being happening? And then going back to the ownership, it's your job really, as the policy making mind to address the controversy. When there's controversy in the community over how something's being done, that's really a policy map. And so you as elected officials kind of have to set a priority, you have to make a decision. And then ultimately the council speaks with one voice. Even though there's seven of you, and even though you may have it out, hammer and nail and tongue at the end of the day, once the votes are cast, that is what the council said. And so the more that we can respect that, even if you were on the minority side of that particular decision, the more effective the city should be and the more effective than the city government can be that we're acting on behalf of elected people. So let me go to the city manager. Sorry. So obviously the city manager's number one job is to implement council's policy. And I say me, it also goes to all the staff. We could also recommend policy to the council, whether that's the budget, whether that's what to do about certain regulations. But at the end of the day, we don't approve that. And if you wanna do something different from what we've suggested, that is your prerogative and we will make happen what you do. We also provide advice and information to the council. Managers, the chief administrative of the officer of the city, what does that mean? That means I hire, fire, supervise all employees either directly or indirectly through their departments. We manage all the departments. I and our staff are responsible for all the operations of the city. We provide direct constituents, service, person as a problem. We're the people that can help them. And so if you're the people addressing controversy, we're the people that address the complaints, this customer service complaints. Now they may call you because you're their elected rep and that's fine. But we, and you know, it's good to know if we're not getting that done in a timely fashion, that's part of your oversight role. But generally, if there's something with a water line in someone's house, you guys aren't gonna fix it. So we need to do that. So you're in that chain. But, and then finally, someone already mentioned the ICMA Code of Ethics. It is a professional code of ethics for the International City Manager's Association. It's printed in your book, so I won't read it, but I am a member. In fact, I'm also on their board of International Board of Directors. And it's my duty to follow that code. And lastly, as we think about the circles, it's the manager and staff's job to provide the capacity. Obviously if you've approved funding and those kinds of things. But that is our role in the operation. So council communications, again, just a little highlight here, all electronic communications in your council role on public records. So we do have folks that ask for those and we do have, they can end up in the press. So as you think about what you're saying, just think about that. If you're communicating with staff, again, you have no oversight role over staff. So technically you should communicate through the city manager. What that means really in practical matters that maybe something you don't understand. We're gonna be doing the city master plan. Maybe there's a zoning amendment. You don't really understand it. You may just say this to me. You mind if I talk to Mike Miller about this and I'll say, no, of course not. Just thanks for letting me know. You should know that the staff will tell me about that conversation. Again, I'm not trying to control everything that happens, but I don't wanna be sitting up here and making a statement and then have someone say, well, Mike Miller told me something different. So it's really just so we're all consistent. We really know what's going on. And sometimes, and it's not to out anybody for their questions, but we think it's best practice if everyone has the same information. So if a new person, keep looking at Tim, because Sal sends an email with a question. How does such and such work? We may reply to everybody. It's not because we want them to know that Sal asked this question. It's that we're giving him information. You wanna make sure you all have that same information so that again, he's not at a council meeting saying, well, Bill told me this and we're just like, never. So you may occasionally get copied on an email and that's what it is. It's trying to communicate with the public. Mayor mentioned this earlier today already, but acknowledge your seat of the communication, clarify whether you're speaking for yourself and not the full council because in some cases, we will adopt who's speaking policy. It might be the mayor or sometimes the mayor didn't agree with it. So the council president might be the person we designate to do that. When I say by we, I'm answering you folks. And then refer the constituent complaints to the manager. We have no problem if you follow up and say, hey, do you ever take care of Mary Smith's problem? That's fine. You're doing your constituent service, but just be clear about your role whenever you're speaking. And obviously oftentimes people are wanting to tell you they're, you know, urge you to vote a certain, take a certain position or may want to know how you feel about a certain piece of information. And you certainly can say, well, you know, I don't know what the council is all going to do, but I can tell you, I'm in favor of it. I think most of you get that, but it's just important. So any questions about roles? Financial, I just threw in my old school board days, but so in the school where we had a treasurer who reviewed all the disbursements and all the checks, and that was the person who came to the board. So is that what happens here or is everyone here supposed to look through that? No, so actually we have, you will point the treasurer is of the treasurer and she reviews all of that. You approve, you will sign, usually comes around, you'll sign the warrant thing, but we send them all to you by email in advance. Some council members look at them really diligently, others don't. The other thing we'll do is we send out the most, I wanna say to the 5,000 or 10,000, any checks above a certain amount will flag that just so people can see the really big ones. And as you can, as you might imagine, that's all over from Scott construction days of big check, give someone a chance to say, hey, what's this for? That looks funny. But no, I don't think anybody's expecting you to look at every transaction in detail, but it's there if you want to, but I think it is pushed up, I'll look to see. So, and then you also get the monthly, you'll get a monthly, I don't think, financials. Okay, so you get it, you'll get a monthly budget update and then quarterly a bigger financial statement and usually, and those will be on the consent agenda just to acknowledge that you received it and you had the opportunity to look at it and ask questions if you choose to. Some people choose to raise them in a council meeting, other people just will come in and say, hey, why are we spending this so different? We've had, you can imagine the range of sort of attention to that detail of council members, people that asked about almost everything to people that probably never looked out, but it's there and it is your responsibility and at least as part of your role as to provide oversight. Oh, of course, any other questions? Okay, I still have time, check it on your time. So we're talking about policy decisions. And so sometimes I got this, I stole this from somebody else, but if you think about policy decisions like an airplane, so you choose where you wanna go, you choose when you wanna get there and you choose how much you're willing to make it. So I wanna get somewhere tomorrow, I wanna be first class and I'm willing, I wanna get nonstop, I'm only paid top dollar or well, I wanna get there, but I don't mind if I have four stops and I can get the cheap and I'll take the red eye or whatever. So I think that's a lot of what it is. What are we trying to do? What's our goal for when we wanna have it accomplished and how much are we willing to spend or if it's a regulatory thing, how much are we willing to impose? So, and what's the outcome we're trying to get from it? And I think that's really where you're at. Continue with the airline analogy, airplane analogy, excuse me. And again, you'll have this available to you, but it's a good, you can kind of see that this goes from the high level where the city council is really the prime people. What are we trying to do here folks? What are the most important things we're dealing with? Okay, what are the goals we're gonna do? What are the action items? As you see each time, staff's getting a little more involved and then you start, okay, the council's identify these things and then we, the staff would maybe draft up the plan and oversight, bring it to the council, adopts and says, yeah, that's what we wanna do. And then they become projects and then we're really managing the projects. You're maybe getting an update on how they're going, approving the major contracts, those kind of things. But at that point, once you've said, we're gonna do East State Street, you're not really out there doing the engineering on East State Street. You've done your part of visioning it, coming up with the money, supporting it. And then the day-to-day work is really us doing the work and making sure you know what's going on. So I think it's just good to think about that and as you make policy. And I think that we'll get to that. So currently, and again, this kind of goes back to conversation. I think Donna was talking about earlier and I mentioned is that some of this was established a year or two ago. This is the current adopted aspirational vision of the city council from the prior council. So obviously, if you all would like to, and this usually, this happened during the strategic planning process, so we could do it then, if you wanna do it as some other plan. And it's just a statement and then other things fall from that as we go into it. And that leads to the mission. Basically, we wanna be a leader in the state by providing excellent services that align with community priorities through proactive communication public. So it's kind of a statement. We wanna be really good at what we do. We wanna match up with what the community wants and we wanna make sure we're open and communicating about it. Again, that was adopted by the last group. And then lastly, these were the core values that city council adopted. Again, up for change, all of these three are all up for change, but the dignity of worth of all people is recognized. City government will be transparent and accountable. All city activities will be conducted in a highly ethical manner. Innovation is encouraged and rewarded. Diversity, equity, inclusion of the organization are essential. Climate change is real and proper for preparation must be made. City will be