 First up tonight is agenda review. This is an opportunity for council making adjustments to tonight's agenda based on concerns about order, flow, or content. Any concerns expressed by council? Seeing and hearing none, we'll move forward with the agenda as presented. Next up tonight is public comment. This is an opportunity for the members of the public to address city council about items that are not on tonight's agenda. You will find an agenda on the podium back there. We also appreciate everybody taking a moment to sign in on your way out. If you didn't on your way in, thank you very much for taking the time to do that. So we have a record of who attended. So this is an opportunity to address council on anything that's not on tonight's agenda. Going once, going twice. Okay. Thank you all for coming. So we'll now move on to the consent agenda. We have five items on tonight's consent agenda. We have the city council minutes from June 4th, 2018. The warrants ending in 615 payroll from 520 to 602, 2018. We also have our audit contract with Sullivan Powers and Company. We have approval of the head works bond documentation. And then we also have the treasurer's job description that was in last meeting's packet and discussion. I would ask if there's any questions, concerns, or comments in regards to the consent agenda from council. Seeing and hearing none, I would entertain a motion for approval of the consent agenda as a, excuse me, presented. Motion by Nicole, seconded by Eric. Any further discussion? Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. And those opposed. Motion carries, consent agenda is approved as presented. City update. Great, thank you. I have quite a few tonight. First, I want to acknowledge that it's Angela's birthday today. Happy birthday, Angela. So to celebrate, we're having a meeting and an executive session. So a couple of other updates. Heather and I participated in an opportunity zone summit in Montpelier last week. So just as a reminder, the opportunity zones were approved with the federal tax bill approved a couple of months ago and named communities throughout the country that meet certain criteria that have preferential investment, tax investment structures. They're very undefined at this point. The state went through a very good public transparent process to name those opportunity zones. They're 25 in Vermont. Both of our census tracts were named. So I believe we're the only community in the state where our whole community is considered an opportunity zone. What this would mean is it allows investors to invest in projects in our city without paying capital gains as they move the money. And if they keep the money in the community for a period of time, are able to then take it out at the end of the project tax-free. So it's trying to capture capital gains and invest more of that capital gains into development projects. So it's something we're tracking really closely. We've had a couple of handful of interested parties in the city already approach us about it. So we will stay on top of that. The IRS has not promulgated the regulations yet. So there's a lot of unanswered questions. Last week, on a different note, last week we launched creamy with a cop. So this is a Department of Ag partnering with public safety organizations to acknowledge when our young people do good acts of citizenship or acts of safety. So wearing your bike helmet or crossing the street at a crosswalk, the cop sees you doing that. You might get a little coupon for a creamy that you can make the launch ships or at scout. So keep your eyes out for that. I wanted to talk briefly tonight about tax bills and the tax rate. As you know, we are finalizing the grand list in the next week and a half. Once that grand list is finalized, we can set the municipal tax rate. I've asked for a special meeting the end of next week to do that one agenda item for, as you know, it's a math calculation. We've approved a budget. We have a grand list of value. It's really a math calculation to set that final tax rate. We do anticipate it's gonna come in very close to what was projected through the budget process. We don't anticipate any big surprises there. So please let me know when you're available for a special meeting next week. On a related note, because we don't yet have a state budget, we don't have an education tax rate. So we send out our tax bills traditionally. We print them the end of June, beginning of July to send them out around July 10th, July 12th for a August 15th due date, which is the way it's been for years and years. Without having an educate, and we send out the tax bills with both of those municipal and school tax rates on the same piece of paper. We recommend that we maintain that process this year and wait until there is an education tax rate. What we are being told from the state is that the Department of Taxes needs about five days between when there's a approved state budget and when they can send out the education tax rates. So if we get that much beyond the week of July 5th or the week of July 4th, so it's July 3rd through 6th, if we get much beyond that, we will miss the August 15th due date for taxes. That's going to be confusing for the public. It might be difficult for folks who escrow their property taxes, but we believe it's