 Everybody ready? Okay. I'll call a meeting to order at 6.31 p.m. I'll note that Councillor Gil is not going to be here and I'll ask Councillor Cohn to introduce herself. Hi everyone. Did you hear? Why don't you say it again? Okay. Pilling call, District 2. All right. Thank you. Take a couple of minutes to discuss meeting logistics. Anyone joining remotely? Please put your name, your first and last name on your on-screen display. Anyone who wishes to speak must be recognized by the chair and we'll start out by stating your name and where you live. And we would ask you to keep your comments or questions at any point in the meeting to three minutes and Evelyn Prim will help us keep track of the time for that. And I think we're ready to go. First item is to approve the agenda. There any requested changes to the agenda. Seeing none, we can now move to general businesses, business and appearances. This is an opportunity for any member of the public to address the council on any topic that is not on tonight's agenda. And as with other items, we will ask you to keep your comments to three minutes. And we can start with Carolyn Grudinski. Yes, please. And either the stand up mic or at the table, either one, whichever you prefer. And if you take, if you need more than three minutes because it's semi-official business. Great. And I talked to him. Carolyn Grudinski on the festival and events coordinator for Montpelier alive. And I wanted to give a short update on what's happening for Montpelier in Montpelier on the eclipse and I'm just wondering has anybody everybody seen Montpelier alive eclipse page. That's good. Okay, that's great. One thing I just wanted to mention, we don't have a lot of lodging, but we're hoping to entice all the people that are coming into Vermont to come to Vermont during our eclipse weekend. So it starts on Friday with art walk and the entire month is national poetry month. And there's also one thing I wanted to mention, we keep adding events every day, a huge variety of events and I'm just going to mention a few youth poetry open mic. There's many businesses that are having eclipse parties on Monday and Saturday and Sunday. A yoga studio is doing an eclipse sound bath ceremony. And one very interesting thing is the Vermont association for the blind and visually impaired selected three sites in the state to actually have. I forgot the name of the device, but it basically converts the light, the lowering light into sound. So as the eclipse becomes full, it's a different sound than when it's just starting. So that will be on the state house lawn. Then I wanted to mention we have two designated viewing sites in Montpelier one is going to be the state house. The other is Vermont VCFA. And each one is going to have bathrooms, trash and a few food vendors. And we also are going to have extra trash cans around this is probably. Do you want this little details? Okay. Okay. I've been spending a lot of time organizing trash cans now trash cans through extra trash cans throughout town and DPW who's here is going to help empty them. We're going to have an extra, whatever extra pick up just to make sure we get it all. And then there's going to be public bathrooms downtown, which is pretty important during the weekend and that will be at the top of the. Is that three minutes? Okay. It's, it says it's less than three minutes. But if you have it, it sounds like that's all you have to say. Anybody have any questions? Oh, and the web, the website for the everything going on for the eclipse in Montpelier is Montpelier alive.com slash eclipse. Any questions. Trash. Is there any way to predict how many people, I mean, how many people we think are actually. Well, they're predicting, I'm not the expert on that. I guess this, you know, police, but what I've heard is up to as many as we get for like July 3rd, which is up to like 20,000 really depends on the weather. And what I did hear is there's like a 70% chance of crappy weather. So, who knows what's that? Yeah, we'll have lots of places to party. Just like to say thanks to Carolyn and Montpelier alive. They've been really active on this since the fall, knowing that it was coming and working with the city and trying to get us prepared. I know our public safety people are ready and you know, it is, it's kind of weird because we don't have any idea how many people are coming and we know they're coming to Vermont, but where so it's going to be pretty interesting to see how it. And also, I know state buildings didn't want to designate their lots for designated parking lot. So that, you know, that I see might be depending on where people go. I think they are opening up their lots. They are, but they didn't want us to publicly say designated because yeah. So, we'll see. 10 days, right? Thanks, Carolyn. Okay. Is there anyone else in the room who'd like to be heard? Yes. If anyone's noticed, there's some reason my screen is half blacked out and I don't know why that is that I'm trying. I know I tried that. What's that? Oh, there you go. Look at that. Thank you. I see just ask the young people. No idea that that's what that is. Great. Is there anyone participating online who'd like to be, they'd like to address the council. And Pella, and I saw you had your hand up a little bit ago. Do you, did you have anything to say? I will just mention what Bill just said. So it's solved. Great. All right. We can move on to the consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda? The consent agenda. Okay. All right. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed. Okay. I with regard to the consent agenda, I wanted to. I wanted to point out that one of the items on the consent agenda is a proclamation of appreciation for counselor Donna Bate who served on the council for 10 years. And she let us all know before the meeting that she's not able to be here tonight, but. From my years of working with her, I just think she's been a great city council member. Great. She always had tremendous energy for the work that we do. Tremend always did her homework, great institutional memory. And she will, she will be missed. And Mr. Mayor, just for that point, our plan actually was to have the proclamation approved tonight and get it signed and framed and then present to her here at a meeting when she is able to attend. So this was the first time. Okay. Next up. We have some appointments. First, an appointment to the capital complex commission. An appointment to the month, your transportation infrastructure committee. And appointment to the tree board. And obviously none of the people who are candidates are here physically or any of the people. They're not here virtually. And that's Donna bait that Tim center. And Linda young. So if anyone's here, why would you say something? If not, is there a motion. I move we appoint. Tim center to the capital complex commission. Donna bait to the transportation and infrastructure committee. And Linda young to the tree board. Any discussion. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed. This done is willing this to stay on the transportation infrastructure committee is helpful to us because she's been on the committee for many years. Next up, we have item nine. Discussion of leachate at the water resource recovery facility. But on the agenda. By council. My interest in that is we dealt with this at the very end of a long meeting and just a few questions following it. And after that, of course, then the, the filtration plan at the landfill and Coventry failed. And had issues. So it seems like a worthy topic to at least keep in front of us. My questions are about, it seems like a few folks may have had the same thought was that when we set the standards. For review of the leachate before the plant failed. We had kind of a double line. One was the 80% of aggregate. And then there was also. 70 parts per trillion in each category. And kind of the devil standard. I wasn't, it seemed a little. Nebulous. Especially the 80% part because in the context of the meeting that wasn't thought wasn't presented as being as accurate, right? So I do, we need to refine the standard. I guess this is my question for what we accept. I thought that where we wound up eventually was in the number of parts per trillion and that was in the resolution, but, but Lauren, you're shaking your head now. So, I mean, our best work at 1130 PM. I mean, I think where we landed, although I don't, it still does seem, it's obviously confusing because we don't understand it was an 80% reduction. I still, to me, that's challenging because I'm like, from what? What's the baseline that we're even measuring? Is that every single load, 80% reduction? Is it like an average over a month and overall? So I actually think the percentage, I know Kurt had proposed that. So obviously we can ask him why that is a good measure. So it was that. And then with a goal of getting to 70 parts per trillion, just to finish that thought, but I do want to get Kurt's thought on that, but because basically, so 70 parts per trillion is what like the EPA guidance has been for, for PFAS for a while. I mean, their latest, they came out and they were like, for drinking water, for example, it should be basically none. So they're moving down dramatically, but like for leachate, that's like impossible. And, and so the goal of 70 parts per trillion was that lines up with it's higher than what our old one was, which was 20 parts per trillion, which is the Vermont drinking water standard right now. But Rhode Island recently passed a surface water standard, which is more similar to this at 70 parts per trillion. But the, but it sounded like because I couldn't guarantee they could get to that. So that's why we had said it like, but we want to, we want you to be aiming to get to 70, but like you have to hit 80% for us to accept it, but kind of like we'll check back in was the way I was interpreting it like that you might exceed 70. Sometimes, but if you're hitting 80%, you can still send it, but we really want you to be working toward to be lowering that and we want to kind of see progress as kind of the signal. I thought we were trying to send with that, but, you know, I should jump in and say one thing, make a parliamentary observation. That might be what the city manager was about to say too, which is that if we, if anyone were to propose to change the resolution that we adopted a couple of meetings ago, that in my opinion would be a motion to reconsider an action we previously took, which has to be done at the same meeting and has to be moved by a person on the winning side of that debate. And so I think, I think it's very good to have this discussion and clarify what we're talking about. I don't think it's in order to actually at this point formally reverse the action we took a month or so ago, but I don't want to stop people from having this discussion because this is not going away, obviously. Bill, I was actually going to say, and I was going to hopefully Kurt would be on me up at the 80%, as I understood it was they were like five categories. And one of them they had difficulty, like the highest of like 65%, the others they were up in the upper 90s. And so the goal was that in the aggregate of those five had to be 80% or above. That was where the 80% came from because they could easily meet it with four of the five, but with one they couldn't. So that was what that 80% aggregate. So they have to be above that for all of them combined. And then also for the 70 parts per trillion. So I don't think it was, I think that's where it came from. It wasn't just a, they all, you know, combined they have to be above that for us to take it. Kurt Monika, Director of Public Works. That's correct, Bill. Right. They were, they were able to get four of the five. And then the requirement was that they would have to get 80% of the aggregate reduction. We didn't establish specific time frames for when we're going to evaluate that matrix. And I'll be likely monthly is what we would, what we would probably do with Cassella. It does take a fair amount of time to, to get test results back for PFAS. It's not like you can instantly verify. So there will be a bit of a delay and getting those results. And I believe the, the motion was a minimum of 80% reduction of the five compounds that are regulated in Vermont with the goal of 70 parts per trillion until such time that the state implements their limits at which time the requirement would be either at the state's limits or 80% reduction minimum, whatever one's more stringent. That's how the motion was kind of laid out. Thanks, Kurt. Did you have anything? So I guess based on your parliamentary piece, I guess I would do a new motion that necessarily does modify the old piece. But it would be on the lines that if that's the criteria and everybody's comfortable with it. That when the plant is fixed or the filtration is fixed, I'd re in this motion. I'd like to propose that the city council be notified when that plan is operational and when the leachate's been tested and meets the criteria that we'll be starting to accept it again. So the city council be given that notification. And also that we limit the amount of the leachate that we'll accept to, you know, a truck load a day, which is what 80, 100 gallons or something. And that was what they said they were going to do. There was a little bit of vacillation in the amounts. Right. So my understanding that was up to up to two loads a day, two trucks a day was approved at the meeting. Okay. No. Okay. So that's the motion. Yes. And I don't think that changes the previous resolution. So I think that's in order. Is there a second to that? Is there any further discussion? So I'm not quite sure. You understand how we measure both the 80% aggregate and the goal of 75 parts per trillion. I mean, it's a goal, but obviously stated that way. It's not, we're not requiring that that be met. It sounds like to me, it sounds like we were asking for 80% of aggregate and hoping for 75%. But we'll take what we can get. Am I reading that right? Lauren. I think that is how it's currently worded in response. To them basically being like, we don't know if we can get to 70, which is kind of concerning. But I mean, my hope would be that we're getting that data. They said they measure it like the testing is in parts per trillion. So that's what they'll be measuring. And then they would do a percentage to see what their percent reduction. So basically like, I want us to be getting both numbers. And if it's like, they're, they're way off from 70, then I think we would want to revisit like, okay, if they're not getting anywhere close to that, that's why it's like 80%, but it's, you know, I mean, PFAS can spike. So all of a sudden 80% could be a really big number. If we're like a percentage, that's why it's just, I really don't like that standard, but like, I get where it's coming from. But so to me, it's like, that's, we can keep an eye on that number. We're putting a marker out there. I also wanted to put something out for A and R to be keeping in mind that like we want to be getting down. Like I don't want them to go with a percentage standard, but we're going to have a level of, we want to be doing that. We're going to have a level of, we're going to have a level of, we're going to have a level of level of level for the state. So that seems within the ballpark of what other states and stuff we're doing. So that's what, but it's, you're totally right. It's not like requiring it. So Jim is your, is your motion designed to ensure that it comes back to the council. For review. After we, after the, the the leak that they had and and is approved for to do business again that it comes it come back to us and we review it yes based on testing okay one one of the things that is so weird about this I think all of us want a maximum possible effort to reduce this but but the other thing that seems weird is that the city of Montpelier is like the linchpin of the entire state regulatory scheme here because if we stop taking it that divests the department of of jurisdiction to regulate and so so I don't think we want that to happen either well so I have two clarifying questions in follow-up to councilmember alfano's question so the motion so one I'm going to start with the easy one the motion is still one load per day so and I know we had said two when we're here so just make sure we're clear what council's voting on or if they want to change that secondly we would get noted before we accept it we'd get a certification that they were meeting our standard we can't we're not okay that's what we're looking for just before it comes or whatever that's it's not that we're going to revisit the limits I just want to make because we need to communicate with that I appreciate what everyone's trying to try to prevent the council do what they want to do and the state is also wanting to know what we're doing like cell is wanting clarity about what they're they should be doing so we want to be able to communicate accurately what what's happening and people are investing funds for various parts of these projects based on our our statements so we we don't want to play bait and switch either so if we're either going to do it or not do it or whatever but that's where we're at and so just care of any other uh carry um yeah so the first part of this motion um sounds great to me I'm not I would like to hear a little bit more about the idea of only taking one load instead of two and what what that would accomplish and why we might want to do that that's my point of view yeah I really I just I'm going to read about it this is just really bad stuff and one of the presenters at the last meeting said if you concentrated the amount of it that comes in one load he said it was about the size of a paper clip so if it's something that's this powerful and this bad you know and that's small in concentration um I it's still going right up the Woodusky River to Lake Champlain into the water source for a lot of our monitors and a lot of our neighbors I I'd like to limit that yeah I mean I that's I have the same rationale I mean to me I think keeping Montpelier at the table keeping the state at the table continuing to push I mean the thing that's frustrating is there are technologies like reverse osmosis that filters basically all PFAS out and they're just not putting it in because it's more expensive and like that's just what's happening and so it's very frustrating that we're having this trial technology um that's not proving to work that well we're trying to bend over backwards to set our standard to accommodate that and like and yet our community is taking it so to me it's progress to be like well we'll take some we'll stay at the table let's keep trying to push for progress but it's also just I think wrong of them to be like this is unsolvable like there are technologies that do this that have existed for years so it's frustrating so I recall that from the from the lab the meeting where we came up with this rule um but I'm uh I I also remember I think that we we talked about reviewing it uh annually wasn't it is there is the agreement does the agreement with provide for us to review the agreement annually or how it was a longer period wasn't it it didn't have a time it was basically until the state sets the limits and then the state limits apply unless ours is stricter and I think there's their limits applied for five years right I remember that number no but when they do set them does that mean we we can we we are unable to is there anything in here that allows us to review it more frequently than every five years I think the the only issues would be there's nothing in the motion I think the only issues would be whatever financial commitments were made by various you know what's what's the reasonable length of time to make it you know people are you know for example um and Kurt can talk to this more specifically but we're about to we're at the point of design for our wastewater plant and there's what's the which part is it right so the the ultraviolet disinfection right just the plans yep yeah so which technology we choose and is funded could depend on whether this is is in there or not and there may be a contribution from them to fund that but they're not going to fund it if we're not going to take it so um and I think the state was is about to fund uh some of their work and it's a grant passed through us for which city would receive about a hundred thousand dollars for uh so I just think people are making investments and approvals assuming the city is going to take it for some period of time I don't know if not forever because who knows what but some reasonable period of time that makes business investments worth it because because remember the alternative is if we don't take it they don't have to do anything because they will take their stuff to Platsburg and they have to make any investments yeah exactly so um it sounds like um we would be committed to the to the minimum that we agreed to now for whatever term the state sets so let's say it's one load per day but if we're pushing for Kasella to improve the results and they improve them significantly then it's it's in everybody's interest for it for it to come here I think and we should be able to increase the number of loads that we can take because otherwise everything we don't take goes to Platsburg and straight into the lake anyway I'm sure you had a response that um yeah I just wanted to just speak briefly to um the number of loads per day and how that um impacts the city um one is the one load per day equates to approximately $100,000 of year in revenue to the sewer fund but also to what Bill was saying on the on the UV disinfection we have asked Kasella to take the lead on evaluating alternatives um you know basically them you know having a consultant do that engineering work on on behalf of the city because it's so impacted by um leachate receiving what we do and I'm not sure um I'll have to you know go back to them to see if you know the one load a day changes that um that sort of agreement that we have with them so there could be you know engineering evaluation impacts immediately and then long-term like Bill said investments in the in the actual equipment that could be altered by the by the number of loads we take just wanted to point that out council thanks and okay we can open it up let's open up to the public Linda Berger you've had your hand up for a little bit thank you um it sounds well two things one I understand that there was an issue with the technology they're using and I believe that Newport um there was some kind of action from Newport City is that correct so what happened on there they have a temporary pilot system set up at the landfill for treating leachate those pipes were the piping for leachate was external above ground because it was temporary and one of those pipes broke and and basically they couldn't run the system they notified the state the state is requiring them to no longer run the pilot system that they need to build