financially responsible with public money. City employees are respected, treated fairly, recognized for that commitment. Core values. So if you, this group wants to revisit that, that's certainly well within your policy purview. Then the current strategic plan sets major goals, improve community prosperity, provide responsible and engaged government, create more housing, practice good environmental stewardship, build and maintain sustainable infrastructure, and improve public health and safety. And then under that are a list of, specific initiatives, projects to get more specific as you go down, urge you all to look at the strategic plan that's available online, you have access to it. And again, you will get a chance to weigh it on this. Last year, we just kind of a tweak update to it. But I would think this year with such a big change in the council, we're going to want to do a deep dive to make sure. And in fact, on the next agenda, we tend to at least can't plan to go over this to see if this particular strategic plan still resonated with this group, or whether we wanted to get into that sooner rather than later. And that does, and I mentioned this only because that drives kind of what shows up on the agendas. And it drives how we make decisions, you know, I can be a better manager for you. I know what your priorities are. Something comes up and I can say, yes, let's do that because I know that's council priority. You know, I don't have to wait two weeks, get it on the agendas and that's what you want. So clarity is kind in that case. So the more we have to work with the council speaking with one voice, then the better we can do our jobs. Again, as per the last outgoing council, the top issues that we're going to focus on infrastructure housing homelessness and net zero sustainability. So that's, we talked a lot about that. And again, a lot of it came up during the election and again, that can always be reiterated. So when we do the strategic planning, either an update or a full review, recently we've been doing it in September and October because it's right in advance of budget. And so we make decisions, set priorities, talk about what's important to us and then have to put the money where the mouth is when, but it's still fresh in our minds. Before that, which we started I think a couple years ago, we used to do it right about now, well, March or April, right after the new council elected to what we want to do for the year. Part of the problem is you don't have the funding to do it until the next March. So in some cases, so it's always felt like a bit of a lag, but it's really, it's your plan so we can do it whatever you want. It's often facilitated with an outside facilitator, not always. And it's the iterative process between council and staff, you talking about your vision, what's important, what your priorities are, what your goals and staff, you know, and sometimes staff has particular projects that want to get done that meet those goals might not know about them. So it's a chance to hear about those and also maybe be get a reality check about what can and can't be done or what the time, or what a reasonable time frame is. So we try to, and then it establishes the goals, initiatives, actions, steps and is adopted by the council. So it is the council's plan. It's not staff's plan, it's not the city manager's plan, it's the council's plan. And then what we do is we take that plan and we lay out really council agendas for the whole year for the next six months at least. This needs to come back, this report is due, they're gonna want an update on this activity and you also get quarterly reports on how they're online for anybody to see. We have a software for this where you can see the status of all of these activities. So to the extent that you are holding us accountable we try to provide that information for you and accordingly. The reports are issued. And it all really comes down. Oh, so the budget process, so this follows that. So once we've set the priorities and strategic plan obviously the goal is that the budget matches your priorities. That's what we're trying to, we and staff is trying to accomplish. That could be anything. So it could be certain things you wanna get done. It could be certain financial priorities. You don't want the tax return. You only want inflation or whatever targets you set. That is a policy goal as well. And then there's also, so we wanna accomplish all these things but we wanna do within these fiscal complaints. It's back to the plane, right? How much do we wanna pay to get to where we wanna get when we wanna get. So we usually start in October with some preliminary budget projections where they're very rough, very conservative but you kind of get a worst case scenario of what it might look like. And then we ask you for any guidance that you wanna give us. What's important, what isn't, what do you wanna do? Some years we get very specific guidance. Other years we'll wait and see. So it's really up to you how you choose to do that. We then prepare the budget in November. You'll hear this term. So I just threw it out there. We call it budget Congress. We changed, a few years ago we changed the way we do the budget. We used to always do it the old-fashioned way where everybody submitted their budget just as city manager. We sat down and worked through it and then the department had to complain about why they got cut and somebody else didn't get cut. So one year we said, well, let's do it together. So now we all get in a room and we do the budget as a group and we make group decisions and it's a beautiful thing to see. It's not easy, but when we leave and you can ask any department heads about their opinion and I hope they give you an honest answer whether they agree with me or not but people really understand what other department's needs are and why certain decisions are made and they will often, we've had people say, I can't ask for this because I think you need that more. So when it comes to you it really is a result of that group process. You get that budget in December then you hold your hearings in December and January and again those can really be as much as many or as few and to what set of detail and review that you want. It's at the end of the day you're approving the budget for going on the ballot in January. So it's got to be, the process has to be what you want to make you feel comfortable that you're comfortable putting the council's name on it to for vote and then the residents vote on the budget first Tuesday of March and then the budget begins July 1st. So that's how the strategic planning leads into budget months either immediately or with a few months lag but that's still right. And it all leads to the big question how do you want to use your 100 hours? And I say that because if you look at there are roughly two meetings a month three or four hours meeting, you know there's a few more comes to about a hundred hours a year more or less that you as a group are sitting in this room or a room making policy decisions. That's two and a half work weeks within a whole year that you have to deal with all of these problems. So part of this is to help you sort out what are the most important things that are on your table that you're using your time efficiently every two weeks sitting here till 9.30, 10 o'clock being criticized and getting suggestions from people and trying to make decisions about very important issues and getting yourself informed. So that's what the strategic plan is really for is putting a lot of upfront time to say these are the most important things that we want to put our time in and that when it comes to the budget how can we most effectively use our budget deliberation to see if it's getting us where we want to be? So there's no good answer to this but it's really, it's the open-ended question for you. So any questions about policy? Jack, I just want to note Peter Kalman has his hand up. I don't know if you want to take public questions now or? Yeah, we can take a comment from him or question. Peter, go ahead. Jack, you knew I was going to make a comment and not ask a question, right? I love this presentation. I've heard this before. And I think that what Bill's describing works 95% of the time. Maybe 98, I don't know. But I do have two concerns. One is what happens when something has been a policy and goes through all the steps including it's funded and so forth and then something goes wrong. The Gorton Park structure can potholes, something goes wrong and it doesn't come back to the city council. It's handled administratively. So you made all those decisions but I think we need to have a way of having the city manager come back and say, you know what, this can't thing, it's not working. Here's what we recommend. That didn't happen. Not that I don't think. And I think it's kind of important because it's harder to see things that haven't happened if it's not drawn to your attention. You only have 100 hours. The second thing I want to say is that I love the core values but I really think you've got to be constantly asking yourself, are we walking the walk? Or are we just talking the talk? And again, 95% I'll say, I'd say yes, you are walking the walk but what about that other 5% and I would urge you to keep your eye on that. We've had a number of very difficult issues that have come up. The prostitution discussion, the open carry of alcohol discussion, the homeless people in the parks discussion and in some of those discussions, I think that we've been kind of sloppy. I'm gonna end in a minute, Donna. We've gotten, we aren't looking at walking the walk, okay? So those are the two things, walking the walk and what about those times when things that the city council said they wanted to do. It didn't work, bring it back. Thanks. Thank you, Peter. Thank you. Okay, well, this was, yeah, well, it's fine. Very briefly, please. Yeah, very briefly. I'd ask you to look at the state statutes for the Department of Finance. Former Senator Polina got an amendment put in there that requires engaging with the public, having a meaningful public process in budget development. What you're doing is this, there's a built-in inertia here. We're working off of last year's budget and priorities and by the time it gets to the public, it's just, yeah, we'll listen to you for two minutes and then we're gonna do what we're gonna do anyway. That's not the way we should be doing this. We need to, you need to be hearing from the public as we develop the budget and prioritize and elevate certain things and push other things down because we're paying for it. And I think Peter was being real generous with 95.5. I think it's more like 60-40 whether we're walking the talk or going through the motions. Thank you. So, as I said earlier, the budget process is up to the council to decide how they wanna do it and it could be as expansive or restrictive. I appreciate the state government process. Our process is set in statute and in the charter for