better to go have them all on one bill sent out at the same time rather than the confusion of having a bifurcated municipal tax bill and school tax bill. So that's the direction we're going in. If you have concerns about that or questions about that, happy to talk about that. And of course, if we have to be delayed, which we don't know yet, whether we will, we'll do a full education or a full communication push to educate the public on changes if there are going to be changes. Does that make sense? Any sense of how other communities are approaching this issue? I don't have, so I've talked to the league about it. They are fielding a lot of calls. It's very uncertain right now if we have a state budget by the end of the week, this kind of all goes away for municipalities. Also, their municipalities are all different in when they bill and when taxes are due. So some do it quarterly, some do it once a year. For those that do it once a year and they're due in January, this doesn't really have an impact. So there's not a, this is how other municipalities are handling it right now. I have talked, so the other potential impact if we get very delayed is that we could have cash flow issues. We traditionally send the school the first installment of their taxes the week after August 15th. If that deadline gets pushed significantly back, this is why we have 30 days on cash on hand on the city side, we can cover ourselves for a while. I talked to the superintendent, he's aware of it. He's looking at his options, but again, right now, this could not be an issue. We don't know if this is gonna be an issue yet. Yeah, it's probably best to deal with all those various hypotheticals next week. Right. Okay. Sure. Question, so this isn't the first time we've been in this situation last year. They didn't come to a budget agreement until the 28th of June. So is that enough? I'm just trying to figure out what the date is that would trigger the delay. Was it able to be managed last year? Seems so. So is what you're saying, or the guidance from the league that so long as there's a budget by the end of the fiscal year, we should be able to figure it out. If we have a budget by the end of the fiscal year. And get the tax bills out on time. If we have a budget by the end of the fiscal year and the Department of Taxes works through the week of July 4th to give us the local tax yield, then we will be fine. Okay. If it goes much beyond that. I think those people in tax firm are working. Thank you. Okay. On to more fun things. We, I think you all know this at this point, but I did want to officially announce it. Eric Vorwald will be joining us as planning and zoning managers starting July 9th. We are really excited. He brings about 17 years of experience in master planning, community bylaws, public facilitation, despite the fact that he starts on July 9th. He's already jumped in and has come to came to last week's Planning Commission meeting. So I was very excited to be engaged and we're excited to welcome him. Last week at the Planning Commission meeting, we had Regina Mahoney here from CCRPC. We've entered into a contract with them to support the city as we go through this master planning effort over the next nine months. Supported from the municipal planning grant we got last year. We had a really good meeting and that Regina laid out a work plan for us for the next nine months or so with very prescribed. This is what's going to happen at each Planning Commission meeting through the rest of the process. We also had a great conversation about public input, really building off the public input that's already gone into the existing planning documents. So I'll be circulating that calendar in the next week or so so you all can get a sense of when you might like to put your meeting in. And then a couple of other fun events stuff. Winooski Wednesday carries on July 4th is our next one. So come out here. Hear music and then before you go to fireworks. July 3rd, the night before at Casabat there will be a Parks and Recs is doing partnering with how do you say this, right? Oh, okay, with a company that talks about natural resources and herbs and how to use your natural environment for both recreation and health. So that's the night before at 530 at Casabat. There is a charge associated with that one. So go on to the website and learn more if you'd like to register. There's still time to sign up for Adventures into Summer which starts on Wednesday. So if kiddos are looking for things to do, that is an option. And then the library is running their Library Rock Summer Program as well and information about that is also available on their website and or their Facebook page and our website. Thank you very much, appreciate all that. We'll now move on to Council Reports. Which way did we start last time? I can go. No one had anything to report so it's not memorable. So I attended the Public Works Commission last week. Not a lot of news there. The Public Works team is reviewing the data collected from the bike lane pop-up that I know everyone loves. And there is work moving forward on repair of the rail, the bridge over the Winniesky to the Burlington site. So we may see stuff coming from that before long. I had a good meeting with Jesse and Ray about the Promise Communities Update and