the permanent system within the building so that all the pipes are you know either heated within the building or underground and protected I do not have not heard anything about the town of Newport being involved in any way I don't know that sure but I've not heard anything on that but the state is certainly involved and they did also notify us at the plant to let us know about the the incident thank you am I my second point I guess is are we as a city really comfortable in having a partnership with up with Kasella to basically help fund our wastewater treatment plant so we're building our plant a lot based on subsidies from Kasella and Kasella hasn't necessarily been the best partner for the state that's just it makes me a little uncomfortable and I know we need financial support for the city but it what's the real cost of that ultimately to us I guess I I don't I don't know you know I think that's a fair question Linda and the you know how we just define costs is what I think all of us struggle with I don't think there's any clear answer you know we we our relationship our business relationship with Kasella has generally been pretty good they give us a reduced price to send our biosolids to their landfill and then because we take the leachate and then they pay so the it's 100 or 200 thousand dollars in revenue for the leachate depending on how much whether it's one two means a day and we probably save about that much given our reduced price so the net swings about $400,000 a year for because they would then charge us market rate to dispose of our biosolids so that's just a strictly financial then is the issue of this is nasty stuff nobody wants to be taking it it's coming we get PFAS through our regular waste stream so it's not I mean it's higher concentrate in leachate no question but we all contribute PFAS to the waste stream every day and so part of the question that we wrestle with is if it doesn't come here there's no place else in Vermont for it to go so it gets trucked to New Hampshire it gets trucked to New York where they don't have the regulation particularly in New York and Plattsburgh it goes to the same lake that we're concerned about so now it goes in untreated or with less treatment to Lake Champlain so what is the greater good for all and I don't think any of us know that answer right because you know we don't want in our backyard we don't want it in our stream but we also don't want a worse volume in the lake so so it's a very difficult calculation so it's the financial and then there's the moral I guess you'd say or or environmental because there's and are we looking at the environmental strictly from Montpelier are we looking at it from state regional wide and in sort of unintentionally we found ourselves in a position of being the backstop for the entire state because without us the state has no regulatory authority so that's where we're at I don't I don't know if that answered your question I do understand the questions about Kasella I can't speak to any other you know any of their other practice other than the relations we've had with them over the years and it's always been pretty straightforward so we haven't had a problem with them expel is there anyone any other discussion either from members of the public or from the council then we review the motion we're yeah we're we want to review it both the standard and the number of loads when changing the standard because that was said at last meeting so really I was just requesting that the city council be notified when the plant's running and the leachate's been tested to meet the standards before it gets shipped here and then the other piece was just to reduce the number of loads we accept today we're in a tough spot here because I think the state we keep saying there are no regulations if we don't do this but we all know the state of Vermont has the ability to make rules and pass laws they can step up and deal with this it's a statewide issue and I don't think we should make it any easier on the state I think they need to step in and do their job which would require requiring better filtration we've worked with gisela for years at a personal level I think they are good people and had no no issues with them in our dealings at all it's not about gisela it's about we have a statewide waste issue and it shouldn't be upon Montpelier to deal with it yeah let me let me re clarify that because you know obviously the state has wide-ranging authority the state is setting standards for which leachate comes into wastewater plants so that's a specific they have other standards that they can try to regulate but that is the one they're setting if we don't take it it's not going into any Vermont wastewater plants so there is no jurisdiction for the state to regulate if they if they're sending it to a platzberg wastewater plant or a new hampshire wastewater plant the state has no jurisdiction over those levels that go into that plant that's why it's not because they don't have other authority but in terms of this specific authority and I think you know others might take it once these levels are set I don't know that I mean I haven't heard that but you know they might because there's a revenue source there but we are taking it so we are the because we are we are what we're the what gives the state that regulatory hammer to on that particular piece so out the cliff yeah thanks go Lauren yeah I mean just on that I think we could put on our legislative agenda the legislature could certainly put a new statute in to require you know a standard here I mean the legislature actually did pass a law requiring an our to set a surface water standard which would actually trigger here but an our was basically like we're going to wait for the feds to do it which we're still waiting this was like five years ago and I who knows if her when that will come so that's the posture they've taken their empowered to right now but they're choosing not to it's hard to set these standards like so they're just like we'll wait for EPA which often Vermont does not wait for EPA but in this case that's what so there could be like renewed attention at the legislature of like what's happening with surface water standards more broadly could there be a specific pre-treatment standard that then it gets not peeler out of this weird box of being the lynchpin for the state being able to regulate but that would take a statutory change but I'd certainly be happy to go advocate for that next year so maybe that's just the link to flag for our next year ledge thing I think on the one truckload piece I mean I guess I would be certainly like if Kurt like if you have conversations and Cassell is like to make this all work two truckloads is somehow just fundamentally different than I assume you could come back and tell us that and we could think further about it if it's not the case that it somehow is it changes things that I think starting there I mean we keep revisiting this regularly and I think just starting slow more information see how the testing is going once they build the permanent structure you know all of that like I think it could be like the more successful the pretreatment is the more willing and eager will be to accept more of this stuff my recollection was that Chris said we're only taking one truckload now but he would feel comfortable taking up to two does that square with what your recollection is Kurt right that's correct okay so well maybe I took the red eye from California last night I didn't get a lot of sleep but I'm still not clear about the one load to two load are we changing from two loads to one load are we just saying we want the option to review it when the state when when Cosella is reinstated and we get the results of the testing not certain after the last motion from our last meeting so I'm trying to clarify it and limit to one load yeah that's correct we there was discussion about the number of loads and I think Chris and Kurt said we would not be comfortable ever taking more than two loads or something like that yeah in the short until the disinfection is upgraded disinfection is upgraded right and so the council did not specifically put a load limit in and but said that they would you know rely on Kurt and you know the and I fact I remember Jack saying you know if you're going to take more of that you better come back and talk to us and but it wasn't was not in the motion but it would be if we pass then the motion would be one one and presumably if there was a reason to change that we would come back to you and talk to you about that all right are we ready to for a vote if so all those in favor signify by saying I any opposed okay we have adopted Tim's motion and next up update from the cemetery commission got a good turnout thanks for coming and I just need to know I don't have the slides because thank you for having us this is um follow-up we had a conversation during budget season about having an opportunity to come offer some information about the cemetery to the to the council and with some new counselors this is a great opportunity to get you some information about the cemetery I'm Jake Brown I'm the chair of the cemetery commission we have two commissioners with us um Patrick Healy is the director of the cemetery and Patrick is going to offer some information about the cemetery and I think if you can you just put that on like that you can you can all right yeah okay feedback if we could avoid that feedback that's all right okay um maybe turn the lights down will that be okay sure thank you all righty thank you I'm Patrick Healy director of green mouth cemetery and this is going to be a introduction to the cemetery um I can talk for you know hours and hours and there's a lot to know but I think we want to get some basic information to you and into the public that's that's watching this monument right here at green mouth cemetery if you don't know where it is then you need to come and see it you need to come into the cemetery and see where it is because much of the cemetery uh you can't see from route two people drive by all the time and when they first come in they'll say you know I've lived in Montpelier for 20 years I've never been in here up up in this part and I don't never have realized how big it is so we will start here in the next slide history created with a donation from resident Calvin Keith in in about 1853 he gave a thousand dollars to the town and he wanted um two conditions one um that the cemetery be enclosed and be planted thickly with trees and two to reserve a portion to be given to the poor about 35 acres were purchased for 2200 dollars in around 1853 Patrick it looks like the slides are not advancing in the in the zoom so oh we can get that fixed all right you should just sit right here can you light on that no no i'm good thank you though no houses um yes better great oh okay why not that full screen now great then you should be able to go that Patrick you can also officially dance with the arrows of a seizure all right yeah no i'm like the most you speak with senior your notes okay i will start again thank you everyone um history started uh um Calvin Keith resident of Montpelier gave a thousand dollars to purchase a suitable place for a burial ground keep in mind that's 1853 for a suitable place it's on a side hill um it will be uh he wanted it to be enclosed and planted thickly with trees and he wanted a reserve a portion to be given to the poor about 35 acres was purchased for 2200 dollars at the 1855 town meeting 5000 dollars was placed at the disposal of the five commissioners for the construction of green mount cemetery and that would have been in the spring in the fall they i guess they did quite a quick job and they dedicated it september 15th 1855 in 1857 for the cost of 400 dollars and six four hundred and sixty dollars a cottage house was built for the text for the sextant to live in and i believe that is the house that used to be on the river side of route two for those that may not have been here in 19 or 1986 i think is when the house was bought by the state and torn down and the route two was actually moved closer to the river the stairs that are in the ledge the first summer that i worked there if you stepped off the bottom step you were stepping into route two um and it was designed as a rural garden cemetery by a daniel drimm's of roxbury mass and he also designed the forest hill cemetery in boston if you knew where that is um how do i call this one all right governance structure so this is um the situation um that is a little uncommon in vermont the the vermont legislature passed an act relating to a cemetery in montpelier and they set up the cemetery as a quasi municipal corporation which is owned by the city but it's run by a cemetery commission which is a separate governing body the main reason that they did this is was was because of money they wanted to make sure the money stayed separate from the town fathers don't know why but that's how they set it up the commission is in charge of the care maintenance and supervision of the cemetery the commission answers directly to the voters of montpelier to the residents and i answer directly to the cemetery commission a memorandum of understanding was created i believe in 2021 um about um to clarify the administration of green mouth cemetery for the mutual benefit of the city administration the commission and for the benefit of the public so who are we five publicly elected commission commissioners each has a five-year term is jake brown linda berger linda hogan is our new commissioner dara ellison who's in the back and barbara smith who is in the back we have one director i'm presently at less than a 0.6 fte um semi retired after 37 years it was i decided to to spend less time at the cemetery we have a cemetery tech is what we call that position who is a union position with the dpw union he has plowing duties at dpw he's one of the sidewalk plow people and at times we'll go over to dpw if they need him for whatever reason such as after the flood i believe it was the first week maybe the first week and a half after the flood he took the our mini excavator brought a downtown and helped um clean up the all the debris and stuff with with dpw because we have a thumb on it so it can pick it up we have a seasonal employee his name is url factor he works a little less than 12 weeks we'd like him more once you know we can get our budget situated and our main workforce is a correctional work crew there's six inmates plus a supervisor they've been there 38 plus years um green mount was the first uh location for a a crew coming out of the jail for the state of vermont and we've had a crew a correctional crew of one sort of the other since that um we used to have 10 people plus a supervisor 10 inmates but now they've changed it to six okay so this this picture is blurry because i'm supposed to have permission from the department of corrections when i take pictures of of inmates so i kind of just made it blurry but this was just to show you some of the work instead of mowing that the inmate crew is doing for us um this is one of the sections down front and what are what we're doing is we're going section to section um and realigning all the all the markers all the monuments we put a level on it um and then we're filling in all the all the sunken space um where they're standing and where all that dirt is it was it was really sunken from all the burials that were there those burials would have been just in pine or mahogany boxes okay is it um on the left it's a little better picture that picture was done by Linda Hogan um that's our cemetery tech Carl Griffith um he is washing the one of the monuments and then on the right is Earl Fector and he is helping put up some um electric fence for to go around our beehives to keep the the bears out i'm not going to get into the budget a lot and just a couple of things that you've seen in your budget book um obviously personnel cost is is most of the budget um you'll see that our capital outlay for equipment and and for capital improvements is is way down for next year as it as it is in other departments and this is just a quick little um history um and again this is in your budget book so i just just wanted to put it in to show you um where our personnel costs are you know they went up they started to go up that the highest was in uh fy 2022 that was my last full-time year and then it started going down and we're trying to creep it back up so we can hire somebody else total budgeted um and this is set up um this was um set up with the senior center and uh comparison with the senior center of the parks and the rec um and the uh i guess that's it so it's just again it's in your budget book now on the bottom right hand says $35 per capita that's been about what we've had for the last maybe 10 years um and it must have been about 10 or maybe even 15 years ago when the city council mentioned that we should have a rate for non-residents um for for our lots and for our services so at that time we figured out it would be about $35 um per capita so our we had a um a differential of $350 every grave that you bought if you were a non-resident you had to pay that more because we figured you know and we were just trying it out we said okay if you lived in Montpelier for 10 years your household would have paid $350 in taxes for for uh that went to the cemetery and this is fy 24 which um i think was um only $30 that was a little less i don't know if that's due to reappraisal or what um but we can move on okay services um we have full burial lots we have natural burial lots we have cremation lots with or without upright memorials we try to do a lot of different options we have our children's lot which is no charge for babies and for children we have a monument that was bought by um the the hospital and we work with them for the burial of children babies um and we have the the hospital the nurses come down um the first saturday i think it's june 8th this year about nine o'clock and they have an annual service there and they invite all the parents that have lost um children um over the years and sometimes it's a it's a big turnout sometimes it's not but they do it um every year on the first saturday in june we have year-round burials um we have monument cleaning and repair we foundation construction for for the memorials or the monuments um we have figured out we used to dig down five feet um and have the bottom flared out like a footing on a foundation for for for a house and that took a lot of time and so we bought an auger for our mini excavator and what we're doing is we're drilling like sonotubes down five feet and then the top 18 inches is a pad we're adding rebar and instead of having four people pound out a foundation that maybe is only um 18 inches wide we're able to drill it out and we're able to save a lot of a lot of time so the the excavator that we have um comes in really really handy for that um winter storage for our vault down front the building down front if you look at it the right side is a chapel um it can hold 60 people it has a choir loft has a stained glass window has an altar has no heat has no running water has no toilet facilities that they for some reason they cut the toilet facilities off or i think in around 1960 when this while when the sewer plant came online because it went directly to the river um and so a we have to use porta potties down there because the sewer lines do not run past the cemetery on both sides of the cemetery they stop and they get pumped under the river so that's just a a little tidbit to to know um we and then other services we assist the city in mowing green spaces such as stone cutters way the roundabouts we do the credit union and we call the credit union parks from the credit union down to down to taylor street um we do berlin street um bus stop at the bottom and then there's a little place up on berlin street used to be the old creamery um we mow that lot and we also mow in front of on the circle in front of tractor supply just this great um that's titled sustainability the use of the corrections crew now i call it saves um two hundred thousand dollars per year but it's more of a value added amount because we don't have that two hundred thousand dollars to say and you're saying well two hundred thousand tell me more um we've recently got a quote um from uh the granite um corporation out of berry who does monuments mausoleums now they're into lawn care and gave us a quote of two hundred and twenty thousand dollars to mow the cemetery for the summer um and um i'll i'll i'll be okay so the next the next bullet point it takes two hundred and fifty hours labor hours to mow the cemetery once so we are not having that country club look what i call the country club look anymore when coven came our main workforce could not come out of jail so it left me url and carl to do the cemetery there's no way we could do it so we we put our heads together and said okay the old part of the cemetery that was designed in 1852 55 um for the first hundred years that part never got mowed it never got mowed because there weren't lawn mowers they had cows or they had size and they would let it grow long and i will show you a picture later on um and old grass or ancient grass varieties don't grow like bluegrass they didn't grow all that tall you know they and they weren't thick so it has a better it's as a whimsical look to it and so we are so during covid we said okay we have a part of the cemetery that's from 1940 to today which was 100 percent perpetual care paid on it it used to be you had a choice you could pay two or three dollars a year i think it got up to about eight dollars a year an annual fee to have your lot mowed and that lasted into about 1981 where the commissioners at that time from what i understand just said look we're not going to build this out anymore we will ask for donations if they have it they'll pay it but they lost track of a lot of people because families would move away people would die and it was tough trying to find it um find the families to pay for it so we've reduced the mowing in the original sections for environmental reasons um financial reasons we we use the corrections crew um so when we've reduced mowing what that means is we have time to align and clean the memorials and this year even with the flood we had we were able to do 400 now that's not that's 400 pieces of granite it could be a flat marker it could be a a little headstone or it could be a monument but we weren't going to break it down we were just cut we were just counting each piece and what we would do is we would and as you saw earlier in that picture with the inmates filling in um sunken halls cleaning the sections and some of these monuments have never been touched for 100 years and then we would move on and this is going to take us probably another four or five years to to finish up the whole cemetery so Patrick that's 400 out of how many burials there total oh i'm gonna say there's probably for for memorials