local governments and we follow it. But this is really intended to just orient you to issues that are coming. So what you've heard is a couple of comments that are controversies about policy and are things that will fall into your lab. I would say that to respond to the comment from Mr. Kalman, typically, if there is a problem, we either put it in the weekly report that something's not going well. It shows up in the strategic plan report. If something's delayed, we call that out in every quarter. We report to you how we're doing on priorities and things that are stalled. It's a very tricky system that we have. It's either red, yellow, or blue, or green. But you figure out things are moving along. It's green. If it's slower than expected, it's yellow. And if it's held up for some reason or stalled, then it's red. And we call those outs for all of you to see. In particular situations like can, I actually reported that at a council under my manager reported the council meeting saying, here's what we intend to do and council nodded their head. So absolutely need to report out on things. Speak with the mayor weekly. And sometimes we'll, you know, I'll usually ask, is this something you think should go to the council? That is one of the mayor's roles, sort of gatekeeping. And so, yes, absolutely. There's no intent to hide anything that we do or don't do. But moving on. So now we're gonna move into, so, if you'd like to take a look, this might be the time to do it because everyone here is gonna give a, hopefully a five minute or less presentation about their department. Lauren. I just wanted to know, Linda Berger has her hand up online. I know you can't see it. Let's take a look. If we wanted to take her to come in. Yeah, Linda, go ahead. Thank you. I just have an observation. I've been attending a lot of school board meetings and it's more visible that that board has an oversight role than what I observe or my impression from watching the city council. And I don't know if that has to do with different open meeting laws or understanding of open meeting laws, but it's just, as an observer, it's just been interesting. That's all. Okay, thank you. I'm gonna respond to that very briefly, Linda. They're in the same market really well that we have and we have a veteran in the school department, but there are some difference in statutes and the low things operate. For example, the school board actually hires employees. So they approve contracts for employees. They make final decisions on principles and those kinds of things. That's not the case under a city manager or form of government. So that's just an example. We're actually much more involved in specific things. They handle cases of student discipline sometimes. So, and they're a huge, don't get me wrong. I mean, I'll bless them, everyone's kids and they have a huge responsibility, but they're a single operation entity. They do schools. They're not, whereas the city, we're doing police fire, public works, planning, zoning. We are sort of a much wider range of things than the schools are there for. I think the council needs to set priorities amongst all of those things and we're going to spend their times running each of those departments. We'd be meeting daily, not quite some months. So I think those are very fundamental differences. And as I said, the laws for school boards are different than the laws for cities. Thanks, Bill. Okay, break time. Break time. 10 minutes. So we'll come back here at 8.27 or something like that. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So this next part is about our operations, departments and facilities. I've got a couple of small comments before we start in with our team. First of all, iceberg. Anyone have an idea why we have an iceberg up here? Thanks. So we basically, the funny thing is that the stuff that gets talked about in this room and the policy things are kind of the top of the iceberg. That's the stuff that people see that's visible that requires public. Everything below is like the work we do. So I think it's easy to remember that there are policy decisions, there are all the important things we're wrestling on what to do with housing. But we're also plowing roads, answering police calls, answering ambulance calls, providing services to seniors. We're doing all the daily work of city government and that falls under the staff and the city manager's purview. And so what we want to do today is kind of just walk you through a little bit, give you a sense of what's really happening in this organization of the city that you're sort of the board of directors, the city council for that is all falls under your oversight. So I'm not going to read all of these, but just this is a list of city facilities. So you can have this, but you can look through. There's a lot of them for a small little city. And again, we can have this. So just important to note that all of these are things that we maintain, take care of, that you're responsible, that we have to budget for, all those kinds of things. So these are all things that are happening. And then we have our city operations, which we're going to talk about, public safety. I don't know why, anyway. Public safety is basically our police fire, community justice center, public works, water sewer, all of this. Again, they're going to go through all these, but these are the basic areas of city operations that we're providing. And you're going to hear from everybody in detail, I think, except the city clerk, I'm sure he'd be happy to freestyle if you need to. So here's our organizational chart. As you can see, the voters elect you, they elect city clerk, you then appoint various committees and the manager, and then you can see how each department lays out. This is in the budget, this is online. Again, it's in your book, but just gives you a sense of the operation and the organization that you'll be hearing about. And so we'll start with the city manager's office. You know me, Kelly, if you haven't met Kelly, Mark. She is our assistant city manager and handles a lot of the day-to-day detail. This is an opportunity, I'm not going to spend much time on our office because we've already talked a lot about what we do. I will note that we do have a communications person. We have Mary's, we provide admin support to the city council, so to the extent that you need it or we're responding to people on your behalf. So Mary Smith, you will hear from a lot. Evelyn Prim is our communications person and right now Chris Lumber, our sustainability coordinator, is in our working on our office as well. So we'll leave it at that. So each department head is going to do a very quick hit stop through the department and you are welcome. I think we've thought, if you have a question up on that particular department and feel free to ask it then, you don't have to wait until the end until everyone's gone, so you don't forget. So we are going to start with the new kid on the block, our latest person, our finance director, Sarah LaCroy. Made her go first as the guinea pig. Hi, my name is Sarah LaCroy. I'm a certified public accountant and I'm the new finance director for the city. Here's our org chart. The finance department is made up of eight employees, including the human resources director who you'll hear from after me. Go ahead. I've provided a brief synopsis of the mission but the mission of the finance department is to ensure that all resources of the city of Montpelier are managed and accounted for in an effective and efficient manner, that all financial records are presented in a timely, accurate and meaningful format and that all staff members work towards continuous improvement in professional service. We oversee the city's financial matters and maintain the accounting records for the 24 active funds and responsibilities include but are not limited to budget preparation, compliance, billing services, accounts payable and payroll processing. Sarah, before you move on, could you say what it means to say we have active funds? What is a fund in that terminology? So like the general fund and the water and sewer fund, there are other funds that the city has that account for the accounting operations. So that's what the funds are. We have 24 of them that are reported on the audit report. That's helpful. As far as key issues go, I felt it was important to note two financial policies. These are the fund balance policy and the debt management policy. I've again, summarized some key important pieces as they relate especially to the percentages that have been adopted for the minimum unassigned fund balance and then the debt ratios. I also will provide monthly updates of budget actuals to the city council and that is on next meeting. There will be another budget actual report but congratulations to everybody who's new on the council and I look forward to working with you. Okay. Thank you. Any questions for Sarah? You may recall we've talked about Tanya recently during I think during my review because she's one of the department almost never is at a council meeting because she's doing all of her work internally so happy to give her a chance to show off for you. To congratulate all of you and thank you all for your willingness to serve the community. My name is Tanya Chambers and I'm the Human Resources Director. A large part of my role is focused primarily on employees which is why you don't see me here. I work hard to build valuable relationships with them in an effort to help them express their needs and concerns. An organization's workplace culture has been one of the top priorities among younger job seekers making sure that we as an employer can provide a positive work environment that includes coaching, mentoring and internal promotions as well as trust and leadership and an empathetic approach are among my priorities. Another important role of mine is to manage the employee compensation and benefits package. As indicated in my slide work and life balance is one of the ways that the city has taken a more flexible approach with staff by allowing flexible hours, consideration to four 10-hour days and remote working whenever possible. It is an ongoing effort to strategize new ways to keep the cost of health insurance down which is also an annual task that I share with other employees here at the city. And lastly, prioritizing employee engagement. As highlighted in my slide, the quote reads, engagement equals increased morale and increased morale equals engagement. From the point of onboarding to recognition of an employee's hard work, investing in our employees in all ways possible is crucial to the success of the city. Any questions for Tonya? I don't need your help unless we don't get many shots at hers. Take it like that. Although you will, the new folks you will be meeting with Tonya to fill out your W-2s because you do get paid. Yes, there is pre-employment work that must happen. I would ask, well, what are your top two, what do you do with the top two issues with employees? So I