Library Plan that we're going to hear about later. And also was invited by some folks who are interested in supporting pool fundraising. A couple of people from the Pool Fundraising Group asked me to help them with a fundraising letter that's going to be sent out to foundations and other interested parties. So that was a good sort of concrete action step that was taken by some of those folks. I don't know what's going to happen next, but I was able to provide some background history facts that I think was important to frame some of that discussion. So I think that group is definitely engaged, active, and doing their part to solicit funds for this project. Awesome. I'll talk about some pool fundraising activity when we get to the pool item. But I think although I couldn't attend, I think the big takeaway from the Planning Commission meeting is just a reference we brought Regina in as the consultant for the development of the master plan. And it's exciting now to see a real agenda come together in terms of a timeline that we can expect to measure progress against, which has been just a little bit more on the amorphous side in the past. And a great thing about Regina is she's helped out a lot with our other planning efforts in the community. So there's a great deal of familiarity there. I feel really good about that process. But I think we'll have some more information regarding that timeline. We can expect to see those activities coming back soon. And then want to make folks aware that we are in the process of negotiating between ourselves, Burlington and South Burlington, and MOU in regards to the airport. And I expect to bring a draft back to you at our next public meeting of that document, along with what I think will be some fairly meaningful updates in regards to the various meetings that have been occurring there. And airport governance? Yeah, well, on a number of things. Yeah, we'll see when the MOU comes out. Yeah, I think those are the big things from last week. So the Public Safety Commission is at work right now of from their purview what some of the priorities they believe should be a part of the municipal master plan to be able to provide that feedback to the planning commission. I did have a question with Regina's plan and new timeline. Is there built in a structure and opportunities for how individual commissions will be providing that input to the planning commission? So at our next meeting, the planning commission will be reviewing what they have received to date from the commissions. All the commissions are at slightly different points. And then the calendar also outlines specifically when each chapter will be discussed. So that becomes the next opportunity for commissions to give feedback if they're not ready to give feedback for next meeting. So I'll be sure to circulate that so you can as liaison. And then news from elsewhere other than here, but impacting here, the Secretary of State's office is implementing a new accessible voting system, which will be in place for the August primary election. So for Winooski voters with disabilities, the system will allow folks to vote independently and confidentially rather than through the assistance maybe necessary from a friend or family member, both at the polls and during the early voting period. To be able to, on a system device, it'll essentially print out a ballot based on their selections. That's a duplicate of what a ballot otherwise would be if somebody got a ballot and bubbled it in. So Winooski voters can look forward to that. In August, this should be a great tool for people to be able to vote independently and keep the confidentiality of their vote as they go throughout the voting process, regardless of barriers they might have or disabilities that would previously prevent them from doing so. So some news for Winooski voters and folks watching at home. So I attended the Community Service Commission meeting on June 13th and highlights were further conversation about the poll project and conversation we'll have and the vote on the bond for that. There was also an update about the O'Brien Community Center and the use of that space. We all are aware that the library is really in high demand from our community and there's been conversation about how do we reconfigure the space to accommodate a larger library space which we'll hear more about tonight from Ray and his team. There was also a conversation about the senior center and how might we make it more intergenerational and more of a vibrant use of the space so there will be ongoing conversation about that. Hey, just one other quick one that we don't have a ton of details on but Winooski was selected as one of the three or five communities to be case studies for the Vermont Council on Rural Developments annual conference. So we're probably about 400 or 500 people and there will be a panel put together from the city working with executive director of that entity to put together that panel that will highlight the work being done here and they're really interested in the way we've done things and some of the progress. So I just want to give folks a heads up on that. That's something that's going to take place in October but that was a really great honor and I think a great reflection on the community and the work that's being