there's probably 4 000 um and um but when you get a crew from the jail along with Carl Carl came to us with with 20 years of experience with Brock of Ages he's able to take straps pick up the granite the first time without adjusting it a lot you know and and he really knows how to handle the the granite um so we that's what we decided to do with COVID the first summer and of course it lasted three summers none of us knew and so we've we've accepted it and we're doing it and we're and the commissioners have have given us the latitude to try this out to see how it's going to work because we cannot like I said um have the country club look if we charged every lot owner the country club prices then we could but that's that's not going to work um battery operated trimmers when the council said they wanted to see um battery operated equipment we jumped on it we took a chance instead of buying a trimmer for 300 we bought a trimmer for 1500 has a backpack battery it's not just a little kind that you put into a drill or something it's a backpack battery it'll last three to four hours and that's what we need when we're out there um we would love to have an electric riding mower zero turn but the issues right now and they're they're gonna they're getting better is power on a hill we need to be able to power up the hill and with the electric mowers they're perfect for a ball field where it's nice and flat um we're we're we're using the best environmental practices that we know of um we we don't use pesticides anymore we never did a lot but we we did some there's no more we control there's no more um we're making sure the fertilizers are all organic um and we're we're we're compost um making um from the leaves that we pick up every year compost gets used in the cemetery it gets used uh the tree board and then the parks have used it um we're attempting to create a better environment for humans and pollinators plants and bees we put in some honey bees last year they didn't do the best actually they all they just went they they they left their hive we're not quite sure why we'll figure it out um but we're doing that with donations from the funeral home in Montpelier and John Boucher myself Carl and Earl we're all just trying to fix figure out how to do that without any public money um and we're maximizing land for burials because we do need land um i'll show you some pictures oops all right so when we're looking at this the one on the left this is a portion of land um that obviously there's ledge in the ground you'll see ledge behind it those ledge six inches down um from the top of the soil line this this piece this little corner sat vacant probably for 150 years and we started um looking at how we could use it for cremation so what we ended up doing was you you've seen these big rock drills on tracks at the interstate when they're when they're when they're drilling into the ledge we had a company come down and bore out four holes in front of where those monuments are going we made copper urns um with with a screw top we buried them and then when we do the burial we just dig down to the screw top unscrew it and put the burial it and that this this is what we did for um adapting to the cremation rate cremation rate um like i think i was i don't know if i mentioned it earlier cremation rate has is almost 80 percent um in Vermont and when i first started it was more like five percent our vault we would hold 40 to 50 bodies in our vault that most of them went to other cemeteries that were closed um a few would go to us but most of it it was a service to the funeral director to hold those bodies until um such time as they could do the burial in in the country cemeteries the um picture to the right is some is a place that we found in the historic area again that had burial room in front of the ledge but we needed a spot to put monuments so we did small monuments again um we had little sockets cut out by a granite craftsman from berry came over and so then we sold those all we have we have one more monument to put in the lot is sold that we're just waiting for the for the family to put in their monument this first all right cemetery major needs um additional land we need to pursue we would love to do it next door we've talked to that landowner um years ago we need we need to to talk to them again um the chapel vault building needs dollars for renovation it's marble it's not granite um estimation is one to two million dollars um we need to we always want to make sure that we have a recognized and respected relationship with city hall and and the council and um what we we looked at over the years and it's even back into the 1950s um and over the last um three or four city managers that I can find um letters there's there's always been a question on who we are who do we work for who runs what so we need to make sure that the mou is well defined so that um everybody understands uh what's going on um endowment care the fun goal we have whoops there's a zero missing there um we have um a um we have about nine hundred thousand dollars and we need six to eight million dollars the goal of a perpetual care fund for a cemetery is to pay for for us for all of the expenses and you shouldn't have to have you shouldn't have to pull from the city uh funds city taxpayers um the issue with that is there's not enough people in Vermont to have all the cemeteries that we have in Vermont um and it it um and because we're on a hillside our expenses are probably triple if not quadruple what a flat cemetery would be and so we need to keep raising up our perpetual care fees to make sure that we're getting what we need back from the endowment care fund we do have an investment advisor and we do have an investment policy keep in mind when I first started we had four hundred thousand dollars in the perpetual care fund we've brought it up to nine hundred thousand dollars at the same time we've probably have earned six hundred thousand dollars off it um it used to be under bank control we went to um a mutual fund uh we had we started with two families of mutual funds we had vanguard we had sentinel from national life and we we pushed you know some of the board members were pushing let's go local some were pushing vanguard we said well why don't we do a trial period so we ended up I believe it was either two or three year trial period and vanguard just you know out earned um sentinel a lot so we just went straight with with vanguard um next so what work in progress do we have flood damage and I'll show you some pictures um we're updating the investment policy for a long time the investment policy said that we could only invest up to 35 percent common stock and the rest had to be 60 percent uh or so into bonds or mortgages something really safe and you can only use the earnings that it makes um our um investment policy we made it so that if we don't take out let's say for example we make we're taking $30,000 out right now uh let's say we make $34,000 well we take that $4,000 and we turn it into principal because we have to get that thing to grow up uh to grow in in value um and so we're working on that um we're working on an operations manual um after being there so long I that everything's in my head we need to figure out you know how to move it on to the next person that's going to take charge of the grounds um and then we're we're aligning and we're cleaning all the monuments that are in the cemetery we have when I first started the only thing you could use or the only thing that was invented to clean monuments wasn't it was an acid and if you mixed it too much you would see the smoke come off the ground and we're like no it was cross and skull bones and on on the label and we're like no wait we can't do this um Trevor Brink a former resident of Montpelier I think he lived on 1st Avenue invented new stone cleaner $24, $28 a gallon um when his son brought it down to sell it to me he said look this is environmentally friendly put some on his tongue put some on his car paint we're like oh well let's try it so that's what we're using um a lot of but now that we know how to clean and and we have somebody that can align a lot of the monuments we have a lot of the monuments are either they could weigh a ton and they can easily fall over and it doesn't take a lot the the issue that we have a green mount is we face due south and this time of year the front of the monument is thawing out and can be warm the back can be frozen and as you know uh leon moves every little bit banks are always moving and so we're we're trying to make sure that every monument down there is is as safe as possible so that it doesn't fall on anybody okay so here's a couple of pictures of flood damage to the left this is a slope failure this slope this bank was probably put in around 1855 there are burials on top and so when we saw it the day or two after the flood we bought a tarp the black streak on the top of the bank is a tarp that we unrolled so we could take this picture um we put a tarp on it immediately and we kept it there until a few weeks ago when the snow was gone we took a picture of what was what was happening underneath we tarped it to keep the water out and just to make sure that um nobody's the foot of a casket or anybody's feet weren't weren't showing to the public um and so that is um so we're we're devising a drainage plan to um to drain that bank and we will be putting that in this summer the issue as you know with the flood especially with the picture on the right is that it rained all summer long now the picture on the right shows the third entrance about how much mud came down and into the street on route two and into our entrance there um and our front lawn had um truck loads of of that muck one thing we did right away was we took that we got a a do it yourself test for oils in the ground in the wall in the ground for the soils so we wanted just to see what was what was in there and it came out negative we didn't find anything um and so just to let you know that the Department of Public Works I believe took out a hundred truck loads of this slop in front of the cemetery on route two and a little bit on the lawn to be able to open up route two and that's how much of that um slop and it's just it's really fine stuff and when it gets wet it just stays wet um so Patrick is uh that picture on the left is the plan to do a retaining wall there no uh well um we're we're discussing that I think it lasted for 150 years the way it was so we're going to put some drainage pipe in there and then we're going to cover it back up I don't think a retaining wall would would um help it and it's also probably 12 feet in height so to do a retaining wall would be uh way too expensive um okay so what are uh cemeteries all about um it's not just mowing and digging you know it's a historical database we have a lot of genealogists that stop by we have a lot of do-it-yourself folks that are into family genealogy um it's a natural park many cemeteries are arboretums with rare plants trees wildflowers it's an outdoor art exhibit we have a collection of fine artisan work and if you've ever if you've never been to Greenmount and I invite all of you down up we can I can give you a tour of one I can give a tour of 20 people we can walk around if you walk around the whole outside of the cemetery including the new park it's over a mile we have about three and a half or four miles worth of roads in the cemetery um and it is quite the outdoor art exhibit we have the senior center during COVID started to come down and do art classes down there either drawing or painting because the grass was long um this picture here shows a section to the left that all the monuments are nice and clean um and we're getting a lot of good comments from people wondering why why their section isn't clean yet and it's like we're getting there um it's an economic driver especially when we had granite manufacturers in Montpelier but now they can go to go to bury or they can still go to bury um tourists a lot of tourists will stop by there are a lot of cemetery buffs out there um and so we're always getting people visiting all the time we are a what I would call a social justice location for the offenders to work at we have a place that they can come down it's good for their mental health to get out of jail we all know what it was like to be in our houses during COVID it's a good place for them to give back to their communities and I believe because we are in that system we've had very little vandalism over the years very low and it would be easy because we're in a location where there you know there's no street lights and it's outside of town um and of course it provides a respected location for the burial of our loved ones so these are some commissioner comments that you can read I think I sent you all the slides um basically Linda Berger who's been a neighbor for 48 years has talked about where in the 70s it was a somber and unwelcoming place um and we've we now have have turned it over into a very welcoming place we want people to come in and walk around ask questions suggest ideas we have a wood side or it's Memorial Garden it's in the woods former counselor Kerry is buried there we have a civil war plot and it's it's about 18 it's it's a national cemetery plot and it's probably about as big as this room it's probably 14 maybe a little smaller um we have space for natural burials we have space we're um give a certain we don't have a a certain number but we do give lots to people that can't afford it and we met we work it out with the family Barbara Smith who's here she talks about we we were incorporated honeybees we have a pollinator garden we're even trying to figure out how to keep the wild bees there so we're doing a few different things to try to make it environmentally sustainable down there and green mount has been a leader we've been a leader for green burials we call them natural burials we're we're having other states ask us and and so with that green burial natural burial situation i was the biggest opponent against them at the state house and we lobbied for volunteered lobbied for a couple years down there to keep it out because nobody could give us the logistical um details on how to do a a natural burial but once they passed it we figured it out and it's helping us a lot we had one um the first burial the first green burial we did was dr ellison and i thank dara for letting us work through her with all the questions that we would have and and we're on our way of of going back to non-inbombed bodies being buried um let's see next and Barbara also notes that her husband her husband and parents are buried in green mount dara talks about when my family writes the check the check is written out to green mount cemetery it's not the city of montpelier and what she means by this is that we have our own identity down there and many people will think that we are a state cemetery we're in this capital city um we don't have anything that says city of montpelier on our side it just says green mount cemetery with a picture of of the capital um and because we use the department of corrections they think that we're we're a state organization also people um think that when you look up national cemeteries or veteran cemeteries in vermont green mount comes right up to the top of the list because we have that little piece for um civil war vets um and jake is you know says he's honored to to be um to be one of the commissioners to oversee the the unique and historically significant um parcel that we have there linda hogan our new person and she does a lot of photographs and she's down there all the time i've known her for years coming down taking pictures um it's really a great place to visit um it's quiet um as much as possible and so the last picture um and the question that i have is is have we come full circle this this is a picture of the ancient grass that i was talking about it's not blue grass it's just kind of whimsical stuff it's not all that thick we have a marble tablet that was um put there probably it's 150 years old and we we have one of our volunteers that goes around um and we have once we started to allow the grass to grow longer in the old sections the turkeys would come out a lot more because there were bugs to eat since the grass since that has occurred we've had very few reports of ticks in the cemetery and it's because of these volunteers that come around and just take care of everything we also have seen it there's an eagle that was was there all the time um last year the last few years um and we're seeing more of this wildlife so we're trying to figure out what's respectful about as far as letting the wildlife roam on on cemetery property um but that in a nutshell is is green mount cemetery so if you have any questions feel free to ask me and i invite you all down for a tour um and we if you don't feel like walking can't walk if you have a broken leg we've got an electric golf cart that will will take you around in and show you about thank you okay thank you any questions or comments from members of the council or or public uh pilling sorry i'm a little bit sick today uh so thank you for your presentation and all this detailed information so i just want to learn what your specific request from the city council thank you yes we um we um during the budget season we we came to the council and asked for the restoration of some money back into our budget and uh our our efforts were unsuccessful but we asked if the council would be willing to hear us just offer a presentation about the about the cemetery so the council would understand you know what we do um how we're funded etc so we have no specific request other than come on down to the cemetery and visit we'd love to have uh love to have you down and that you you know learn more about the cemetery we have a chance so and we would love it if somebody wanted to you know and i know you you folks on the council are very busy um but if you wanted to be a um a liaison between the council um and the cemeteries um you know we would we would invite that we would i think the commissioners are yep are up for that that's absolutely correct if there's anybody on the council would like to serve informally as a connection to the cemetery we would welcome that that would be helpful for communications i think so um please uh and it would be anybody at your meeting you can come if you like we keep you up to date on what's going on in minutes etc so please consider that if uh if you have some time yes learn thanks um yeah thanks for this it was nice out of the uh stress of budget season to be able to get an overview um and just learn a lot more not to great place um i guess my question it seemed like during budget season there was definitely you know some angst around this like do you feel like the existing you mentioned there's an mou between the commission and the city given this unique relationship do you think the mou is still functioning fine or was there a hope that at some point we'd revisit well the agenda excuse me if i could i catch off um in in the mou there's it would be reviewed annually we we reviewed it we we made some changes we're waiting to hear back from bill about um a change i think on on the on our position on the union position um and we need to look at it a little bit more um and see how it how it does affect we want to make sure that everyone understands that there's a governing body that runs the cemetery i've got five people looking at our budget all the time and over the years you know i've learned to make sure i do my homework on the budget share it with them and then there's not a lot of controversy um we also need to understand that we need that everyone needs to understand that our fund balance is not your fund balance we have a different fund and so um if we're so vice versa your fund balances and our fund balance ours isn't yours so either way you know we're we are in indirectly we're not directly involved with your fund balance just indirectly and so um we just want to make sure that everyone knows that when we're making a budget request and and the reason why we came in with the city um tom galanca i think he sat over here um city councilor said look you come in here every year we're you're owned by the city we don't run you but you're owned by the city so come in with us why don't you just come in with the city budget so we did that um and it works out great for us um and then this year there's just a little you know we we believe there was misinformation not enough information given to everybody on the board to make a decision and so we have to revisit how that is going to be written in the the mo you yeah i think the mo was an excellent vehicle for building on and developing our relationship so we're in a good place i think and we're finding as we go thank you for that question palin thanks yeah i i can tell you tell you that uh when i first came on the council in 2018 we had uh tours not only of the uh cemetery but all the other city uh departments and facilities and bill and i've talked about doing that again this year because we haven't done it in a few years and we've got a lot of new people so it's every department that i've gone to i found it to be very educational and worthwhile to uh to go on those tours harry yeah thank you this was really informative and a great presentation um and i really looking forward to the mud being a little bit better so i can go take a look um but i wanted to ask about um you talked just a tiny little bit about this but one of the original purposes was to have a portion that would be given to the poor and you mentioned briefly that you do have some interments where people don't pay for them can you tell i'll talk a little bit more about how that works how many there are how you make those decisions for you know who's going to get that or how that works um so how it used to work i'll just go that way we have sections throughout the cemetery that well i want that lot well no it's full what do you mean there's no stones poor people didn't have money but we have the maps so who's where um so we we continue that and if some the family comes to me or someone comes to the few we usually hear it from the funeral director they know the family growing up in Montpelier i know a lot of the families a lot of the Montpelier families and we we talk to the family and we say what what are the conditions tell me where you live tell me how you're you know you have to vet it out because one thing that we don't want is and and we have had it is that family members say there's no money but then all of a sudden everybody shows up you know in a 60 to 75 thousand dollar vehicle um and they just didn't want to pay so we work it out and there's no we don't discriminate about anything um many times it's a young person um it's either it's either a very young person teens 20s or it's somebody that is quite elderly that has no money no money and no family um when you go to the funeral director there is um you can get you can qualify