would say before the generous increase in the budget to allow for higher wages, I would have said that finding employees who actually want to apply to the city for the amount that we can pay them would have been one of the top and to find the right people for the right C, which is taking that right from you, but that is also one of the top priorities. And then also I would say making sure that we can provide them with the benefits that they would seek at a cost that we can afford. Okay, so Carol from the Community Justice Center I think is appearing remotely. Is that right, Carol? Yes, yep, I'm here. Okay. Hi, everybody. I'll start off by just saying, giving you a list of what our programs are. So we are grant funded by the Department of Corrections and our programs are, we have restorative justice panels, we do a restorative outreach program for people who've been affected by crime, circles of support and accountability, which is part of our offender reentry program. We do transitional housing. We have a conflict assistance program, which is basically mediation and facilitation, helping people resolve their disputes. And that includes in-house consultation and referrals. So we also have services for other departments within the city with the conflict assistance program. We do our own volunteer recruitment and training. We do community education and community forums. And we have two classes that we run. One is called parenting with respect and that's for men whose children are DCF involved. And then Alfred Koch facilitates a revision program, which is a domestic violence awareness program. So there are four of us on staff and you can see the breakdown of the staff. And like I said, we get our funding from the Department of Corrections. So we're a net neutral department and we do get a lot of in-kind support. The city supports us by providing our offices for us, all of the fiscal management of our budgets and that sort of thing, which we're incredibly grateful for. So the current projects that I'm working on, in addition to the city having priority around equity and inclusion, we've been asked by the Department of Corrections through one of our grants to include diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in what we're doing. And they gave us some funding to do that. So we are hiring a consultant who's gonna work with us to help increase both staff and volunteer awareness of implicit bias in our beliefs, attitudes, policies and practices. So that's underway. We're going to be creating a plan to conduct a more formal equity audit that we're using the information that we got from Creative Discourse when that effort happened to the city. And then we're gonna expand on that so that we can continue to increase the diversity in our volunteer recruitment, which is important for the people that are coming into our programs. So we're utilizing that one-time funding that's coming this year. I follow the legislation and all of the justice centers around the state follow the legislation that's happening because there are some priorities right now that may affect our funding and our case loads. I won't go into any of that. It's pretty involved. We provide information to the legislators about what's relevant to us and what our needs are. We've been level funded for the past 10 years or so, which means that we're basically losing money every year. We're doing more with less every year. So we're focused on seeking maintenance of the fiscal year 23 funding right now and then building in the COLA because we don't have that automatically and that's really important. Again, as Tonya was talking about retention and recruiting for staff and having the right staff, it's really important to be able to provide that. And one of the things that's happening right now is the legislature is talking about an exception to the prohibition of domestic violence and sexual violence cases coming to the restorative justice centers. So if that happens, it won't be an immediate change where we'll just start getting a huge case load of those types of cases, but there will be work to do and that is a really new priority. Right now I'm in the process of seeking accreditation for our parenting class and if we get that accreditation we'll be eligible for some funding to be able to make that program more sustainable and train more people around the state to be able to deliver that really important educational program for men. And that is coming up at the end of the month. So really busy and doing good work. Sorry, I didn't mean to give you the word out there. Any questions? No worries. Thank you, Carol. Okay, next is the fire and EMS department, Chief Gallans. Yes, good evening. Thank you. I'm Chief Gallans, Robert Gallans, fire chief. This is my 13th year as the chief of the department. 44. So I have told the 44 years with the department, 13 is chief. This is our family tree. As you see, we have 17 employees. Currently we're at 16. We had an employee retire and we're in the process of filling that. We had 18 applicants for the position. We're down to seven and we're gonna be conducting interviews this week and anticipate making an offer next week for a 17th employee. Of those 17, I wanna point out that we have five paramedics on staff now, which is really good. We're really growing our paramedic program. So some ongoing challenges that we always have. And a lot of it's just replacing equipment, keeping up with equipment. Equipment is very expensive. Communications equipment, I'm happy to announce so that just yesterday we received a word that we have gotten a grant from Vermont Emergency Management, close to $100,000 grant and we'll be replacing all of our portable radios, which is needed. It's all part of the ongoing communications project. This is one piece of it that needed to happen and we were able to get a grant to secure that. Airpacks, the facts we wear into fires, things like that. Unfortunately, all those things have a shelf life and whether you wear an airpack into a fire five times a day or five times a year, it doesn't matter, they life out. So hose, small tools, paramedic and EMS equipment supplies, all those things are quite costly. And then finally, the tower truck. This council will be hearing more about the tower truck. It's going on 30 years old. It's pictured there and it's time that we start thinking about replacing. And then finally, staffing and staff training is always a big challenge for us. Our staff forms two functions, they're firefighters and they're either EMTs or paramedics. So that's a training that goes into that is takes a lot of time. So all of our staff are either trained at the firefighter to or fire offer to two level. That's the highest level of training that's offered. And they're either advanced EMTs or paramedics. So the ongoing annual training involved in that, it takes quite a bit of time. So that's all I have, but I'll just leave with, please reach out to me, come to the fire station, take a visit, sit down. We can talk about a lot of different options, look around. Feel free to spend an evening, a day, go out on calls with us. I always think about former mayor Watson, she spent three consecutive nights with us and nothing happened. And on her third night, 10 minutes after she left, we went out to a pretty significant fire. So please reach out and come visit with us, stay with us, respond on calls with us. We'd love to have you. Any questions for the chief? We'll pass the cats too. That's good. All right, and speaking of chiefs, Chief Nortonson. Oh, we got questions. Yeah. Sounds like I need the former mayor Watson. All right, yeah. Hello, everybody, my name's Eric Nortonson. Obviously with the police departments, it's kind of mirror Chief Gowens. I have three months experience as the chief, so not quite as much as he has, but I'll do the best I can with you folks. Our primary responsibility at the police department is to provide for the safety and security of our... Excuse me. Can we have that conversation be out of the room, please? Sorry about that. Our primary focus is to provide for the safety and security of our residents and our visitors. Our organizational chart is pretty straightforward. It has a chief, a deputy chief, sergeants who are our front line supervisors, corporals who are secondary supervisors and also kind of the in-between and mentor program. And then we have just our regular police officers who provide the day-to-day service. We're authorized for 17 police officers and we're currently at 16. Typically, our 17th officer was either at the schools or in a task force and we're not in a position right now to put somebody in one of those things, so we're gonna hold tight at 16 officers for right now. We also do have a public safety support service administrator who does all our ambulance billing and our individual billing with just the police department and the fire department. So we share that position with both of them. I'm also responsible for the dispatch center. So as you can see, it goes from me to a deputy chief that we're looking to promote at some point here. We have a dispatch supervisor, seven regular dispatchers, two part-time dispatchers who work on a per-DN basis. It's a real nice benefit. They've been full-time certified dispatchers, have other jobs, but can fill in when we need to. So a real nice thing there. So we are fully staffed at the dispatch center, which is a real nice thing there too. The last part is the community service officers parking enforcement. Sorry about the picture, the time expired. I tried to find a better picture, but that was the best I had. So for that one, again, I'm at the top. We have a full-time community service officer, one like 0.625 and then another couple part-time ones that do maintenance and then winter band for DPW. Some of our key challenges, when we started talking about this back in December, staffing, I was at 11, full-time police officers, you folks and the folks before you were very generous with the wage adjustments and our culture helped us attract some significant help. So I'm amazed to say that we're at 16. Three of those are at the full-time police academy though. So I like to say I'm full, but I still have three that are training. So staffing is still somewhat of an issue until we can get those three up to speed. The reports at the police academy are they are doing very well and I'm hoping by the end of the summer that they'll be ready for what we call independent patrol. So we can send them out on their own to make decisions. With that said, my other challenge is training. I think we find that we have a lot of new people. So the training part to get them into our culture and get the experience that we need is I'll be coming to you for money for training. And I think the standards are really high in this community. So training is something that you guys have always supported, which I appreciate. And we also have to plan for the long-term future of the police department because I'm getting