done here. Just forgot that. Okay. So senior in that, thank you everybody. We'll move on to our regular items. So on tonight's regular agenda item A is the Farmers Market Event Permit Application Amendment. So I have a very small amendment to the Farmers Market Event Permit Application that we initially received and that had been approved and the Farmers Market has been going since the end of May. We received an amendment to the original event application requesting including alcohol tastings and sales. The regulation of the sales falls under Vermont DLC Farmers Market Licensing for manufacturers and the vendor currently being added to the Farmers Market is Four Quarters Brewing which holds a 2018 Farmers Market License. So we recommend approval for this permit amendment. And I think we hashed through this actually over two different Farmers Market seasons talking about there was an idea to do this and then there were actual applications to do this and approved it pending that they follow all the regular rules regarding alcohol consumption events where there's roped off areas, I.D. and all that good stuff. So it's not a free-for-all atmosphere where people are strolling through the Farmers Market picking up food and drinking a beer at the same time. The, actually the Farmers Market permit for serving liquor does not require any of those things. That the state issues. That the state issues. And we don't have anything written specifically into our ordinance that would say that for a Farmers Market, we would need to do all of those boundary, all of that. So the previous permit applications that were approved and I look back at them had that specified area and that was actually discussed at great length. Okay, I went and talked to John Audie and he said there was nothing in the ordinance that requires that and that it is completely, according, based on the state, it's completely overseen by site visits that the DLC does for Farmers Markets. But from a barrier standpoint, alcohol consumption has to take place in a confined area. Two ounce tastings. Oh, okay. It's two ounce tastings to sell bottled. Oh, I understand. I apologize, I was not clear about that. No, okay, because we were dealing with the people who were doing Bloody Mary's. Yeah, no, no, this is not gonna be a free-for-all party or anything like that. It's tastings to sell bottles. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay. I apologize. So my statement stands, it's not consumption free right through the, okay. Correct, my apologies. No, no, that's okay. Just for future reference, if it were an alcohol consumption permit, would that come to us as the liquor control board? Yes. Yeah, yes. So this is just, they wanna sell bottles of their product and people can taste little samples. Right, little tiny samples. And do they have to take responsibility for checking IDs? I don't know exactly. I mean, I believe it does. I brought Brian so that he can speak a little bit more to the DLC requirements because I'm really not an expert on that. The thing is they have to follow DLC. They have, yeah, yeah, that is 100% understood here. And I think both Brian and Renee Bouchard from the farmers market, they both have experience with this. So it's incumbent on them to make sure that they're following all those policies and procedures and I think we have a pretty clear understanding about that. Questions, concerns from council? Given those clarifications. Any questions, concerns from the public? So seeing and hearing none, I retain motion for approval of farmers market event permit application as discussed this evening. Second. Motion by Eric, second by Hal. Any further discussion? Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. And those opposed, motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. IMB, sidewalk usage permit for Commodities Natural Market. Seasonal table one. Yeah, the city clerk's office has received a request for a sidewalk usage permit. Commodities would like to have a 30 square foot space in front of their store to have two small tables and benches and we recommend approval for this. Any questions or concerns? Is it generous sidewalk? It actually looked great to have it used like that. It's exciting. Any questions, concerns from council? Any questions or concerns from the public? So seeing and hearing none, I retain a motion for sidewalk usage permit approval for Commodities Natural Market regarding the seasonal tables application. So moved. Second. Motion by Christine, second by Nicole. Any further discussion? Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. And those opposed, motion carries. And now for the Popsicle tent. Yeah, so I have a second sidewalk usage permit for specific dates to have a 10 by 10 tent in front of Commodities Natural Market and that is for July 12th from five to 8 p.m. and September 6th from five to 8 p.m. for a Popsicle tent. And I would like to point out something that I did not notice in the application but when they speak about first aid, they said we have a store first aid kit that should be sufficient for any Popsicle related engine. So. So. First slide. Hi, it's Patrick here. Great, any questions, concerns from council? So the 10 by 10, there's still going to be plenty of room for movement of pedestrians. You know those are extra wide sidewalks there. Any questions, concerns from the public? So seeing and hearing none, I now entertain a motion for approval of the sidewalk usage permit for the Popsicle tent Commodities Natural Market. So moved. Motion by Christine, second by Eric. Any further discussion? Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. And those opposed, motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. I am the approval of Myers-Pool necessity and reimbursement resolution for bond vote. So I'm going to introduce these, but Ray is here for technical questions as well. So there's two items before you in a row here. Well, first is the necessity and reimbursement resolution language. So this is you actually finding that it's necessary to go to bond vote. And then the second item is scheduling that bond vote and the approving the public warning and notice. We've had lots of conversations about this. I don't want to go back through history. Yeah, anybody want to open with any comments, questions, concerns on the document itself or? Well, just as a recap that this is the amount that is estimated to be necessary for the original full build out of the pool. So 3.92 million dollars. Yeah. So just a couple of, unfortunately I hated work, kept me tied up, so it didn't really get to comment a lot last week. So we'll share some reflections going to this that I think are going to be important context for next steps moving forward. My reflection agreed with going with the full amount. If we're going to put forward a bond vote to voters, I think that's the right thing to do, given the design that was there. I want to be really frank and blunt. And there's a 0% chance you'll find me supporting 15% tax increase come December. And I think that's something we're really going to have to grapple with over these next few months. We're putting together a second bond issuance in front of the community. And I feel strongly like there's going to be enough support to pass it, I do. And I think that that's a great thing. And I think this is a great community asset and one that we should work hard to try to figure out how to make happen. I think we're going to have a lot more work to do as a result of moving this forward than the discussion in the last meeting really got into. I think we're going to have to pick this right back up and put it right back in the front burner in terms of how we're going to really manage the financial pieces of this going forward. I also just want to be really transparent that I've done a lot of work over the last two weeks to talk to communities that have had private public partnerships in fundraising and have had really good conversations with three different mayors and staffs who have put together blue ribbon fundraising committees which were separate by one C3s from the municipality. And I'm committed to doing that work to try to make this happen because I don't think it's a feasible ask for our community to put that kind of weight on our tax. I think that would be too much. And I again think that even if we could get it passed at 15% from where I sit, I'm looking at those two global financial issues. I have a lot of concern about it. So I'm certainly going to throw my energy and efforts into trying to work to fundraise. I think we're going to have to come back really soon. We're going to talk about an issue a little bit later in regards to the other bond issuance where we're trying to find additional resources to cut back on the financial ask that could be going forward for the community on the side of the main street project which I think is great. And I think we're going to have to continue to do the same thing here. My bigger concern is really more related to the second item is the first main street bond vote had a very, or the first bond issuance had a very straightforward narrative to it in terms of how it fit together. The second one doesn't. And I think we need to probably designate some folks to take the lead on what that conversation looks like similar to what Christine and I did in the last one because five people limbering out in a somewhat uncoordinated way into the community to talk about I think can be challenging. And I think if there's an opportunity for us at our next July meeting, maybe to hash through any kind of benchmarking that we have between now and putting the final budget forward for people about what those decision stops may look like in addition to the bond vote would be really valuable and something that the community would benefit from from a transparency standpoint because I am concerned that we're going to put forward in the bond vote. I think it's going to pass. I think it's going to be supported. And then we're going to be stuck with two that again in the concourse of talking about things like affordable housing and it feels pretty disingenuous to be laboring on that issue and then turn around and propose a 15% tax increase to people that flies in the face of what it is. We talk about it as a value so much. So I just want to share those reflections. I couldn't last week because I got caught off outside of Rutland for all the things that I want to say. So I want to see it happen. Have decided, you know, I think from the city's direct involvement we can't have fundraising activity. I don't