for state benefits it used to be when it was called welfare welfare would pay for the the grave and the grave opening they wouldn't pay for the grave opening if there was an extra charge for weekends but they so that's how that started and so now it's evolved into just talking to the people and say hey you know what what do you have normally the funeral director will come to me and say all right this is what we have and this is what we will do for um black okay Montpelier resident it um we don't really discriminate but it's like usually they're Montpelier resident because they went to the the Montpelier funeral director and so we just work it out that way we don't broadcast it per se because we don't know what that will lead to we just kind of work it in house and say hey you know you want this and many times now folks are being cremated and we have so many we have a lot of little sections of like let's say the size of this table which we can set up for you know we probably could put 10 markers or a little monument with 10 names on it for inexpensive amount of money and then we just allow them to come in and place their their cremated remains how much are you charging for burial plots these days so I gave you a price list right on top of a map it should be on your desk there um we went up um we go up when we need to well we we try to look at it every year but we went up the share it's 1500 dollars for for a single grave um and we we I believe we went to 2400 for a non-resident single grave um and we're getting quite a good little stream of calls from people out of um town wanting a natural burial um and I you know I could have talked about an hour for about the different watts but the natural burial which which is a green burial the first section we did we did it on a hillside on a bank where we weren't putting monuments we weren't going to mow the grass we put in some apple trees we had a a meeting we called the we publicized an annual fall meeting down there we had a bunch of residents from Montpelier come down and a couple from New Hampshire when they found out I'm like I don't know how they found out and we set it up and it just took right off for COVID and so it's it's 1500 for for a single grave in that single grave you can put a a a burial it could be a natural burial we will also allow four cremations to go on top of that burial so you're it's quite a deal when you start comparing our prices to outside of Vermont you even hope it's it's it's a little bit cheaper than hope cemetery but if you were go to the go into New Hampshire Massachusetts Connecticut you're paying four or five times the amount for a lot we can't do that here in Vermont because we wouldn't have any business when I first started our lots were I think our lots were a hundred dollars each but you could go to Berlin corner cemetery and get four for a hundred a lot of people from Montpelier bought up there because it was inexpensive and it was in the country and Berlin corner cemetery is right past apple bees now it has houses right on its boundaries that are being built and it's no longer in the country and they're no longer four for a hundred they were actually more than ours for a while because it's it's all about the dollar so we're trying to keep things as inexpensive as possible we're actually more in the country than they are we that's right we are we have a great setting down a lot of people will complain about the interstate sales pitches electric cars are coming like oh well that should believe you a lot of noise I said yeah so I mean when the interstate went in they bought 10 acres of land from us for $10,000 and that was like I think 1950 something and that right now is is a lot of money it has a lot of land that we would love to have but it is what it is any other questions thanks for this I had no idea the cemetery was this big for one thing and I recognize that grass my my golf ball at the country very lands in something very similar to that it's a fescue yeah it is a fescue that's what we call it yeah um and it's thin thank goodness um it's it sounds like the uh you know the business model I guess of the cemetery is changing because partly because of the cremation partly because the land is limited um the number that jumped out at me is when you when you said you had 900,000 in the perpetual care fund and you needed six million that's a that's a big jump I mean when you say you need six million you you will your perpetual care will run out at some date certain if you if you don't increase it to six million how fast and I mean how would you do that um well first let's go go back to the the the uh the model of the cemeteries to sell lots you sell lots you have burials keep selling lots you get lots of choices you'll have more people come to buy lots perpetual care we would not be where we're at if we didn't have the ability to ask the taxpayers for money um will we run out that 900,000 it's going to stay there because we're not going to test the principle we just will not be able to do what we have always done and that's part of our transition now with no more country club looked okay it's going to long grass um so we can fix monuments we hadn't had time or the money to fix monuments monuments um so we are you know what should happen in the model of a cemetery is that the perpetual care fund should um produce enough money to pay so if we if we were the perfect cemetery and we wouldn't be asking the city for for a dollar well it has to keep up with uh increased maintenance requirements right year year after year and inflation and so on right so it has to grow it it can't just right sit there and so in order to sell like I was saying earlier with with the country cemeteries that had lower prices you know we couldn't if the cemetery at that time really went high they would have lost all the business so we have to kind of sell some um and just do the best that we can with with making up for um other you know other services we're trying to get money to if someone comes in and wants wants their monument washed for a particular reason will charge um so we're we're just trying to uh to make up money that way and um so the six to nine million dollars that is probably not what what was forecasted 50 years ago it definitely may not be what's forecasted next year I've got to take a quicker a closer look at it because you know as you know expenses for everything has has gone sky high but our sustainability for our economics is due to the fact that we still have corrections and and and hopefully we can still have corrections from for many years to come how do we pay for that the the corrections we will pay up up to we who do we pay I mean state of Vermont state of Vermont and correctional industries what benefit do the inmates get other than fresh air and okay so now so now the work program comes out of the work camp in st johnsbury and the whole idea with the work camp is that the inmates go to work camp they get their sentence cut in half if they are out on work crews or they're working on the grounds at the at the jails um so that's what they they get a good deal on that part and then at the fact that you know they're out there they're they're learning they're learning to work together as a team because you figure you know you can be with somebody but until you really start working with them on a difficult task and a lot of them haven't had that opportunity to feel like they belong to society um you know there's a lot of a lot of mental um wellness that's needed and we believe that we're helping that for them to come in so way back when it used to be they used to get like 35 cents an hour each in me to work at the cemetery um so they could buy you know soda but that was way back before supervision was as strict as it was they they could stop by coming down from some St. Johnsbury they could stop at the village store they could go to josepon swimming you know it wasn't it wasn't real hard jail but we have to make sure that we um we can keep them so that we can keep the the cost out so just as just to have that nine million dollars and get well if that represents is the amount of money we'd have to have stashed away that would generate enough interest to pay to do the full service is that yeah that's a fact that we're trying to reduce on the expense of that's right so that's just just an order of magnitude of what we have in terms of the professional fund now where's well in a perfect world we would love to have someday and someday when I have time I will go through and figure out how many lots do not have perpetual care as of 1981 82 my predecessor um Debbie Caffin um they had maps she had a hand drawn maps of which lots would get mowed and which lots wouldn't get mowed so it looked like a checkerboard and so then the commissioner said you know this is really kind of a lot just mow everything so that's what we do and so we have pretty good records so when people come up from wherever out of state say hey now come my lot's not being mowed like well do you have perpetual care oh yeah yeah and we look it up and you know and and and just a quick story I had someone from from Pennsylvania complaining that the lot he a friend of his up here said the lot looked terrible so I looked up and I said do you live on so-and-so street he goes yeah how do you know I said I have a letter here from 1958 addressed to you asking for perpetual care then for $300 you never paid it well how much is it now it's $4,000 he paid the $4,000 I said okay we'll we'll fix all the markers we'll wash everything we'll fill in all the the sunken spots so there's um there's a lot down there that you know who knew when they started that cemetery that there'd be lawnmowers well I'm off of the tour when I'm sitting here and I'll do it anytime weekend nights for you your friends whatever just let me know it does seem like the kind of thing that we could have a day members of the public would want to come out to I don't know whenever I often when I have people in from out of town I point and we're driving by I point out the statue of the guy who started the Montpelier water system whose monument is right down by route two in the front Joel Foster that's his name okay okay well thanks a lot all right coming thank you and just one last tidbit the reason why is but faces route two and not his face is because there were trees planted thickly in that section and so when they drove the horse cart horse and buggy by that they wouldn't be looking at the butt they would be looking at the face all right thank you thanks okay the next two items are are related I'm going to suggest we take our break now rather than waiting for 830 so what is it 815 now so back at 825 I think we have just about everyone here yep but counselor tone is turned off but I don't think she'll still she'll be joining us and hurt you are up just to just to team this off a second before Kurt comes on this is our first of a series of meetings that you'll be having so it was interesting you know you just heard from the cemetery which was an officially part of this series but I think it fits right in nicely and Lauren made the comment about it's nice to get this information without this pressure of budget and that's exactly what we're trying to accomplish the next bunch of meetings as each department's going to be doing a presentation about what they do where you can get familiarized more and ask those kind of questions and then we'll start a deeper dive on each meeting with a deeper dive into the strategic goal that you set sort of in you know your top goals that you set in in November or December and so we've tried to match the department presentation with the theme of the goal as best as we can so infrastructure being the goal for tonight DPW seem like the logical department so take it away so we're going to do the department presentation first and then Kelly will walk us through the strategic play a goal okay thank you bill again Kurt Modica public works director and yeah this is just going to be sort of an overview of the department public works what we do the different funds and divisions associated with the department and kind of an outline of the functions all right our department is made up of 37 employees and within the department there are six separate divisions the first is engineering administration that's we handle the budgets public works permits as well as technical review for planning department permits we manage the staff we do the engineering some in-house and some management of consultants we manage the traffic signals the streetlights apply for grants we have a GIS system for our utilities where everything is is categorized and map-based we have an asset management system for tracking the work that we do and how much that costs we're responsible ultimately for complying with all state permits supporting the state of Vermont and their paving projects and customer support for district heat the next is the the streets division of course they're in charge of the winter operations they maintain the streets and the sidewalks and pothole patching and repairs pavement markings the MRGP compliance that's the municipal roads general permit we're obligated to do certain things ditching and outfall stabilization for the state permit program and also in charge of storm water cleaning the catch basins and supporting the pavement projects and cip so historically our staff has done a lot of either removing asphalt and preparation of paving or adjusting the manholes structures in order to reduce costs on the cip side which is capital improvements plan and the water sewer division we are doing a lot of in-house construction on water lines as well as sewer lines we also repair the infrastructure if there is a break they're responsible for hydrogen flushing and maintenance cleaning the sewer system maintaining the sewer pump stations and doing all the dig safe markings for private contractors that do work within the city also in charge of the water meters and the distribution system for district heat within fleet we have equipment maintenance so the our mechanics maintain all city equipment not just public works in charge of the replacement plan for the equipment they support the winter operations we have a staff on call for equipment breakdowns during winter ops and they oversee the fuel management system we have a gasoline and diesel pumps at the shop within water treatment i obviously run the water plant but they're also in charge of the water pump stations and the storage tanks the source protection which is the the berlin pond there's a vacuum station at the berlin pond for the raw water main they maintain and they have to meet their own permit and they have taken over the operation side of district heat so running along with the wastewater plant the operators actually manage the controls from the heat plant and on wastewater they also have plant operations they run the ice melting systems we have a system at the wastewater plant for melting the ice we we pumped the treated effluent up the bike path at various locations if there is ice cumulations in the danger of ice jamming they manage receiving of septage and leachate high strength organic waste they this year took over cso monitoring that's our combined sewer overflows so they monitor that equipment and do all the reporting out to the state if we do have an overflow and again they they manage the along with the water plant the the district heat controls so the structure of our department ultimately zack blodgett is the deputy director of myself are are responsible for all operations of the department we have a supervisor within each of the divisions that i just described that report directly to us with the exception of the administrative and engineering division we are essentially the the direct supervisors of that division this is just kind of how it's how it's laid out how many employees we have within within each division a couple things to note we we still have one vacant engineering position and we also have three currently vacant um streets positions those aren't being held open those are just also because they haven't been hired right anyone knows how anyone interested in either of those positions please get in touch i know i've shared that post on facebook at least once uh on the uh waterside so um we have 58 miles of piping with a adjusted present day value estimated that about 84 million dollars our budget for the upcoming fiscal year is about 3.7 million we have um two projects planned for this summer which ties to the of the water master plan schedule that council approved recently bingham street is a project that we're going to do with our own staff and school street is planned to be a contracted project and then the following year we plan to start east state which is a really large utility replacement project full reconstruction the facilities i mentioned we have the water plant there's three water pump stations one on town hill one on terrace and one at murray hill three storage tanks one's at the water plant and the other two are town hill and terry street and then the vacuum station at the verland pond uh for planning projects we are um under mandate to do a the service line inventory so folks probably have seen um mailings and information on that elvin is assisting us while i'm with getting the word out but basically we have to um check every service line within the city every water service line to see if it contains lead and then this next step we'll be working on a plan to replace those that are found that do have lead we're also conducting a rate study for water and sewer um the water system preliminary preliminary engineering report was just completed that was approved by the state of vermont and a couple projects within the that report are related to controlling the flow from our fire hydrants um so the some of the hydrants um impact the pressures within the system when they're open so we need to restrict the flow that's able to come out of those hydrants so that does not drop the pressure and then as part of that the the report includes a listing of the available flow from each hydrant in the entire system and um so the plan is to go around and paint the covers the caps that go on the hydrant so that they're tied to the flow that's available from that hydrant so it'll be a quick reference for the fire department when they go up they'll know how much capacity is within that hydrant so i'm hoping to start that project this summer something i've really been wanting to do for a long time and then one other project that the water plant um the cvmc um is served by um by the mom player plant uh they own their own water storage tank and they own the piping from the plant um to the hospital uh but the pumps within um are housed within the plant and the city owns those but they have an issue um that they need to do some work on their tank and in order in order to do that uh we need to develop a way to serve the water to the hospital directly rather than having them serve from the tank because it needs to be taken offline for some maintenance so basically we have to upgrade the pumps to allow them to be pressure controlled rather than just on off so it's a project we're coordinating with the hospital and then the funding sources for the water system is primarily the water master plan which i went through not too long go with council and then um the drinking water revolving loan fund which the state of vermont they're they provide a lot of assistance primarily on the engineering side they the that fund actually completely funded the water system per about 74 000 kurt before we get off this page you you mentioned the service line inventory and i took my picture of my water uh in entrance and sent it back in but um i periodically here have people coming up to me and saying well the city doesn't even know where the water pipes and the sewer pipes are and i it'd be good to put that to rest if that's not really true um well there's some truth to it so we have about half of all of the water service shutoffs marked we do have good records on all the mainline pipes water and sewer but we really don't have very good records on is sewer service lines leaving the house because those are privately owned by ordinance and so the there was never mapping developed um for the city for that when the houses were built the water service lines um generally can be located so they're easy to mark on a case-by-case basis that would need them and most of the older houses um the sewer and the water line run together in one trench so thank you for the most part we can locate them we just don't have maps that directly show sewer service lines and if we wanted to map all the rest of the system how much would that cost us so the the difficulty in sewer service line mapping is that generally the pipe materials are not traceable so you we have equipment that you can connect um on the metal piping and it puts the current through it and then that equipment that line can be traced so in order to do the sewer service you'd have to you know enter the the property run something metallic inside the sewer you know take the cover off inside and then hook the machine on and trace that and then GPS it um so pretty pretty extensive amount of work to to do that it's not in my work plan right now um so I don't know the number but it would be a lot works for me thanks okay on the on the sewer side similar 44 miles of piping estimated value of approximately 63 million dollars the budget for this upcoming year is about 5.3 million facilities in the sewer fund are water resource recovery facility which is the plant and we have eight sewer pump stations the project's plan our east state street is our is our largest one it's sort of a combined storm and sewer project but that's where we're going to separate the storm water out of the sewer system for the entire length of east state but it's east state is currently separated all the way to the bottom and then it combines back into the sewer so we're going to take a new pipe from the bottom of the street and run it to the river and then we'll continue next year with east state replacing the sewer line sewer lines all the way up the street and then we have plans to slip line the the siphons that's ties to the planning projects so one of those is what we call the long-term control plan that was a requirement by the state to develop a long-term plan to eliminate combined sewer overflows and the siphons is the next project identified within that that plan we're also working on the the plant upgrades as a quite a bit to that you know the biosolids receiving is the largest but we also have uv disinfection we're looking at upcoming ammonia limits we've never had limits on how much ammonia can leave the plant so that's being incorporated into the project and then we also have odor control which is a regulatory requirement we have a violation on that so it's a state mandated requirement and and just recently we've started working on a capacity