older. The top of our department is also getting older and we have to plan for the next wave of that development. So that is all in the works for us and it requires a significant investment in training. What else? Any questions for Chief? Not a question. I just think it's great that you've been able to hire up, get away from the really tough times you were having last year or two. Thank you. Yeah, totally agree. This is exciting to see where you are now. What's the status with the, I forget the name of it, but like the community engagement officer, what Officer Phil Brick was? Yep. So he is still in that role and we're still on patrol, obviously. We still do daily, weekly walks with my player live. He does a lot of our community engagement. The majority of our social media posts, we're starting to get a little bit more interactive with our webpage, so you'll see more data. I know data, everybody wants data. Our Facebook page, I don't like how, we kind of just spit out the data. It'll be much cleaner on the webpage. It's just tricky to do on social media, but as soon as we have staffing, he can dedicate more of that time to that. Did I survive? All right. Good evening. I am Patrick Healy from Greenmount Cemetery. Okay, employees. It's myself full-time. Actually, I've gone to part-time. I semi-retired in December after 35 years and I've gone to 0.6. And then we have a cemetery technician, Karl Griffith. And then we have a work crew from the Department of Corrections, six to eight offenders, five days a week, approximately nine o'clock in the morning to about two o'clock in the afternoon. Governance, the big thing we want you to know is that we are not under bill. We're not under you. I'm under five publicly elected commissioners, but it's a fine line. And the way they set this up way back in 1854 is they wanted the money to stay separate from the town fathers. Back then, they were all fathers. And so that's where we are. But we're working closer together and so far we're playing pretty well in the sandbox. Go ahead. So what are we doing for services? The big service right now is natural burials. We do vault burials. It would do cremation burials. We have mausoleum lots. What our current needs are, we're looking for additional land. We need renovation monies for the chapel, vault building down front. And that's probably gonna be between one and two million. And if you have any questions or somebody that you know that has questions, they can call me anytime on my cell, I-02-279-6957. And please come down for a visit or if you have a group of people that wanna visit our tour, we'll be glad to show you around. Patrick, when you talk about additional land, are you talking about expanding the acreage you have now or are you looking to find another site? Well, economically, it would be nice to expand what we have. And we probably will be talking to the adjoining landowner once again, and hopefully we can work something out. Okay, thanks. Great, thank you. I just wanna thank you for the lack of mowing at the different seasons. It's been a beautiful place to walk in year round. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. Less mowing is better. Less mowing is, and we're adapting to less fossil fuels, less pollinator habitat, and less health when COVID started. We didn't have any crew coming from the work camp. And keep in mind that our cemetery was designed in 1852 when there were no lawn mowers. For a hundred years, there were mechanical lawn mowers on that property. And that's, we're trying to go back to that. And it seems to be working. Thank you. Next up is planning director, Mike Miller. Hi, good evening. And as Bill said, I'm Mike Miller. I've been the planning director for the city since 2014 and been planning for about 20, almost 25 years. So within the city here, I actually oversee two departments, planning and community development, which is 3.8 folks. The part-time person is Meredith Crandall, who's his zoning administrator. She actually only works four days a week, but we also have the community development specialist and the planning and zoning assistant, fire chief Bob Gallins and myself share the oversight responsibilities of the building inspector. That just has to do with the fact that in fire situations and a number of other situations, she's responding with the fire chief. So what do we do? Pretty straightforward. I mean, we develop plans and we help implement those plans through programs, projects and regulations. So a lot of times people think of us just as doing planning and zoning, we write regulations and we enforce regulations, but we actually look much broader than that. As we're developing plans, we're looking at all the options for how to implement them, including how do we create programs or projects like Country Club Road. Our biggest effort in this area is the update to the city plan right now, which will be coming to public comment this summer and hopefully we'll be able to participate this summer in this fall as that moves forward. And that's really the city's overarching plan for the next eight to 10 years. And probably to nobody's surprise, our biggest challenge is housing. Our office is responsible for trying to go and identify ways to encourage and assist in the development of new housing and in particular, affordable housing. The Country Club Road is our biggest project effort in this area and we anticipate a plan that includes both housing and recreational opportunities to be built in the coming years. Currently we're working on the plan itself. We're breaking this into a couple of pieces. The plan, prepare, implement, we're doing the planning step right now. And that's what Josh and the folks at Whitenberg are spearheading is the development of those plans. And then in getting back to Bill's analogy of the airplane landing, right now a lot of these decisions are gonna be in the public's hands and in your hands. And as this moves forward to the preparation steps and the implementation steps, more of it will move into our department and other departments to move forward on making zoning changes and making other programmatic changes. So we can get that project successfully completed in hopefully a relatively short time period. That's our goal. Any questions for Mike? Just as an aside, actually tentatively scheduled for your next meeting in two weeks is gonna be the sharing of the first draft of plans that based on the public comment. So they wanted to do it tonight. I was like, we're not making them do it on the first meeting. That's how. That's right. Okay, Kurt. Oh, Kurt's not here. That's right. We have capable assistant. Thank you. My name is Zachary Blodgett and I'm the deputy director for the department of public works. On the left, you'll see Kurt Modica, one of. There you go. There's Kurt. Out West looking at some equipment for the sewer plant. Here's our organizational chart for our streets, and the city hall maintenance. That also includes engineering and admin. We have a 12 and a half positions in the streets side of things. We have a six total on engineering and admin with one vacancy current. And then you'll also see we have one tech person. And in addition, we have four people within our fleet or equipment division. On the left hand side, you'll see a breakdown of our water operations. I'm responsible for the seven individuals in the water distribution and Kurt is responsible for the three at the plant. On the right hand side, you'll see a breakdown of our sewer. And we have seven, the same seven on the sewer side of things and four plant operators. And then ultimately Kurt overseas really all divisions within the department. Our biggest challenge across the board is infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure. The first one that you'll see is on the water side. That's a picture of a pipe that was cut out in the last five years. You'll see how much the percolation is on the inside of the pipe. We just, we have a lot of aging infrastructure that we need to replace. The next slide over, you'll see just a street with a poor payment condition where the challenge here is funding and keeping the funding at a steady level to maintain the PCI. In addition to PCI and payment, we also have a few other items on the street side of things such as trash collection and lighting that needs upgrades. Can you remind us what PCI means? PCI is payment condition index and it's evaluation between zero and 100 as an indicator of how good your road condition is. The target for that city council has set is a 70 for the city of Montpelier. On the storm water side of the next picture over, you'll see this is a picture of a pipe on Granite Street. This is a fairly fortunate, typical picture type of pipe that we have. You'll see the whole bottom is completely deteriorated. One of the reasons why we're looking at and pursuing a storm water utility. In addition, we have water quality and permitting issues. And then lastly, you'll see on the right, you'll see a picture of a sewer pipe. Again, aging infrastructure, there's a lot of needs for replacement. In addition to aging pipes, we have combined sewer overflows, which stands for CSO. And that means basically when we have heavy rains, the sewer system gets overwhelmed and we discharge some of that waste to the rivers. So we have a couple of projects that are gonna be going on this year. One big project starting in the next two months or so on State Street, and then the Big East State Street project. In addition to CSOs, we have the plan upgrades and PFOS, I'm not gonna try to explain what that is, other than it is a forever chemical. And that's actually why Kurt is not here. He's looking at some equipment that will reduce the levels to undetectable limits, not completely get rid of, but reduce them to levels that are tolerable. Okay, thanks. Can I ask you just a real practical question? Why do we get potholes? And I complained about one specific one, the interstate, the intersection of River Street and where the credit union is in the high school. And you said, go out and take a picture. Well, it got filled. I went by today and there's another one. Yeah. Potholes are what, one, they happen when you have really poor pavement condition. So potholes occur when you have really poor pavement condition, but it's also a process of your freeze and thaw. So as the water gets into the cracks in the pavement, that the freeze and thaw action starts popping and unraveling pavement, which is why your best management practices are to crack seal pavement, preserve it, prevent the water from actually penetrating down into the pavement so that you don't start popping and unraveling that you get. So why don't we do more of that? Well, it's always, we have a lot of competing needs, right? So in the winter, we are spending a lot of time doing plowing, winter maintenance, meaning like we have to remove snow from the park stalls. And there's also, we have a product called Cold Patch, which is expensive, but tends