analysis to to really identify exactly how much capacity there is within the plant to treat organics and on the stormwater side it's approximately 42 miles of piping with a value of 44 million the budget is for operations is embedded within the sewer fund but there is approximately $200,000 that's identified specific for operations that's funded through the benefit charge our big projects with stormwater is the stump dump issues that we're all aware of we need to do a lot of grading and stormwater quality improvements there there's wetlands impacts as well as controls we need to put on snow storage up there and there's also the three acre sites the city has only four sites that have three acres or more of impervious surface which is surface that water can't drain into so gravel roads or buildings or paved roads all are categorized as impervious and so there's a requirement to do treatment practices stormwater treatment practices on those sites and then the big planning project is the stormwater utility which the intent is to dedicate to create a dedicated enterprise fund for stormwater to put towards some of the infrastructure improvements as well as some water quality improvements and then streets so this is this is within the general fund and funded through the capital improvements plan we have approximately 52 miles of roads which that's quite right but I'm sorry and 40 miles of class 2 and 3 roads not 52 miles is not correct and the the budget for paving this year is 658,000 planning projects is so allied our inspection so it's a vehicle that drives the roads measures the defects within the within the asphalt you know the cracks and the lengths and then assesses the condition so the PCI is the pavement condition index this lidar we have a grant for it will will give us a new status of the roads all you know an average of all the roads well individual roads but then we average them for a total road network condition I think the last time we did the PCI review is almost three years ago and I think we're about a 68 I think we're guessing now it's closer to somewhere between a 62 and a 64 so the some of the streets we're planning to do coming street has been on the list for a few years now we did a water project there and remove the asphalt that's been gravel ever since so we have some drainage projects to do in house on that street and some sewer manhole reconstruction just the top sections of them hillside avenues off port street it's just the very bottom section again we're going to remove all the asphalt and pave that math or terrace bingham street in conjunction with the water main replacement and then the very end of marvin street where it connects to hubbard there's a really poor section of road there that's essentially gravel at this point so those are our reconstruction streets where we are putting all new asphalt in and then we have what we call mill and fills where you mill off the top inch or so of the asphalt and then put it back those streets are home's court pearl spring summer vine and winter so the meadow area and then we have a number of streets that we do there we're planning to do preservation measures on so crack seal so where you put you know sort of tar within the cracks to keep water from getting in and the condition getting worse and fog seal is sort of a light coating to preserve the actual integrity of the asphalt so the number of streets that are that we're looking at doing preservation measures on and that just extends the life of the asphalt it's it's a more cost effective to do these lower cost treatments and extend the life rather than reconstruct or mill and fill all the streets and then finally we have elm street also included in the plan for this year this plan is obviously going to be contingent on pavement bids which are like everything else a moving target I would expect if you know if we don't get the grant then there's a class 2 highway grant we apply for every year elm street is a class 2 highway if we don't get the grant that likely will not be included within the paving projects and then the slide is sort of an overview of the other assets that we maintain so bridges we have 20 bridges 15 vehicle bridges and five pedestrian some of those are within wreck but we listed them all here retaining walls it's around 40 depends on if you include what we call mechanically stabilized air so that's where you put sort of a grid of plastic at different layers so you don't actually see a wall but it's it's stabilized from the underground reinforcement um sidewalks we have 23 miles of sidewalks estimated that 25 million and that split between concrete and asphalt 15 miles of concrete and eight miles of asphalt each of those has a different lifespan concrete obviously lasts longer in general um we have 286 street lights and seven traffic signals we're estimating street lights should last about 50 years and the traffic signals because of changing technology and the controllers is about 15 kirt just this week we've seen some complaints in front porch forum about granite street bridge um is there anything unsafe about the structure of the bridge um so granite street is unique and then it's our only bridge with a wooden deck um and the asphalt the wood deck is um it's hard to play out and it's slippery when it gets wet and icy so the practice has always been to put a thin layer of asphalt over the wood deck the problem there is that it just doesn't last um it did uh the asphalt doesn't adhere well to the wood deck um so it's not a structural concern it's certainly a rightability issue um it's like a lot of potholes within a street um you know we have talked to our streets division about doing some um some patching on that we have a sidewalk pavers one of our pieces of equipment um we're we're still developing how we're going to go about that but that's um one of the options we're looking at is trying to remove a section of the worst areas and then do a pass with the sidewalk paver the other challenge is the you can't put a loaded asphalt truck and a paver on the bridge at the same time because it can't handle the weight um so it's a it's a little more challenging to pave you basically have to kind of load the paving equipment separately um you can't like traditionally you would kind of push the truck with the paver at the same time um in a long term i think it would make sense to put a lightweight concrete deck on that bridge um but that's going to be pretty significant expense and um just with budget the way it is recently that's probably not going to happen in the short term but um but yeah we were planning to do some patching as the short of that and it's not it's not a safety concern thanks yeah so bridges we put at um at 50 years it was rebuilt by the state um probably i don't know uh since i've been here so maybe eight or ten years ago um yeah maybe less i'm not sure exactly what year but uh but yeah it should it's probably gonna be there another 30 years i would say at this point handle a light concrete deck without a structural reinforcement you took the wood off and yeah i mean that's the engineering we'd have to do i i did i did look into it a while back and i think without the wood and without the asphalt it's achievable one of the issues with that bridge too i just like to remind people and those that are listening and because this comes up a lot about that bridge and it's narrow and it's bouncy and all that is it's one of the most historic bridges in the state of vermont it's one of the only bridges that that survived in 1927 flood so it predates 27 most of the bridges in vermont got washed out in that flood so there was a huge influx of sort of metal trust bridges that were thrown up sort of in the 30s the the 1930s to replace all these bridges that had got washed out but this one survived so it's a it's a very historic bridge so um there are which is one of the reasons the state base 100 of major maintenance for historic bridges and so when they did the the full restoration and painting and all of that that was all on the state we have to do the regular annual maintenance so to replace it i'm not saying it can't be done but it would it's it's a more extensive process and review and you know historic preservation opposition that kind of thing so it's not oh the deck i don't think it'd be that much problem but we occasionally get calls to you know you should take that bridge down put a wider one put a new one more modern bridge and you know functionally at that location that might be good but there are just reminder that there are also other horses at play with that bridge okay um so moving on to district heat so district heat is not its own division but it is its own enterprise fund so there are approximately four miles of distribution piping with the estimated present day value of 5.5 million the budget this coming year is just under 680 000 um the facilities included within district heat we have what we call the city room that's our room at the at the state heat plant where we convert the state steam to hot water and we have pumps there that we circulate throughout the system and we have you know remote communications with that we actually have not have them this year because of the flood we lost our our fiber network that provides that communication but we're still working on restoring that we have expansion tanks for the system within the union elementary school and city hall here acts as the backup for the system or to supplement heat in like the shoulder months when the state plant shuts down from our boilers and then of course we have the municipal customers city hall police and fire are all on district heat um planning projects uh we've been working for a while um on an effort to expand the system uh it you know it really does need more uh more customers um we have engaged with efficient efficiency vermont recently there um that we've identified um my chris lumbar's uh with uh the state and sustainability coordinator has identified customers along the route that may be a good candidates for connecting and we're working with efficiency vermont to um they're basically doing free evaluations of these buildings and um sort of estimating what it would cost to run to connect and run the system we're also planning on putting in funding requests um to our representatives for district heat um potentially for the snowmelt system and the snowmelt system um we're hoping to partner with the state of vermont potentially um building the system on the taylor street lot so we'll have a lot of issues with um with the runoff from the snow there's there's trash there's salt aqua rides um that impact um you know the environment so if we could have a system reduce the trekking so that's near the downtown so we'd reduce the trekking to bring it here and then we could um you know utilize district heat so it would act as a new customer and be a renewable source of of energy um and then we could pipe the runoff to the treatment plant and treat all of the the runoff so there's a lot of environmental benefits from that as well supporting the district heat utility um and the last thing is um we need to update our business plan um for the system it's um it's still the original plan it's just time to to review it um so this is kind of a a summary of um the equipment so all right so these these numbers are um reflect the purchase price of the equipment so they're not they don't reflect replacement costs um so for example uh the number the purchase price for the ladder truck for the fire department 30 years ago was around 300 000 and that's the number included in this budget that's now probably over a million um so we have uh you know work to do as far as what the um the plan is going to be moving forward this is just kind of a rough breakdown of um of the purchase price of of the equipment within the various departments DPW is by far um has the largest amount of equipment followed by fire and then police um um so uh I just wanted to show you sort of the the purchase price value of all the equipment is about 6.5 we think it's going to be more you know probably more than 8 million um you know actual value for replacement and this is the kind of the first step to um we're working towards a steady steady state equipment plan um there's a quite a few needs we've deferred a fair amount of equipment over the years due to the pandemic and the flood um and so we've we've changed our approach where um there were sort of set amounts amounts of funding proposed within each department we're taking different more data driven approach where we're combining um the equipment selection all within public works and really prioritized based on um you know the asset value what's the best time to trade in any piece of these equipments you know what where is it out of its useful life so that we're sort of taking a a more broader look of prioritizing replacements and um so along uh the steady state goal so the ultimate plan here um is is to develop a steady state plan for all the items that fall within the capital improvements plan so that is equipment but it's also the road value so we we took another look at what we need for annual pavement funding as well as replacement and we came up with about 1.2 million dollars in needs um sidewalks and steady state values approximately 190,000 the stormwater system um it needs uh almost 900,000 traffic systems we're finding are taking a lot of investment approximately 100,000 and we've yet to determine um exactly how much we should be putting in for bridges, walls, the buildings, and technology so there are a lot of needs so the entire cip budget for this upcoming year is approximately 1.2 million and um and that's just enough for the streets so to hit a steady state um obviously we're not going to be able to instantly get there but uh our plan is to um get all of these numbers completed hopefully before the next budget cycle and and have a target for council to to work towards um to achieve steady state within all of these areas. Yeah just if I can jump in on that we're going to talk about that I think in the next item too about the strategic plan but I think specifically our goal was to get the uh the capital projects committee together you know pre budget like maybe september octoberish once we have these totals and then work on a long term plan with as a group what makes sense how do we prioritize what increment of increase over what period of time do we want to have so that when we come to the councils that will have been vetted a lot better with some of you and involved as well um yep or if we do pursue a stormwater utility would that just get it like the storm drain budget line and that could meet that yeah that's correct so that could come off of our study state plan within the cip fund yeah and then finally challenges and opportunities so as I mentioned engineering staffing has been a challenge for us planning to hire an engineer and their focus would primarily be on the water and sewer projects following along the water master plan we've had a number of interviews we have another one tomorrow at this point we're looking at an entry level engineer you know right out of school so we'll take some training but it's very competitive market out there some of the opportunities are there are force account subsidies available from the state so for east state street we did this on northfield street as well where the state will actually pay engineering time for certain municipalities if you can prove that it's for a project that they're funding so we have applied also for east state street and this new engineering hire will primarily be working on that project that's kind of our next really big utility project and their salary will be offset from state subsidies we also have had challenges filling our streets division staff we had two employees one transfer and one leave recently so now we're up to three vacancies within streets so we do have one applicant and one potential transfer from the water sewer division but again just staffing in general has been a real challenge for us to get our open positions filled and then similar to the state revolving loan funds the minnesota roads general permit has grant funding that will pay for our staff to do particularly within the streets division to do you know ditching and outlaw stabilization work so we again can offset some of our division staffing through available grants we're also facing a lot of them increased regulatory requirements so there's rules about urban soil so and pretty much all of all of my players almost all within the urban soil district so that means you have to test the soils for various items such as arsenic which you know is contained naturally within the environment but if it's over a certain threshold then you know there's special requirements on how you manage that soil we don't have any approved sites to dispose of urban soil and we can't fill very many locations because monthly is primarily within the floodplain so if we can't put it sort of back in the hole and generally there is offset volumes because you're putting new pipes in and things then a lot of this earth that we're excavating from the downtown has to go landfill but it also takes a whole lot more engineering and evaluation we have to hire consultants to you know run the testing and develop management plans for the soil so it's just a lot more work and then also there's a lot of new stormwater requirements not just the three acre rules but redevelopment projects such as east state street even if we weren't increasing impervious service you still have to get a stormwater permit and that you know that's a fee annually and that you know basically forever and you have to development treatment practices and so again it's just another level of engineering another level of permitting so the chant the that's just it's getting harder to to go and build a project because there's just a lot more engineering associated with getting these things approved as I mentioned for district heat we are applying also for for the water system in particular for congressional delegated spending so the earmarks that used to be called um so there's an opportunity for some funding there uh another challenge is the stump stump stump dump closure um for us it's it's a really a huge issue operationally um you know even just making water repairs and having wet material um and having very little space to to deal that as well as um sweeping the streets um and all and cleaning catch basins the the drains all that went to the stump dump historically um and again we don't currently have another option where we're looking at options as far as potentially trying to utilize the the treatment plant the wastewater treatment plant but that's going to again take no engineering and construction to make that feasible and ultimately the soil will go to landfill so there's not really another alternative um if we can come back into compliance with the stump okay so we had our um we had our first meeting with the state um a couple weeks ago um so they they didn't close the stump dump the city did but the reason for that is we just don't have anywhere to put material um what they the state mandate is that we remove material that's impacting a wetland and um and we develop a facility management plan compliant with the solid waste rules so it's like basically a permitted landfill and that's because of certain operations that we do which is um you know the the catch basin cleaning um recycling of asphalt we turn into gravel um certain aspects of functions we do trigger that permit um so the but there is an opportunity if we are able to do the grading so the biggest challenge is all of the slopes have to be um three on one so that's three horizontal the one vertical right now there probably a lot of locations a one on one so one over and one up um so that's going to really shrink the footprint of the site when you do that and so the first step is to do you know a grading plan hire a consultant we have money in the budget just to do that in july um and then from that we'll we're gonna that will allow us the information we need to make a decision on whether we are going to be able to reopen it or not um on the good side is that uh if we are able to open it i think there's an opportunity to really improve the way we handle materials um you know we could really separate you know the wood debris we could chip that that could be a you know a saleable material or free to residents something like that um i've spoken with um the parks director and um they're open to helping us staff that it's one of the requirements of the management uh facility management plan is that you have to have full-time staffing but there could be opportunities where they're doing chipping work or milling and logs up there and also acting as kind of the the overseer of the site um and we've actually had a some private um contractors reach out to us i'm wanting to partner on composting um so our number of opportunities um but it's really going to depend on how much area we have left based on what we need to do for grading information that i wasn't aware of okay and then the last challenge i've noted here is as the workload associated from the flood recovery so um it may it essentially just doubled the number of projects we have in public works we have a lot of culverts that need to be rebuilt um you know district heat there are a lot of customer impacts so uh heat meter replacements um and um you know street repairs a storm underground storm systems uh just um you know some retaining wall impacts uh so there's just a lot of a lot of projects and it's um not just on the engineering side but also our field staff that's going to be doing hopefully a lot of these projects in house and we also are providing a lot of support to finance on the reimbursement process through FEMA which is is quite time consuming um so just a a lot of work associated with flood recovery still and it's going to be ongoing for at least another year on the upside of that is when we come out of this we're going to have a much more resilient system you know the district heat for example we're elevating um the fiber optics out of the floodway um so if there is another flood we won't have these issues um you know we're looking at city hall and police and fire and finding ways to improve those buildings so they're more resilient so at the end it's going to take a while to get there but when we get that come out the other side of this um and we'll have a much more resilient city that's it open up for questions that's a lot thanks i've been asking a lot of bunch of questions questions as we go along um we definitely started with the biggest biggest and busiest oh i don't understand yeah right awesome okay well shall we just move right into thanks kirt this is great yep as always so kelly is getting set up and i know she's gonna have um probably repeat some of these i think as i mentioned our goal you set me some big goals and some big strategies in the fall and you know i think whenever you have a group of people like us um everyone has a different idea of how strategic plans should work some of you wanted a really big picture level other people want to really detail level so we're trying to figure out the good middle ground but what our goal is today is to take the the goals that you set in the strategies to sort of recommend to you what we how we see making them happen and it's your chance to weigh in of whether you think those are the right things to do or not and specifically flag for you areas that may give good example we just talked about the capital plan right so a strategic one of our goals for this year is going to be to develop a capital plan so we're not going to do that now but what you you're going to be saying essentially is yes that's important to us yes we are committing to spending some council time on this later in the year to we know we have to make a decision about a level of funding and a long-term capital plan that's that's an important policy priority for us so so this is this is beginning to set the states some of these are just work will do and we're making sure you're on board with doing it but some of it is you setting the stage for how you're going to spend those hundred and twenty hundred twenty five hours and these things are going to be important enough for us to come back to this year or maybe this year next year to revisit so that's kind of the tea up for that and that'll turn it over to our in-house expert thanks bill um so i've got some slides up here to go through pretty quickly um and then kurt is going to go through sort of the project level detail um at your desk there are two documents one is the goal sheet for goal one and then the second is a summary sheet it's super small i'm sorry about that um but i'm happy to make it bigger i wanted to get it on one sheet uh for you just to kind of show the streamlined um version from you know goal to initiative to task um and then also provide sort of a status update um on each of those items so just getting into um just a brief overview sort of this presentation is for the first goal but because we'll be reviewing all the goals i wanted to kind of tee things up bill's already kind of done that for you in terms of um you know what we're going to be talking about but just a quick agenda um for this agenda item um so really we want to take the opportunity to kind of take a look at each of the goals talk about um some of the strategies which have already been approved but then um dive a little bit deeper into the initiatives just to make sure that um we are clear about what's in there and to see if you have any feedback and then ideally if possible um get you to give us the green light to keep going uh with those certain projects and then um i should note also um the way that we've structured this particular presentation and the others will be the same is that we've distilled things down for you sort of in the broad sense so you'll see here what i mean once we get into those initiatives that then it's a little clearer what we're talking about um and then we also have a section where we pulled from the goal um what we would like to focus on what we think would be their policy items decision items or future agenda items which we'll bring back to you and so really we're just kind of looking for um your guidance on that and then the other thing that i want to note just from a technical perspective looking at the goal sheet the things that are highlighted or bolded are the things that have been extracted for council review so there's just kind of a a little bit of information there for you um so moving right along um i'm just going to work to kind of orient everyone to to where we are in this process and so we've got this nice tidy triangle um and so we've worked through a ton um already and so this started back in the fall um when we were looking at the vision the mission the values um and then we did ultimately end up getting an adopted plan together for the goals and strategies and um now what we're really wanting to get into are the initiatives and the projects all right um so just to remind you um of the plan structure so this is um we've got the goals strategies and initiatives this is an old example um for public health and safety but if we were to use a current example um such as build and maintain sustainable infrastructure that would be the overall goal and that's what we're talking about tonight um then the strategy that we had um was to talk about um addressing major current infrastructure needs and then from there uh we'd work our way down into the initiatives which is what we're talking about tonight um which in this particular instance or the example that i've selected is to get to um 70 psi pavement condition index and then there are several items underneath that that then support that particular item so that we can reach that goal and i'm not going to go into all of them yep just also wanted to mention this i meant to do it my overview as we go through the strategic plan goals the next few meetings i think this one i mean it's it's the biggest one but it's all it's very project based right you know fixed water lines those kind of things this so i think to the extent that it feels kind of prescriptive you know when we get talking about housing resiliency i think there's gonna be a lot more room you know i just don't want the council to feel like here we're telling you what your plan is um for projects that you know i think it's all stuff we've talked about before so but anyone just want to mention that that they the others might be fuzzier than this that's all yep so yes um right yes um so what i wanted to also show is we've got this plane analogy and we really like this one these that kind of just shows sort of where you are in terms of you know what level within the plan and so in between these two bars are kind of what we're talking about tonight also you'll note that the summary um that you have at your desk is also color coded to this and so the first initial um orange section is the goals then we'd get you know in orange or marigold type color a little lighter um and brighter is the priorities and then you get the blue section which is getting into the initiative so you can kind of see that and then the gray bar is just associated with the goal and then ties back to the strategic plan in terms of the color that you're looking at and so this just really kind of shows you sort of where we are at the 50 000 foot level and you know how we get down to the runway on the day to day um but just kind of wanted to share this um to kind of demonstrate you know how we're viewing part of this conversation and so this is what was adopted um back in December we're focused on the builds and maintain sustainable infrastructure or the gray item here um and so we're going to get into that a little bit more um and so I'm just going to kind of breeze through these things because they're you know known um and this next piece is sort of the goal and strategies that were approved taken together um and so we're going to be talking about this section right here um and then the strategies that will be kind of working on with the initiatives that we've presented and the documentation provided rebuilt from the flood address major infrastructure needs and then address emerging infrastructure needs any questions so far no excellent um so we're going to get into um the initiative portion um and Kurt is going to get into some of these details too as we kind of you know talk through them um but just covering this this first section the first two initiatives within this um or first strategy first two initiatives um are related to the flood and to um developing and maintaining resilient infrastructure and then restoring and improving um flood damaged infrastructure so if you were to take a look at your summary sheet which I realize is pretty small so sorry about that I again one page um but if you bear with me um you can see that you know what we're going to be doing next associated with these items are completing our work with Stevens and Associates the assessment of city hall fire and police and then coming to you um with options for um repairing resiliency for those buildings and we should be back in front of you um at the April 17th meeting with those options and so the other thing to highlight just underneath this um second initiative are um the the FEMA damaged inventory list so there are 44 projects on that list at about 11 million dollars approximately in our initial estimates that could potentially grow and will I mean a lot of that is associated with the building repairs that we've um estimated we don't have true costs on that yet um but as things roll on we'll be priding you with an update that'll happen on April 17th but then keep going from there um and then I wanted to highlight these items the district utility and then Berlin pond Dickey dam remediation and dog river road elevation the reason why we've chosen to highlight these two particular items were three but the bottom two Berlin pond and then dog river road elevation they're items that really will help with future resiliency as we move forward so I'm going to get into this next section here and you'll see how we've got each of the initiatives at a high level um but you have all of the documentation in detail within your summary sheets and also within the goal documentation and Kurt can kind of take it from here um with the details because again it's a lot okay um so a lot of this I went through in my department overview um so it is very relatable to the strategic plan all the projects that we're working on um but under the water system initiative um you know the first step was adopting the plan and the schedule and the media for the upcoming year is Bingham street and school street are the two projects set up but at a glance the council can reference that plan and see the out years annually what we're planning to do to accomplish that initiative and the funding is tied to the master plan the water master plan we're also working on the rate study as I mentioned and the service line inventory as a as a state requirement uh and then on the sewer system um it's really tied to the long term control plan um and uh performing the rate study so just briefly on the on the water sewer rate study um there are a couple things I hope I hope to accomplish with that um one is uh allocation based um fees for connections so um you know sort of the larger amount of usage you're requesting or capacity from either plants or collection or distribution kind of the more you pay we're also evaluating a potential impact for um uh fire protection if there should be a fee associated with that or line size service size into buildings so there's a number of ways we can um structure that um that's been kind of put on a little bit of the mech runner because of the flood recovery so I haven't had a lot of meetings with our consultant on that um but we did we are trying to schedule one here um for the within the next week or two um we're also hoping to tie that in with the storm water utilities to sort of look at all of the enterprise rates kind of holistically Kurt um you you probably you had so much to do today I'm sure you didn't have a chance to look at it but but about five o'clock this morning I sent you and Bill that email um the question is are we gonna have to look at restructuring our rate design based on the fact that we're probably not seeing as much water usage for uh state buildings and therefore get not getting as much uh revenue from those buildings and probably to a lesser extent other commercial buildings but the state is such a huge element of that yeah I did not I have a chance to check that so um I did pass along the finance but also um they're very busy today uh so we did not have a chance to look at the the meter readings to see how much of an impact that is but certainly something we can do I expect there's some reduced reduced usage it wouldn't be surprised um but we don't have like the amount but the rate study was sort of in the works um you know before the flood uh as part of the storm water utility um contract it's all kind of in one contract um it's just something that we've needed to really take a look at we've had we have an ascending rate schedule within usage which is um unique from unclear I don't think other communities have that type of structure so just taking a look kind of holistically at all our rates I think is important um um so again uh I covered the sewer um on the storm water system um the big ones are the biggest one again is creating the utility uh that's the one that's lagged so we were just you know kind of confirming that that's still the approach that council wants us to take I think it is a good approach personally um and it will sort of help take some of the pressure off the um capital needs um within the general fund by creating a new dedicated enterprise fund as well as a lot of environmental and infrastructure improvements kind of enable us to do some of those projects some more of those projects and then again um the three acre permitting is also included in here um and then CSOs are combined sewer overflows are tied to the storm water fund as well I think there may be a need and not necessarily tonight but there may be a need for some more explanation of the three acre permitting issue yep yeah so right now we're in the uh it's actually being managed by the planning department and they're seeking funding assistance for um getting an engineer on board to do the design and the permitting for that um so um maybe planning can give you a little update and where they're at on it but yeah happy to happy to come back and and go into more detail at some point the next initiative is paving again the goal historically set by councils to hit a 70 pavement condition index um we are going to have to increase our funding levels in order to hit that target right now we're projecting a 1.2 million dollar annual need in the paving fund and the sub coming year is um we have a 658 000 um oh yes higher the PCI the better condition yeah 100 is a brand new road 100 yeah yeah that that target was set when we first started doing this the council said you know looked at all the roads and what they thought was reasonable and understanding some roads will always be better than others and said we should be setting an you know the average for all of our city right or should be a 70 that's right remaining 70 percent of life maybe we do better great but that's okay we're striving for and we're not hitting it and so this would be funding to get us to um some of the sub tasks associated with paving is just you know regularly assessing the condition so we have sort of up to date information and that guides which practice we do um whether it's preservation or replacement or mailing um and then I went through the list of projects so the council can reference that on my previous presentation um and then maintenance of other infrastructures the next initiative 1.2.5 that's the that's where I went through the other assets within the capital plan the bridges sidewalks um retaining walls so so that kind of ties into the steady state plan that we'd like to develop and then that can sort of guide council decision on the amount of funding levels to go to the capital plan annually. Kurt I'm not sure how if this is more within the area of bridges or more in the area of blood resiliency but I've got people I've had people coming to me saying well you know just like we had debris hanging up at the Bailey street bridge we've had debris hanging up at the other bridges too and you know I I'm not an expert on water debris but yeah I think um within assessment we're gonna have to make when the level the water levels go down we've um so we know we have a project at Bailey avenue where there is no woody debris and um so um the have or has reduced the opening under the bridge we don't know how much so we're having a hard time estimating and creating a mid document um because we can't estimate the volume because it's all underwater um so I think you know when we do when the water levels go down and we're able to develop that contract we can take a look at the other bridges and if needed incorporate that work into that project. So it's definitely on the list we're just you just don't have the ability to do it at right yep the water levels has kind of stayed up for quite a while now this this is actually not easy work like you have something you know piece of equipment really has to go into the river to do this and it's a very specialized equipment it's it's it's an issue that's been raised actually statewide it's not just unique popular berries got a few a lot of the places are hitting them and we've with my league of cities and towns had on we've actually urged the state to you know they should perhaps invest in some of this specialized equipment and then just go around the state and help these towns and cities you know that don't have to know how or the wherewithal certainly the ability to have these kind of equipment and uh you know help set this up as a regular flood prevention thing is clean up just because it's it's not you know that's what we're set up to do but it needs to be done. All right initiative 1.2.6 is the project at the water resource recovery facility so we're planning it's going to be about a year of design for that project it was a really large project we do have the funding we have an approved bond as well as a USDA funding and we're also as I mentioned evaluating plant capacity and you know that was really spurred from Caledonia spirits wanting to expand um and um you know we just weren't comfortable giving them more allocated capacity of the plant until we really do this evaluation so we've we're waiting on a proposal from our consultant engineer on that and we also as as noted in the leachate discussion we need to determine what's the best method for disinfection is it the ultraviolet disinfection that we have now an improved version of that or there's also alternatives with chemical treatment so we need to look at that and then the other one is you know minimizing PFAS leaving the facility so that ties into the leachate treatment system but it also ties into our biosolids project because the process is anticipated to reduce PFAS levels within our biosolids um and creating a renewable material and hopefully not no longer needing it to go to landfill um next initiative is associated with the water plant um so one of the one of the challenges up there is that all three staff operators up there are close to retirement and so we're developing a transition plan for that actually did have an internal candidate start training up there um just uh two weeks ago um so we're working on that we also have a radio communications upgrade in the works for this this coming summer so that allows communication between our pump stations and the water plant so they know when to fill the the tanks um that's uh they're outdated and definitely overdue for an upgrade um we also had a pretty um um uh large unanticipated expense when the underground propane tanks failed at the water plant uh we were able to get a temporary system in place with above ground tanks um so we have a few years but we are going to have to determine um what's the best approach as far as um getting a permanent replacement for the propane tanks which do the the heating up there as well as the generator we own those propane tanks we we did own the underground ones we are um we're leasinger for essentially no cost the above ground temporary tanks but yeah we did own them a propane vendor yep yep um and then the other project as I mentioned is the the pump upgrade for the cvmc system initiative 1.2.8 is district heat um so the big one on that is uh is getting everything repaired um like I said there's a lot of damage to the equipment city-owned equipment within the buildings and um you know looking at um implementing a potential snow melt system as I described and updating the business plan um so the next is strategy 1.3 um that's a address emerging infrastructure needs um so some of these aren't necessarily directly public works um the ADA transition plan is is led by um the facilities and sustainability coordinator but um implement the ADA transition plan is noted here as well as the building facility needs um those projects will also you know need to be incorporated into the capital plan as steady state um and then uh there needs to be an update on the capital needs for for the city buildings and um the building repair inventory um next is 1.3.2 review debt policy again not a public works function that would be the finance department working on that um initiative 1.33 is um is the steady state plan that I've been talking about a lot tonight because it is kind of one of the big ones um and then uh associated with that is um is the equipment plan the fleet getting some of the deferred equipment caught back up and um within the fleet is um we're going to need to make a um a policy decision on you know the the electric vehicles because there's a financial impact um we're incorporating that into the plan um initiative 1.34 is is complete our projects um within the queue let's see state street um very main intersection we're proposing a traffic signal at that location um let's on hold at the moment because we have to wait for um the rail to complete their design they're doing upgrades and the light has to be tied to the rail system so when a train comes through the lights go red where they need to um confluence park again not a public works project managed by the parks um department um still in the queue stump dump like I mentioned um it's a big one for public works um very street bike lane I was asked to flag this one um so this summer we are planning to do a trial run of um creating a bike path along berry street that's going to be from main street to the rec center um and so the all on the um on the rec center side of berry street which is the south side and uh all the parking will be removed in order to accomplish that so we just wanted to sort of remind council that that's coming as a trial this summer and um depending on feedback after that we can decide if it's a permanent construction project next summer not this coming um and then school street um you know we we need to do storm work and sidewalk work on that street in addition to the water main um likely this summer will be some temporary patching on the sidewalk to make it more passable um because um we do not have funding in the budget to do the storm storm work and grout road bridge is our other project that's um been under construction for a while it has delayed because of steel supply issues we're still waiting on state approval for the beams but um we are getting close and we'll plan to wrap up that project this summer would still have patch but you've been we're new for another season yes it's not in our in our cib paving plan for