to not work well. Some of the other options that we have are we have an asphalt recycler, which we can make an asphalt product over the winter, but it is still, it takes a lot of time and it's a slow process. So if we kind of do it in between storms as time allows, but we also, first and foremost, we have to clear the roads and make sure that it's safe for the public and vehicles and pedestrians. I appreciate that. You've answered it many times for me, but I want other people to hear it. Thank you. Okay. Let me give you a question. Sure, we'll have plenty of time to talk with them. Thank you. Thanks, Zach. Thanks for all the snow removal work. Recreation department. This is the guy I used to play. It's all about water. Hi, I'm Arnie McMullen. I'm the director of recreation. We have a few full-time folks, a total of five. And we also have many seasonal staff that we rely on in order to pull off all of our activities that we do throughout the summer. And we're also, for many folks, many of these young folks, we are a, probably a first employer for a lot of these kids that come out and work for the pool or even work at day camp. So it's a first-time opportunity. So the Montpellier Recreation Department offers a wide range of, these are our key issues, wide range of programs for all ages of the community from preschool through seniors. We have program offerings. We offer sports programs, gym programs, after-school programs, summer camps, swim, swim lessons, tennis, pickleball lessons, and more as well as special events for the community. We also have two licensed childcare programs. We have our after-school program that's licensed. And we also have our summer day camp that's licensed, which allows us to accept state subsidy for folks who can't afford to pay for their program. But with events such as the ski and skate sale, we're bringing back on this year, the chocolate egg hunts happening again in the Valentine's dance. Just to name a few, we ran that this year for the first time since COVID hit it. We also have Open Gym Basketball three days a week, and many groups renting the facility for basketball, indoor soccer, ping pong, birthday parties, and many other activities. We even have a group that rents it for badminton, which is kind of cool. The hard part is right now is, with the size of our building, we're actually turning a lot of groups away because we only have one space to really rent. Key issues, we also take care of many facilities under the recreation apartment. We have both indoor and outdoor facilities. We care for all around the city, starting with the recreation center, dog river, the recreation fields, stadium, tennis courts, skateboard park, outdoor basketball courts, the pool facility, picnic, picnic pavilion, picnic area over the bridge. And now we've added 203 Country Club Road, which has both indoor and outdoor opportunities for the public, as well as maintenance challenges. We maintain many athletic fields, which is another challenge a lot of people don't think of. Athletic fields are much higher maintenance level than just grass areas. We also oversee the maintenance of our agent facilities that require preventative maintenance to get the maximum use and keep the future cost down. Zach was talking a little bit about the expand, the frost expand theory with roads. We also have the same issue with tennis courts. So we have to get the tennis courts down at the rec field. We've had to do some maintenance throughout the years to try to keep those from going by the wayside like the high school ones had gone through and then they had to replace them. So we end up bringing somebody in to fill cracks and patch those. The recreation department is proud of the facilities we have to offer the community and always work into improve our facilities whenever possible in a cost-effective process. That's all right. But we do cover a lot of ground. I mean, from our recreation center, which is long overdue to need be replaced. Hopefully we'll see a community center before I retire. I've been here for longer than I can remember. I'd like to see it built before I go, but it's an opportunity that I believe will grow with the community. And if it happens, it's gonna be a really awesome, awesome thing. So it's the one thing we don't have. We have a lot of outdoor space, but not enough indoor space. I've got two questions, Arnie. Arnie, which I don't necessarily expect you to have answers to them tonight, but one is, and this came up at one of the candidate forums, if the current recreation building is so bad, should we really be letting people play in it? Is it safe and good enough for people to play in it? The building itself is safe structurally. It has the ADA issues that are the primary challenge. And one of the things we've done with our special events is we've wore our youth basketball program, which when we have games and stuff, we've actually have those in the schools or in another ADA accessible facility. So it makes it very difficult for planning events and stuff because we wanna make sure people can get into the building and participate. But it is the spaces, I wanna say, it's very limited to what we can do. We can't use all floors, so it's pretty much a gymnasium that's used for birthday parties or different other activities. And a lot of basketball practices for AAU as well as indoor soccer really populate it come this time of year. It's booked until nine o'clock or so a lot of nights. But people shouldn't be worried about sending their kids to play there and wondering if they're gonna be safe now. So I'd send my own kids. And then the other question is, and this goes back to the first question that anyone asked me when I was on the council five years ago and it had to do with pickleball. And so you mentioned the tennis courts and so I'm curious about the allocation of court space between pickleball and tennis. I'm actually glad you brought that up because I actually have pickleball courts lined on all the tennis courts, even the high school. And it's kind of funny how we got them on the high school initially because I started with them down at the rec field and I told this company that don't put them on until I get final approval. I was on vacation and they showed up and put on two sets of courts. So we finished them the next year, just put them all on. But realistically that the pickleball and the high school actually have some visit classes I believe now that actually do pickleball. So it's a very fast growing sport and we've actually been on the tail end of it. It's been popular in a lot of other areas way sooner than here. But we probably have over I think 147 pickleball players that are on a list that come through and use our gym. We have like eight or nine set up times for pickleball during the week that people come in and play and they get punch cards and they come in, get the card punched. But it's very popular and it brings in a lot of people. Thanks. Yep. Any other questions, Varni? I just wanna thank you for everything you are doing for our community. The first year I moved here, I wasn't working and I was at home pretty bored. So I attended lots of classes at the recreation center. Like I took Spanish class, digital photography, movies and discussion, tango course, so like dancing. So I really appreciate all your staff was very helpful, very supportive because I was new, I didn't know of most of the things. So this is the first time I think I'm seeing you in person. I just wanna thank you, all the things in your staff, all the things you are doing for our community. You're welcome. Thank you for letting us know. Okay, pinching for Alec Ellsworth is Kelly Murphy. Yeah, hello everyone. I know I don't look like Alec and I might not be able to answer all the questions but I certainly will get them back to you if you do have additional questions. But I'm gonna sit in and go over Alec's presentation for tonight. So here is the org chart for parks, for staff to AmeriCorps. Alec is the director. There's the park supervisor, Layla, the crew leader, Kara, and then the city arborist, Adam. And then we've got two AmeriCorps members, Josie and Merrick. They do a ton. I have the pleasure of being able to go visit the parks and I think I would like my office to be up there. So don't tell Bill. But really a really nice operation. Yeah, right. And so just this is in reference to some of the advisory bodies that were referenced earlier in Bill's presentation and some of the roles and responsibilities they have for the parks and trees, get the parks commission, conservation commission, and then the tree board. And then moving on to just key challenges for each of the two divisions in parks funding programs is really a key issue for them. The Montpelier Youth Conservation Corps is really popular and they've done a ton of good work. So it's an item that they're getting grants and fundraising for economic development for outdoor recreation is another thing that they've really been able to bring along. We have had some land acquisitions recently that will really help with this effort. And then planning that all is the green print and then the peach farm is another program. So they do a ton in that realm. And then on the tree side, a big issue is the emerald ash borer. And so we're starting to see that really kind of take hold. And so Alec has identified here some of the items over 700 ash trees in the public right away to be removed in the next couple of years. And so there's a huge project added to top of the baseline of the tree work and then just making sure that there are staff with skills and are up to task with the equipment and all that. So that's parks and trees in a nutshell real fast like. So you kind of like skate by and fulfill the requirement. But if you have questions and would like any time with Alec, I'm sure he'd be really happy to have you come visit him. Kelly. Thanks Kelly. You're welcome. Thanks. And the last leg of the three-legged stool of community services, which is rec parks and senior center. Hi everyone, I'm Sarah Lipton. I'm the director of the Montpelier Senior Activity Center. And yes, we do often go last. I don't know why, but we have lots going on. Our staff right now we have, this wasn't really mentioned, but we're part of the community services department. And we actually share three staff across those three division parks, rec and MSAC. So we have Norma is our administrative assistant. She does a lot of our, all of our admin, but also supports parks and rec. Matt Wilson is our communications and development coordinator. He also sits on all three divisions doing a ton of work to get our communications out there and help with all the fundraising that we do. And then we have, we also work with Tom who works with the rec. So, you know, there's a lot of cross pollination. And then we have our feast program. We have a full-time feast program manager, Poa or Eli Mutino. Our kitchen manager, chef is Shalonda James. She's cranking out amazing meals