the summer okay okay um so we can get into the initiatives now or finish up the presentation is just a few more slides so be quick um so what's next um as we've talked about you know much like with the budget you know it's an opportunity for us to kind of do a hard reset with the strategic plan and so with these initiatives we'll also be looking at bringing performance measures and standards and future iterations so that then you have a little bit more to go on especially as we collect you know all the details and the data and we have it um it's just a matter of making sure that we can publish it um and then from there uh we'll be reporting out at the end of the fiscal year so if we get the green light on some of these initiatives then we can load them into the video and then we'll get the dashboard back up and running um we have not had that running this year and so it would be nice to kind of finish the year out with that and then you know roll into 25 with that up and running and then the next slide is the council policy decision items extracted from the goal that we just talked about um and so just kind of going through these quickly these are the things that we'd be looking for guidance on or you know putting them on a future agenda or policy items so rebuild uh city hall police station making a decision on and fire of course um making a decision on those rebuild options um reviewing the water sewer rate study and considering the results um completing the creation of a stormwater utility depending on what the timeline ends up being with that establishing funding for paving um so we'll be coming back to you with that especially as we evaluate the steady state capital and equipment plan we'd like to you know along with you know all of that discussion take a look at the the debt policy um and then look at our current needs within buildings and facilities and then we'll bring projects back to you much like what was on that list um as we've got developments um and then implement the ADA transition plan we have the plan it's just making sure that we've got the next steps called out and um we can start knocking those out um and so here is just a quick slide highlighting you know what's on tap next um for the goals um so on our meeting next week we'll be talking about housing which is goal number two um goal number three will be on 417 which is the resiliency item which will also include some of the stevens and associates items commission social recovery uh it's going to present uh just update us on where they're at at night too so they may have some suggestions for things that can go into the work plan perfect um and then we've got community prosperity on the 8th um which will be talking a little bit about um recreation um and some of the community services elements um and then from there on the 22nd we'll be talking about public health and safety um and then on the 12th of june we'll be talking about the administration which doesn't currently have a goal per se but there's a lot of work there um supporting all the other associated goals and initiatives um so that is the presentation well thanks um I know I know you just unshared your uh your presentation I wonder if you could bring us back to that page that shows the council's decision points yes I can I can definitely do that maybe you go thanks you're welcome so folks do we where do we go from here you're you're basically looking for us to say this makes sense to us or this doesn't make sense and there are some things that you want to get away from talking about this year or we do want it you know or it's fine or whatever but this is based on this discussions we've had here with you at budget time and the way things are flowing looking at the you know playing out what has to happen to accomplish the bigger picture goals this is what we came up with so you know if you were suddenly to say this is all good then over the next six or eight months these things would be showing up on your agenda at various times when they were ready to go because those are things we can't do you know Kurt can fix the water line that he says he's going to fix you know you know if you once you've approved the bid for it that you know you've already set the policy we're going to fix these water lines but we you know these are all decisions that you want that you have to make if those are the things you want to take on and just looking at these items I can see that a bunch of these we know what has to happen before it comes back to us for instance the rebuild options for city hall police station and fire station that depends on getting the report back from right which is going to happen which is coming up yep conduct the water sewer rate study well we'll then eventually have to set the rates but I think that's it you know you're going to be basically you're saying yeah we're we're willing to look at the study and consider changing our rate structure or you could say we'll find the way it is and we don't need to do that so but that work has started right yeah that was a prior goal from that a lot of things you know we're on hold this past year yeah this is our own little local water study and the stormwater utility well we know we've got a committee working on that and they'll complete work on that at some point and then come back to us unless we were to say no we're not interested in pursuing that oh palin thank you gary palin thank you kelly for the presentation and bill are all these decision items uh on the budget or did we sorry did we um cancel any of them because we had to cut a lot of money from budget that's actually that's a great question thank you for that um the answer is most of these are are this is forward-looking the the projects that are in the budget are kind of in the work plan as these are things we're going to do and of course we'll some meeting coming up we'll be coming with the proposal we'll what to do with the you know restoring some of the projects that we cut this year so actually may have even more capital projects to do with the 800,000 we got from the state right kirk but um but some of these really have to do with with looking forward so like the steady state equipment plan that's a good example you know we've already set the budget for this coming year we know how much we have for that the question's going to be planning for future years you know do we want to take what we have now and you know increase it a hundred thousand dollars a year for 10 years so that the whole plan goes up by a million dollars in 10 years you know i'm just making that but is that is that an approach we want to take and what would be the priorities within that the debt policy again that would be more you know we have a certain debt policy that will stay within certain limits and the way we count things and is that still good or is that you know if we're going to try to we have this backlog of capital equipment should we be more aggressive using debt so should we amend our policy that would allow us to do that uh same thing with building and facility needs i think we'd come back much like these other things and say okay now we've done this study we've looked at all these things here's the priority building needs now that needs to go into the capital plan so basically these are all setting ourselves up for when we have the budget conversation next fall we'll we'll have some sense of of these needs looking forward or you know over the next couple of years and i mean i think the rebuild options that's going to be a quicker water and sewer rate study i mean that could happen whenever you want to implement that same with the storm our utility but none of those i think are really dependent on anything in the budget we're not adding new projects to this we're sort of talking about but the projects themselves would be listed as they're already funded and in the queue thank you it is daunting list um it sounds like it can be even more well yeah we do we want to spend more money but it can so it's a long list it's like like how do we prioritize you know it's it's in a list format but not really in order of priority right that's right i mean some of the stuff's on is ongoing it's it's already happening some of the stuff needs to be prioritized i think um some of its projects that you know we're putting shovels into the ground literally others are we have to plan something are we you know i mean so there there's different categories of things they're not it'd be nice if they were sorted that way what would really be i mean maybe it's just me but i got you know looking at curt's presentation before the meeting it's a series of slides with a couple of words in a list listening to curt present it he gives us detail he says oh this you know this is what that's about and here's the status of it and i have a grant for that and yada yada and now i have that information but i i mean i have it absorbed i can't use it i have it but i can't use it yet and the same with kelly's presentation i have the information but i don't feel like i can use it yet i almost i i need the presentation i need time to digest it and then i can say this looks great except for these two things or whatever you know whatever right now and again i didn't get a lot of sleep last night but i'm just saying the detail that we got in the presentations is invaluable to making the kind of decisions that i think you're asking for now maybe you're not asking for that kind of detail i don't know but it it does seem like a lot of stuff and if there were things that if we had to make a choice what choice would we make that would be useful information i would think right yes i mean obviously your job is to set priorities i think and i'm going to say this but i'm going to hope i get corrected if i'm wrong i think what we're saying is this is kind of what we would be planning to do this year or you know the most of these are in progress i don't think it's we're not bringing anything new i think if we were saying hey here's five new ideas or if you all wanted to add new ideas which you certainly can then i think it would be like okay well well yeah so let me clarify so under the status column on telly's mini mini page you know there's dates right so there's so all the 2024 stuff that's this year right so the staff feels that they can accomplish those things in 2024 and that those are the things that need to be accomplished in 2024 and likewise for the outgoing years 25 and 26 i mean that's that's the conclusion we draw from this column is that we can do what we've what we have planned for 2024 if there's another year attached it means we think it's going to take two years or three years right we can we can assume that yes um you know of course there are extended you know things happen and it might change but that's this is our intent as these years yeah yeah okay so for instance you have it like the implement waterline replacement plan well we we approved that uh at a previous meeting now they're saying they plan to do school street in bingham street in fiscal 2025 and so that's right there on the list there's something they're saying they're going to do and i think as we flesh to sell one of the things that's you know and again you've already approved that plan but at some point just like when we do the capital plan is is you know embedding into the policy that that that water plan needs that one percent in the budget each year too like that's they go together so we can we know the priority of the water lines but if we don't provide the funding for them then we can't do just saying like we want to get to 70 70 pc i that's great but we're they're also saying we can get there if we incrementally get up to this number within this years so i mean those are so those become policy decisions later right when we come to resources and budgets and priorities then it's going to be okay we set these goals now we have to decide between you know the tax rate the budget or this service and this priority and but this is setting you up for those you know because you know this is this like i said this one's the most straightforward even though it's a lot it's kind of these are projects these are things we're going to do you know when we get into housing or resiliency or you know health and safety then it's going to be you know should we take this on you know homelessness stuff like those kind of you know look that's going to be more policy i think i think you'll find there's more discussion amongst yourselves about what we do about these i think these are more to the extent that the resources exist this is the list unless there's something we're missing drastically but we one of the things we tried to do is sort it to really go through this is where we have infrastructure so let's make sure we're not missing it right down to the buildings right down to you know district E like let's take a look at everything we've got so you all are clear that something has to get done in all of them but a lot of you know not trying to oversimplify this because i know it's not simple but you know for opening up a road and doing a water line to sewer line and paving it that's three things happening in one project like on the state street right in that storm water and sidewalks so it's like five levels of infrastructure they're all in one project from the point it's done but it's in carry you had your hand up i'm just trying to get clear about what you need from us right now because this list is not stated in in terms of clear decisions that we have to make or questions for us so some of them we know are coming to us like we're going to need to select a rebuild option so and so so if you could be really specific about what you feedback tonight you need from us that would be really helpful you want to try it i can yeah um yes point taken these you know are not structured in a way point by point to say like you know exactly what we need from you i think what we're really looking for is sort of the green light on these items that these are things that will come back to you that will take up this year and so that's really kind of what we're looking for and much like what the initiatives to is that you know generally it look they look good in order to achieve sort of the strategies and goals that we've already said and also if there's feedback on something that within this category you want to talk about that we haven't identified then we want to make sure we get that feedback too tim yeah then lauren i still starting with how to sort out priorities with this um because with 33 people in the department and and this list and i know there's certain items like the storm water as much as we keep talking about the utility as far as i can tell being on the committee we haven't met we haven't been able to because we've been shorted an engineer in the department um and it really hasn't progressed unless it's been happening at some other level so is it i just don't want to blow your fuses you know in terms of the people we've got and getting things done is there a way to look at this and say there's some of these items that we want to do but we just don't have the capacity right now or if you want to do it we have to bring in outside capacity and then we have to figure out a certain way to do that financially i think that's a good point lauren yeah i was kind of thinking along the same lines like even within this it's not totally clear to me like some of it seems like it's in the works and it's coming back to us some of it it would be nice to get to it's kind of on the list and some of it i guess a lot of it probably is in that category and like which of them feel time sensitive or likely to happen this year which are things that you know if we don't get to it and then this year given we're still in flood recovery and everything like it it would be okay or like you're that this is what to be clear to us like this is what is going to be on the back burner in our minds and are we all on the same page that the ADA transition plan might get pushed out a year if we don't get to it and that's what we're thinking and there's like bands of green as go orange if we've got time red unlikely this year but if we magically have capacity we'd love to get to it or it's coming in a year or two so get ready is that do we do you all have clarity on like do you have a proposal on that and it's just not really cleared us so i look at this i think our thought was you know we took your big goals and we laid out what we thought it was going to take to accomplish them and then we took a look at that and said okay which of these require counsel decisions and that's what we extracted and so basically saying and then if so i guess what we're asking for is is there anything on this list you don't want to talk about or want to plant is there anything that we missed that you'd like to add you know we all understand there's a lot on here we haven't had this conversation about prioritizing this list but as i look at it i'd say you know everything down to steady state equipment plan are things we really ought to be talking about even if we're even if we're not ready to do the stormwater utility we ought to talk about it it should you know decide what we're going to do i think the debt policy and those others are important but you know and i think they will be essential i think what's good i think what we're going to find is when we ultimately lay out the the capital and equipment plan we're going to find we need to we're going to want to change our debt policy to make that happen the way the way we want so some of these you know that i think that's how that's how it ended up on our list because it's like oh if we need to do all this we might need to talk about oh let's put that on the list because we might need to talk about but it wasn't anything you all asked for and i think i think mostly it's like does this look like things that if you know in august or october something one of these shows up on your agenda it's not like this is we haven't what's this about we haven't talked about this we didn't know it was coming it's like this is going to be what is you know we're doing it differently this year with these you know five meetings but as some of you know normally after we finish this process then you see in your weekly report with the future agenda items aren't all so there's all these things populated all the way through to late december because we've taken these things and laid them out you know workable path so you can see what what you've signed on for this is a little bit different because we're doing them sort of one at a time over a period of time but um so i think we're saying is there anything you anything here that you don't like is there anything that you'd like to add uh is this are we on the right track with implementing your goals and like i said i think this item is you know one hand is the best one to start with because number one you ranked at top priority number two it's got the most sort of money and um projects going with it but it's also sort of the most straightforward like there's not a lot of like you're fixing this road or you're not right it's uh i have an idea of a couple of these things that are just might that i can that might help add to the discussion one is the ADA transition plan because i was on the ADA committee for a few years and this is a this is a work in progress because it's been going on for years and the city several years ago hired a consultant to to help us put together an ADA transition plan which we the committee spent time working on and i'm sure that the city council adopted it and it's a book like this thick and there's a whole bunch of things in it some of which we've already done some of which we a lot of which we haven't done and it's going to take years to do it um and there's a lot of complicated things about it like there's money from from the state or from the federal government to do parts of that but as you know this is a few years ago and i'm not sure i ever completely understood it but as part of it if you were going to do something in a building that the city owns the only way you could get this outside funding to do it is if you're going to do everything that that building needs at one time you know in that one year and if you can do that then we get the money to do it and you know we're obviously way ahead of ahead of we do that and i'm not sure where we are on the on the ADA transition plan but we did do a lot of it at first we some of it has think you know i have to go back and look at it now but you know somebody even has to do with translations or this is in Wisconsin I think so there's program ADA as well as physical um but you know as i look as i think about it you're right it is we have a plan it's been adopted it may not be i think it might be a council discussion from the point of view is when we do our capital plan there will be items in it for you know we have to do these you know obviously put back the elevator that's the biggest one but but you know we've already done all the door handles in the building and those kinds of things the ramps and and so it might just be this year we're going to do these six projects and city buildings around to make them more accessible and the visual the visual stuff for the upper Hubbard park was one element of that so that people who can't climb up to the top of the tower can get the visualization of what what they might see if they if they could get up there there's stuff like that so there's a bunch of stuff i'm not sure if it's mostly council decision making but yeah i'm looking at this list the council's clearly going to have to make a decision on the rebuild options i mean we'll have a recommendation for you but you're going to have to make that decision you'll have to make a decision on water and sewer rates even if it's leave them the way they are you're going to make a decision on creating stormwater utility you're going with us we'll establish a funding plan for paving and that includes all the other city state equipment including fleet and that and building and facility leads so really all a lot of that last part is really all together the building facilities current projects a da that's all going to be part of the funding for capital and equipment so those are the big decisions you're going to make in terms of independent independent agenda items it's really probably the first like five but what are the decisions that i'm saying the barris street rec center go is it in this will that will be under a different goal that a future goal yeah and then another part of it is yeah these aren't the only decisions yeah i know i'm sorry just wondering if you put it i figured you maybe put us someplace else another big thing is under review current projects currently underway well we've got east state street and we if we were to decide at this point after we've gone to the voters and had them approve a seven million dollar bond and spent god knows how much of curts staff's time doing it if we were to