over there. And then we have a part-time, right now one part-time kitchen assistant who's helping to make sure that we're getting those meals out. We are hoping later this year to either have that position become full-time or have a second part-time person. So that's kinda, oh, and then we do have an advisory council. We're about eight members right now. So we're actually looking to elect some more. It's not an advisory board. It's different than the other divisions, but it is a member elected council, members of the senior center elect the council every year. So we have a lot going on. We serve the older adults in our community. Everyone 50 plus is welcome at the senior center. We have a lot of intergenerational activities though. So we have a lot more than just older adults happening at the senior center. But we are really focused on being able to provide the incredibly diverse programming that allows our older adult community to really thrive while they age at home. So we have 50 plus classes that are happening throughout every semester, which has grown back from the pandemic. We had about 20 during the pandemic. Before that, we had 75 classes at a time, which makes my head want to explode, but we're about 50 classes. And those are ranging from health and wellness classes like yoga, Tai Chi, bone builders, all kinds of dance classes. You mentioned tango. We have a tango class coming up soon. We have so many different sort of body movement classes. And then we also have a lot of arts classes, humanities classes, and many other sort of engaging events that are happening. A lot of games going on. We've got over 15 different drop-in groups that are happening throughout the week every week. We host the UVM Ollie lecture series. We had, I think, 70 people I talked to today who are there to see a really wonderful presentation. And many other programs and events happening. We're doing a big healthcare fair later in May that I'll be excited to share more with you about that. And then our feast program is really, as I mentioned, it's a really vital program. We have over 1,500 older adults in our community. We're only serving about 100 with our senior meals program. But those folks and probably more that we're not serving yet really need those meals. And the fact that the City of Montpelier runs a senior center that has a Meals on Wheels program is pretty amazing. I really want you to understand that. It is a very rare setup. It's not very often that a city runs a senior center or that a city runs and or that a city runs a Meals program. And so with the parks division running a farm that grows produce for us, we actually have a full route to fork system, which is really unique. So the one challenge there, the biggest challenge is that the feast program is not funded or supported by the city. Our budget in total is only about 25% funded by the city. And so we work or took us off to fundraise to make sure that we have the funding we need to run our feast senior meals program and everything else that we do. So I'm facing two grant deadlines, so I won't keep you too much longer, but we've got a lot going on. And this is the March for Meals month and we've got a really exciting event happening on Saturday, March 18th. But I would love to see you there at, we've got a silent auction that will be MC'd by drag queen emoji nightmare. It's gonna be really fun, lots of music and other things going on. But really, I just really want you to know that this service that the city provides to our older adult community. Thank you, really important, really important. So any questions? Thanks. Thank you. Thanks. So any general questions about city operations or anything like that? They all seem very bored. Yeah. Yeah, I'd like to express my appreciation to all of that team. They're a joy to work with. And as you can see, I'm very passionate about their work and bring creativity and do a lot of things to it. We're very fortunate to have them. And I'd like to thank them. We have never done this like this before, this sort of lightning round. So they were actually designed, they, we together designed this whole program. Start to finish. We had two separate team meetings about what do we want to tell the city council? What should be included? What information? So even the part that I did by myself was all, you know, outlined by them. And then even, you know, the presentations, we're like, all right, how do we do this? What are we, you know, so it's like, what do you want to tell the city council? Oh, okay. Who are you? What's your organizational chart? What do you want to tell the city council and what are your biggest challenges? That's it. That's what you get your time. And I think they did a pretty good job. So I appreciate that and thank them. So it's, I think a lot of this you won't deal with until maybe budget time, but it's good to know that that's what's going on when. Just a hint. They should follow up all your key issues. Repeat them, repeat them, repeat them. I'm not kidding. Yeah. So great. So I'll just, Jim, I thought this was great. Bill having such even presentation from every, every one of the departments. And around the time that I got on the council, we arranged for tourists for new council members. For am I anticipating what you're about to say? Just where I was going next. So we certainly can arrange tours for people that would like to do that. And especially now that we're close pandemic, the police, the fire chief already mentioned going to the fire department, staying, stay overnight if you want the police chief. I know they will do ride-alongs with police, people we've done group tours, the water plant and the sewer plant are really a fascinating to PW garage. And we just get a better handle of what's, what's going in there. The rec facilities, I know some of you, like me, if that kids grew up here, you know a lot of these facilities. Other people, this is all brand new too. So, you know, we can, if you'd like to us to arrange something for all of you together, we can do that if you'd like to do that. But please, they love visitors. Their staff loves visitors. They're, the people that work in these facilities are as enthusiastic about their work as these folks are about leading their department. So, see, hear, touch, feel, go do that. And we will help make, if you want to do it, you know, you don't have to do it on your own. We'll help arrange it at any time. You say you want to see something. So, you'll be glad you did. I, you know, I do it often because I go sometimes, I don't always go with the council, sometimes I do. And you know, I've heard these, and I always learn something new and it's just so refreshing to, so please take advantage of that. This is, this may be the shortest part of the project of the presentation, but projects, you know, for some of you, your time on the council started today or yesterday or in January, but projects were wrong for years. And this is a list of what's on the board right now in various stages of, you know, happening. And the ones that are highlighted, I specifically highlighted because those are the projects that are likely to come to the city council for more either decisions or guidance or those kinds of things. Some of the others are just things that, you know, are going to happen. The Grout Road Bridge, for example, is out to bed. That's, unless there's a problem, you probably won't hear about it at the beginning, except when it's done, we'll tell you it's done. Some of the drainage projects, those kinds of things. But public restroom, it's been an issue we've been facing for a couple of years as an active committee. At some point, there's going to be a recommendation for what to do with that and how to fund it and what it looks like. You're going to have to consider that. In either the next meeting or the one after, we're going to be hearing a report from the consultant we retained to sort of recommend facilities and programs for folks experiencing homeless. So that's the decisions we'll have to make. You heard Arnie talk about the Berry Street Rec Center and while it's not unsafe for people to participate, play in it, it is filled with asbestos so any renovation that it has then becomes costly, it has terrible HVAC system, it's not accessible. So what are we going to do with that? If we do build a new facility at Country Club Road or somewhere else, then what's going to happen with this building? That becomes the next question. What are we going to do with that? Tear it down? Do we reuse it? What, knowing its cost? So that's a big decision that's going to fall for it. 1216 Main Street is the open piece of land right now. Where Eminem Beverage used to be, the city council made a decision to sell that with an emphasis on housing, perhaps retail or something on the first floor. That subdivision is being completed but at some point we will engage with that again. So that will be revisited. Country Club Road of course is a huge project. Public, easily the biggest one we have going in terms of policy, you'll be very engaged in that. The public, we've very engaged in that. East State Street, that was one last piece that will come to you. This is just going to reset, right? Yes. And that is the final street layouts. We did some street types. So where is there a bike lane? Is there, do we need to put it? So you won't be involved in the design of the water lines and sewer lines and storm drains and everything underneath but you will have final say as far as what the final layout of the surface looks like. So that is a decision you'll have to make. My card will reference the city plan. That's the artist formerly known as the master plan. And that has been in works for a couple of years. It's coming to the Planning Commission. So that is, depending on how, how much in detail that you want to get into that that could be one meeting or six months worth of meetings. So that might be one that as the Planning Commission starts engaging with that you might want to follow their meeting so you can hear a lot of the presentation. That's coming. When we talk about how to spend your 100 hours part of that is going to be the city plan. Stormwater utility, we're getting an update on that pretty soon. We are, again, you still have a final say and this hasn't been determined but the plan is to create a stormwater utility to deal with all of these outflows and cleaning and make sure I have clean water and regular funding. And then what to do about Confluence Park? Do we continue the project? Do we not? At this point, the current status, the city council said no more city money going into it. You get 18 months to come back and show us if you can support the rest. But obviously that's subject to change. So I just mentioned those because those are things that will be on your plate even if you didn't pick for them to be on your plate this group, they'll be there. And then your others are just, it's good to know that stuff what's going on. That's it. Any questions about