say now we're not going to do that i think that would be that would be problematic but on the other hand confluence park is something where we told the people were raising the money you've got a year and a half to raise the funds and at some point this year they're going to come to us and say okay we've got all the money we uh we need to complete this project let's go forward and that's a real decision that i'm not sure what the what the council is going to do so i think that is something that's going to turn up on a future agenda as as an action decision for the council so a good example probably if something in terms of us setting priorities right now with where we need to move ahead that shouldn't take a lot more of our time until that point right because it'll come to us and then we'll decide right yeah and that's and that was that is the point for that project yeah lauren i mean i guess just to the high level question it seems like this is a great list it's in it's a long but important i mean it sounds like it just all has to be done and so it's uh blessings on you car and your team thank you everyone for all the hard work going into it i mean i don't see anything that feels out of place and it feels like i just can't even fowl them trying to add to this list uh like it out it already seems overwhelming but critical um i mean that just i know this is like how you think about it but just naming like it didn't really come out today when you're describing like when we look at the facilities like we do have like our net zero commitment you you mentioned like sustainability couple times but just i know that we have that whole our whole net zero roadmap and that that is incorporated in this just to be um i know that i know that that's like embedded and it will come back up in that goal but it's like when we're looking at facility needs and stuff like that i know that that's incorporated so just saying that for the record now and it's always like you know we've we've done this a couple different ways like so i think i think what we finally said it was every we're gonna try to put things in one place only i think what a couple years ago like rec center is just a good example of net zero like it would have shown up here like review he does have the electric vehicles but review you know the net zero like the heating system at the dbw and then under the net zero goal will be review the heating system and so i think it got confusing like it would be the same item would be under three or four different goals was like all right you know we're just gonna pick one council says it should be under something else great but most importantly that it's in our work and it's showing that we're trying to move things forward and you know we'll deal because right rec could be under public health and safety could be under resiliency could be under facilities so it could be a slight aggression heard in your presentation of paving i think you talked about bingham and school and marvin um was it was lower marvin that you were talking about but there's that wash out on marvin up at the top where it's where it's uh blocked off you know it's now one way only what's what's going on with that i mean is realize it's a digression but since we talked about familiar structure very good this is the place to get the info um yeah so the the paving on marvin street is the other end so it's um working next to hybrid um that is a slope stability issue so the slope you can see the guardrail is dropped to the street level can't leave it for too long the way it is generally i mean we feel comfortable with safety as long as the the cars are on the other side away from the slope failure it's a very slow it's been you know happening for a little while we have a bond actually to cover some of that cost okay it got worse after the flood um that's why we decided to make it a one lane road yeah for public safety um but yeah it's it's clearly a slope failure and that is not in the paving plan so it's not an emergency it's not something that needs to take the place of something else just to get it all right it didn't make it on our list because of capacity okay for this year is that uh is that on our 44 item 11 million dollar female it is yes yeah because if we get money from them but yeah but we still have to manage the project that's that's the issue right we are i mean this is pushing our capacity there's no doubt especially being down in the engineer um it's a lot and um you know i'm not gonna promise every single thing's gonna get done but we're gonna try well thinking in terms of the division division of labor you know the people hire us to make decisions and people hire you guys to plow the roads and build the roads and keep the water running and i think i think this does identify what the decisions are that we're gonna need to make so as a work plan of things that we know are coming up none of these are gonna be a surprise to us when they come up on the on the agenda so i don't know if you need a vote or if you just want people to kind of say yeah this this pretty much makes sense or if there's anyone here who really feels like saying no you're way off on this we don't we don't want to take we don't want to deal with this at all and like tim you're saying well you're not convinced that we're going to be ready to take up the storm water utility because it's just not going fast enough that's not saying take it off the list it's just saying well you know it could be down the road yeah but but isn't it something that i mean i don't know enough about where we are with storm water but it seems to me that ought to be a higher priority right because it's a revenue stream it it affects our budgeting directly there's going to be a lot more storm water in our future i think the states got a lot of parking i mean there are a lot of reasons to get that done and i i guess i don't know why we're not sort of prioritizing it more than we are dbw staff capacity well no exactly so so but if we decided to get that ought to be higher on the list what would what would drop to the bottom of the list or lower on the list yeah i think maybe i'm wrong i don't know i'm just my sense is we ought to be that i'll be a half priority but i know i can't think of any to try to learn more about it and still evolving but i mean the other fear with it is it is another tax i mean you're adding another burden to a tax base it's already stressed and i think we have to be cognizant of that too so you know we started a place where we can make that evaluation decision i don't think but we knew how much the tax was we could make that a decision but we can plan it and then say well maybe we'll phase it in or you know what i mean but it seems to me long range we want to do it it's just right but a lot of money you're probably gonna have to do it so it's why right and there's two separate issues that that come together one is we have to deal with storm water and we have to put more resources into addressing our storm water system that so then it's just a question of how are we paying for it so we're gonna you know we're gonna pay eight hundred eighty seven thousand dollars in there right so we're gonna pay eight hundred eighty seven thousand dollars for storm water let's say it's just is it paid out of our current budget structure or are we shifting it out of one so reducing one budget and putting it in something else and maybe and and assessing it to the same base of people but differently instead of on it on the value of your property or the amount of water and sewer use it's how much impervious surface you have so you know it's it's we've got to we're gonna have to deal with the money just whether we collect it the ways we're collecting money now or whether we collect it differently and take it out of the ways we're collecting I think then it becomes a policy decision you know we don't if we say sure we're gonna add this whatever it's going to be storm water fee and not cut anything else then yes then I would just add it a tax if we say we're going to do this but we're reducing the CSO benefit charge or the sewer benefit charge by this much to pay for that we're going to reduce the what's in the capital plan by that much so it's on the general tax rate because now this so but it will be paid different it will affect different people different right so that's the people with big parking lots being in for a big service will be paying more unless their value is already high you know I mean until we see it we won't know who the you know the people that benefit or get hurt by it but it's well it might also affect say someone who builds a new apartment building differently from a residential house and so we're encouraging that correct so it would be great to have that structure in place so when they're penciling out their project right that's included and and can they do things to reduce their storm yes anyway but agree it's definitely important thing to do snow melt system agents prior to me it's it's a thought but it doesn't look like it comes on the top of the list close my mind unless you can say I mean we're not in New York City yeah I'll speak to that just briefly so at this point it's just about funding we're not going to get into design it's about sort of starting the process with the state to develop a potential partnership so we are kind of working on them having a setting up a meeting would be GS it's kind of you know high level feasibility funding analysis at this point not a project that we'd be you know trying to construct right off however to that point and I agree with you in as you look at these things it's you know of itself snow melt isn't as big a deal however currently most of our snow gets hauled to the stump dump so now you rewind to the conversation we had about the use of the stump dump and what are its potentials for future use and it runs off you know it's got it's going to have additional regulation so if we need to find an alternative for it and most likely it would be further out of town so it's taking trucks and time if we could find something downtown the state you know they clean their parking lots they're looking for places to dump their snow so it's so there's other reasons to do it and it provides you know a revenue into the district heat system which then helps all the other users so there's there are reasons to do it that we wouldn't normally you know that the stumped up thing is really pushed us so that was my question sorry it is an additional revenue into our part of district heat but we'd be paying a lot of it too well we'd be paying some of it but some we can't we can squeeze the state a little bit sure yeah okay because that's a big nut that we crack every year and we we get we get nailed on it I mean it's what 200 000 a year in the hole on that I mean any revenue we can get into district heat I do want is a positive I wanted to say something about that and I've tried not to get argumentative or defensive in meetings we are not we are not 200 000 cash in the hole each year on district heat so when when with the depreciation and everything else that the balance sheet does show and I'm not arguing with accounting standards but it does you know it comes up that we're losing 200 000 a year and while it certainly doesn't perform financially the way we would like it to the city is it you know 200 000 and cash down every every year now someday we're gonna have to deal with it you know it's all it's a for real thing but I just wanted to make that clear that we are down some cash but not in some of you know we've had years where we weren't this year's weird but yeah no it's it's it absolutely needs a financial shot in the arm and we're looking at that and this would be one way to do it and but I just it does come up sometimes and I wanted to make sure everyone understood you know it is a paper loss and it is not I'm not going to sit here and tell you we're turning this big profit except for the depreciation it's not true but we're not losing 200 000 in cash and we could get you the actual numbers yeah no no it's fair enough I'd rather not use that language I'd rather but but I still think that adding revenue through is a positive because it isn't because positive every year and it and it not only that but it the more revenue you have so you know we've got some fixed costs so the more revenue we have the more we can spread those costs around more users so it helps the the commercial users and everyone else by lowering their rate so that's and it has excess capacity yeah so it's a good thing so anyway long story short stumped on those two factors sort of pushed the snowmelt up a little bit more than it might otherwise just sit well it used to be easier when we just dumped the snow on the river yeah exactly yeah well I think that's the guidance you're getting tonight and I and I think it's I think it's generally positive so I was going to offer a suggestion on that because it's good to have these plans adopted but I also understand it can read the room and and get it there's a lot here so here's the suggestion as we go through these week after week after week because you're going to have you know a comprehensive list next week and then two weeks after that perhaps our goal at the end of the night would be does this all make sense you know where are the tweaks and then when we get to the end of it we could then have a vote to adopt the strategic plan with whatever changes and if you've had those weeks to absorb everything and then it would just be you know well the planet time to think things over so like in June after you've seen all the things that had a chance to talk but but it is helpful for us to know that okay we're on the right track like we're going to keep we're not stopping anything based on this conversation that work that's okay that's what you that's that's why we're doing this so you can have a deep dive in each of these goals because it's important that everyone understands what's going on when people tell you you know the city is not doing anything with infrastructure you can say yep they're not oh Pelin sorry thank you Kelly um I know that we don't put um cost or like budget items on strategic plan but it will be great when we have this presentation if we can have like cost or expected cost next to each decision item or agenda item you just listed so for me it will be easier to uh pirate rise or just like decide on the item so if it works with the staff I will be happy to see um the cost or expected or estimated cost next to each item thank you that makes sense so obviously when we bring if we bring a project forward out of the planning process that says now we're ready to go here's the numbers and here's the pros and cons absolutely and you know that's a kind of what we did with the with the water plan we have the number so 10 million dollars over the next 10 years and come and you know where it's coming from thanks Kelly and Kurt this is really great it's posted online with the agenda but I'm also happy to see you but I mean that's a power point is that what it is or is it a PDF okay it's a PDF send you the excel thank you I'll send you nothing if I can't scrape it off there thanks all right city council yes question I know it's getting late so maybe we just think about it as we keep going like just knowing that there was a lot of um I don't know exactly the right word but like trying to figure out how to do our strategic planning together in a way that made sense to everyone like I'm just kind of gut check like is getting is this like Palin just brought up the costs um is this getting the right information to all of us so that we can feel better moving forward and like come out with something that then we're gonna have or does it are there other questions that aren't being answered and you know maybe like next time people could if if it just feels like we're not getting I just want to make sure that as we take all the time to do this that we're all getting the information that we all want to be able to then like feel really good about where we could get together on absolutely any feedback on and we can also talk about when we have the retreat but yes that would be you know we need it to take our guidance but you needed to understand and give us the guidance so whatever it's got to work for everybody okay you guys okay okay city council reports start on your end I have no reports in these hey yeah I'm sorry I have no report tonight other than the fact that you were on an airplane overnight yeah I'm asleep already I work on time Tim Lauren um I was going to well first of all thank Kurt make sure to thank your whole team it's really amazing all the work that you do for the community so thank you and thank the team um I was just gonna know although I bet others will but just there's been lots of great work happening trying to get the state to help our community members who need help elevating their homes so I just wanted to let people know that and um there's progress there's a long way to go um but definitely it's great to see state legislators listening taking up that issue um and like just know our city manager our mayor lots of people um have been working really hard to try to elevate that issue and just thanks to the community members who keep having to share the really hard things they've been going through over and over again to try to get attention for this issue so thanks to them for keeping showing up I'm palin okay um mayor's report I just have a couple of things to point out one uh the the police department has been getting out a lot of press releases of their activities and particularly there was a one the other day about responding to domestic violence felony domestic assault on elm street and it's just a real reminder you know people think about the police is you know Montpelier is a pretty calm peaceful town you know they but the police are there for a real reason and for intervening in a very serious uh domestic assault is is one example of that and we need the police and I really appreciate and support what they do um another thing that uh I'm I'm just thinking about tonight and it's appropriate because we heard so much uh from Kurt today about the infrastructure and the Department of Public Works and we just saw a major disaster down in Baltimore with the and I don't think it's because of any bad design of infrastructure but we're going to see they're going to see a terrible impact of a failed infrastructure system and so you know it it may seem you know the road you know doing the roads and all this taking care of the bridges may seem mundane but it's uh it's it's vital for the city and I'm glad that our infrastructure is in good hands and with that city clerks report no report oh well then I'll jump in for to fill in the city clerk's report or the report of the chair of the board of abatement which is that the board of abatement meetings are starting up again tomorrow night and we have three weeks of board of abatement meetings and um we will be uh once again meeting at the senior center at 6 30 and we uh it is vital to have a quorum of the uh or quorum of the city council a majority of the city council along with the city clerk the assessor and the tax collector in order to form a quorum and we've got it's not as long a list as uh as it was earlier but but there's a bunch of items there and so remember to get out there and city managers report just have a couple of things one I appreciate Lauren mentioning the legislative stuff and there has been a lot of work done certainly want to give a shout out to our paid lobbyists certainly earned her keeps this year after we covered out of the budget I'm so to think about that but yeah just just to summarize that uh in it you know we got 825 thousand dollars uh in the budget adjustment act in addition the state is picking up the local government share of FEMA projects so when we talk about these projects that we were going to have you know anywhere from a five to 20 percent share of states picking up the lion's share of that they're picking up the education share of abatements currently up till April 15 although that sounds like that's going to be extended uh and now potentially funding uh well the house budget at least has two million three and a half million dollars for people in need so really sizable commitment to local governments and to us in particular this year and a lot of it thanks to Maggie and our team so I appreciate that with regard to abatements I just wanted to not to rub salt on everyone but we just sent out notices for personal property taxes that businesses pay and it's you know inventory and normally it's kind of a routine thing but as when people change their inventory to upgrade systems you know they get pay a higher tax well a lot of people did that this year because of the flood so they weren't necessarily planning to change their computers or their desks or their cash registers or whatever but they had to and so you know suddenly they got this thing to list their new inventory and they're like wait a minute so um and they you know the assessor doesn't really have a lot of room to move on that like they have to assess them at their value so um we haven't really just talked about internally but it may well be that people will come for abatements even like hey can you just tax me at last year's level for this year or something we don't know but that's an unintended consequence of things that we may see so one of you know not everyone has that personal property tax left over one of the few that still does but so that's a thing and lastly you mentioned the police that are reminding me I don't think this I don't know how public this got but this commendation was given this week from Sergeant Diane Matthews I'm just going to read it because it's to your point so that on 326 24 approximately 950 hours officer Hunter Lane was dispatched to a suicidal mecidal mail attempting to jump off the bridge near capital grounds officer Lane arrived on scene immediately relieved the bystanders who are attempting to console the mail he was able to calm the mail who was found to be autistic and possibly schizophrenic the mail was also known to have a danger code for carrying bear spray willingly removed from his person he had previously threatened suicide by cop officer Lane persuaded the mail to accept a courtesy ride to CVMC for mental health treatment and for without further incident officer Lane displayed professionalism conveyed a calm demeanor and de-escalated the situation smoothly I'm proud to work with log side hunter day to day so just another day at 915 in the morning suicidal person downtown with bear spray on handled in a way that didn't make the papers so just worth noting you know officer Lane is great all the folks are great it actually doesn't but I just think that's a good example of you know people say it doesn't happen here but it does and they do a great job so that's all I've got for this week great that's a good time to wrap up but 10 32 p.m. we're adjourned