projects? Bill, did you say anything about Homelessness Facility or did I miss it? Yes, absolutely. So we're getting a report from a consultant that the Homelessness Task Force requested in the city set aside some ARPA money for this issue, 425,000. So the studies coming from that, so we have about 400,000 left. And they have been in, so I think they're gonna come to us. They've gotta go through, they have not presented their report to the Homelessness Task Force yet. So I think they will discuss that there. And then when it's complete them, they will come to the city council and it will include recommendations. I think they may be eyeing the rec center as a potential place for some sort of facility. But I think they also have an idea of what kind of programming would be important. And I haven't heard a final report yet, but we'll let the experts do that. But that will be coming up probably next meeting or the meeting after. That's really primed for, almost ready for primetime. Thank you. You're welcome. Project questions. Any questions about anything that we didn't cover? Because there are stuff, but there is stuff we didn't cover. Are there any parties for city council? Are we? Yeah. Hello, Christmas party. So I can't hear friends there, we've never met. We get together. Well, Ellen, I can tell you that last year it wasn't fully attended, but we did organize an outing to ball game one night. And there are a few members of the council at that. And I would be interested in doing that again. And the council often marches in the July 3rd parade. So yeah, but you know, we could create a party committee. It sounds like we have a chair. I have a lot to do that. We'll have to tango. Okay. So I'm just going to read you one thing. This is from Forty Roosevelt, 1910. And so I gave the sexist language, but this is a very famous quote, is the man in the arena. And I'm going to read it to you even though I know you can all read. But this is what you've all signed up for, essentially. It says it's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who's actually in the arena. That's you. Who's face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes up short, again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming. But who does actually strive to do the deeds? Who knows great enthusiasm to great devotions who spends himself in a worthy cause. Who at the best knows in the end, the triumph of high achievement. And who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who never know victory or defeat. You're going to hear a lot of criticism. You're going to get a lot of feedback. You're going to make mistakes. You're going to get a lot of comment and you're the ones doing the work. So my hats off to all of you for volunteering to do this and putting up with us and long meetings and nights away from home. So I'll leave you with that and thanks for serving. And that's all we have for this. Thanks, Bill. This is a great presentation. We're up to item 16, other business and we do not have any other business. Next, we're up to council reports. Did I just kick like myself off Zoom? No, I didn't. Good. Next, we're up to council reports. We'll start with Councillor Hurrell this time. Great. My only thing just wanted to thank the voters for re-electing me to another term. I mean, just, I think tonight really echoed the really, I think, critical issues the city's facing, really important projects in the works that I'm just grateful to have the opportunity to continue trying to make progress on and stumbling along the way, but doing our best to try to leave the community better than we found it. So just thanks to all the voters and thanks to all the candidates who ran and congratulations to the new members of council. I just wanna say the same thing. So thank you, Lauren. You did a great talk. So I will just say thank you all the people in district two vote for me. And I will represent their ideas here at the city council. And I also wanna propose, since we heard lots of things about committees, everything, and I know that we have so many volunteers, community volunteers doing great job to keep our community very supportive and welcoming and engaging. So December 5th is the World Volunteer Day. So it will be great if the city can have some kind of celebration to appreciate all our community volunteers. Thank you. Sounds like, thanks. So thank you. I agree with everything Lauren and Pailin said. And the process was really interesting to just go through. And for me, it didn't until this afternoon because my election was so tight with only a 22 vote margin when Tom called. But I'd like to thank Orca for the efforts to help bring the election process out to the community and the Rotary Club and the bridge and the Times-Argus all played a key role. And one of our only opportunities to really give voters a chance to see us and hear us and get a sense of who we were. So thank you. And thanks tonight to Bill and to the whole team for all your work to give us a sense of the scale and the scope of this operation and what we're working with. So thank you for that. Next up, Councillor Brown. Yeah, thanks. I just want to welcome all of the new folks, Tim and Sal. I'm so sorry I'm not there to say welcome in person, but I'll see you next time. And congratulations on your election and welcome back to Pailin and Lauren. And congratulations to you, Jack. I'm really pleased that we're all together and ready to get to work. And I just want to thank everybody who ran. I know I'm kind of echoing what other folks have said, but I do think it's just so important. And to me, it's a sign of a healthy democracy when we have lots of people running for office. And so I'm so grateful to everybody who ran and everyone who voted. And that is all I have for tonight. Thanks. Thanks. And Sal, sorry I skipped over you. I appreciate it called you first, but you're up. Thanks, Jack. Well, I really want to thank Bill and the city staff. You know, when I got the, what, 167 page packet, I said, oh, this is something that, you know, they do every year orientation, but it obviously it wasn't. It's something you did. I feel like you did it, you know, for people like me who are new to this. And I greatly appreciate it was very helpful. It's nice to put a face to a name and to know who the people are, you know, behind the work that's being done. And I'm just, I'm just delighted to be working with this group. You're all, you know, dedicated public servants. And I hope I can live up to the expectations of my supporters. So thank you. Thanks Sal, Donna. I apologize. Like I'm having a little bit of an echo here because my iPad won't go mute. It'll just go low. I would like to congratulate everyone who won, but also congratulate everybody who ran because to run is to step up to the plate and really appreciate that. But I also want to thank the staff and all the volunteers that made the election possible. It takes a lot of hours to put on an election. And I think we need some education courses though, John. I think it's really important people understand the labor that write-ins cause, whether it's a Mickey Mouse write-in or a serious write-in, it takes a lot of staff time to deal with those ballots. But there's other things about how to mark the ballot, how to read it. We had so many long lines because the ballots weren't done right. So I feel we really need some workshops on that. But thank you, John. You got through it. Machines are not working. You did very well, as did all the staff and volunteers. And just one heads up about the storm water committee, you will be getting a report in the next couple months. We have been working on the rates and we're dealing with two issues. What's the most fair and equitable, but what's the most easy to implement? And there's a really conflicting measurements. So you'll be hearing what we settled on as months progress. Thank you. Thanks, Donna. Mayor's report, I said a few words at the beginning. I don't think I have anything to add to that. So I'll move it along to the city clerk, other than reminding people that water bills are coming up too. I just, bear with me, I'm sleep deprived, but I've just really struck again, a big part of every election we have is I recruit and coordinate anywhere from 40 to 60 volunteers and just being struck again by how critical, not only how critical all those folks are, how good in nature they always are, and how just really ready to help folks in this town are when it's time to put on an election. It's really striking. And I talk to people in similar positions in other towns and nobody's heard of anything like this. So it's really great. And it was a great experience and thank you all who helped out very much. City manager's report. Well, I've got a lot to talk about. Great. Boris here. I just like to, again, I'll echo what everybody said about, thanks to all the folks who ran and congrats to the winners. I'm really looking forward to working with all of you this year, now that you all know everything. And we talked a little bit with the last group about the group's ability to function as a high-functioning group. And I think this group will continue that way, it's knowing the individuals that have joined us and respect one another, move forward. And that's how we'll get stuff done. I will say, and I will try to say this is kindly as I can, but with regard to an earlier comment, I had absolutely nothing to do with the dissolution of CBPSA. It was a decision that was made by them. No influence on that. I was never asked about it. I was never, I don't think I even attended a meeting with them ever in their entire time. So I do take exception to that. I do believe that the police review committee reviewed lots of issues and specific incidents weren't part of their charge. And it may be that people are moving their cars from night to night, but I have observed plowed roads and there is not snow on the roads and there has been snow removed. So it seems clear to me that plowing is a current. So with that, that's done. Okay, yeah, it's done. Sorry, I did forget the Central Vermont Public Safety Authority Disillusion and Plan that passed. Disillusion? Disillusion. What is the word? Disillusion. Okay, thank you. I do that with words all the time. I need everybody listening and correcting me. That was a document that was legally prepared and within it, it sets very clear steps to make sure all of our expenditures, all our obligations are covered. And that indeed, the board ceases to exist at the time that the vote was confirmed and both Barry Montpelier did that past. And within that plan, it also appoints the chair who was me to lead the lawsuit. Other than the lawsuit, everything else is handled. And so we have just this little bit left at the lawsuit. So we have a person appointed to cover that, but everything else around it's business is covered in that plan. Thanks Donna. Okay, having completed our business, no further business. We will be adjourned at 941. Thank you all.