think that that's right but I've gotten to a comfort level where I know at least I can get involved in a very formal way to show that there's the political will behind this that if people make donations and step up and make large scale support commitments that it's not going to politically get yanked out from under then that there's a confidence level there. So those were some of my concerns that I think I just want to float out because I watched your conversation last time and it was quick and that's okay. I think you guys felt like you had all been talked about a lot but I think we need to be really thoughtful about what's next in terms of the type of discussion that's going to take place in July and August in the buildup. This is not as straightforward as when we had the Main Street one where we just kind of took it, ran with it, explained what it was because now we're going to have to answer that question of if you're saying yes to this are you absolutely committing to potentially what that looks like from a financial impact standpoint and I want to voice very loudly that I'm not that I think we need to find ways to fill some of those gaps to get it to a reasonable amount to make this a reality. So, and I don't want that to be a cross narrative taking place and that would be a big concern of mine. So. I guess I'm not real clear about what you're saying. I don't think the Main Street project was a straight line. It was a straight line too. We have to have a vote by this date and then council's going to come back and see what amount of fundraising can occur in the interim and committed to at least in public presentations of a band that's not what we're, that's not what we've talked about to date on the pool. We haven't said if we can't fund right we'll get this initial authorization. If we can't have private fundraising raise X amount of money then we won't move forward with it. We haven't agreed to that approach. So, are you suggesting that that's, I'm just confused. I'm giving my reflection that putting both on is not, to me as a non-starter, there's five people here. This group gets to decide what goes on and what doesn't. I am stressing that I will be very blunt and I will be very blunt publicly about that that I don't think asking for 15% tax increases is a sustainable request of our community. I don't think that's reasonable. So, I think it's really important that this body in passing this and putting this resolution forward be ready to have that conversation. And if it's gonna be, there's not a consolidated perspective on that then that's okay, that's, we can move forward that way. I think it would be a good idea to get a little bit more clear on it and have those harder conversations here versus playing out in whatever narrative people decide to set is straight. Because I do think it is very different. I was comfortable and felt like, at least the majority of the body was, if we hit that benchmark of where the, we thought the tax rate impact would fall for a main street project that that was, that was pretty straightforward to me. I think when you stack this on top of it, it's a lot less straightforward. I think you're now having to probably make either a decision or you're gonna push forward with a 15% proposed increase. And that's a big difference between the two to me. Does that make sense? So you're suggesting that we just come back and have that conversation, not that the decision has been made that we're gonna approach it in the same way. We don't need to talk about how we're gonna approach it. Well, yeah, I think it's important, because I'm not, I wanna see this be successful. I just, I also don't wanna misrepresent to people that by passing this, that that's a done narrative. And I wanna make really clear, because when you guys vote for stuff, it's generally my job to try to go out and be a central mouthpiece for what that work is. And it's important for you to know upfront that I have a lot of concerns about saying pass this and it's all gonna be good. And we're gonna, we're gonna figure out how to navigate a 15% tax increase. And that's something that I'm okay with passing along to people. Well, just to be clear, the pool itself is not a 15% tax increase. It's the pool on top of the Main Street project. That's correct, yeah. I think what's concerning me in my initial reaction is hearing that. And I do, I appreciate the dedication to finding alternative funding streams to lessen that tax impact, absolutely. And I think that's incredibly critical. What I don't wanna see is us get into the budgetary process, this upcoming year. And because we have these two special projects and a certain tax impact as a result of those projects, unlike the past few years where we've asked staff to come in somewhere between zero and 3%, we're then telling staff, oh, you know, we're not comfortable with X percentage. You need to come back at us with your municipal budget at negative 3% or whatever it is that I think that's a fair position to put staff in. I don't think that's responsible to the city at all either. I agree. And I think that that's gonna have to be a baseline starting agreement with staff as we've obviously authorized these things and they need to be built in. We need to tell them what to build in though at the end of the day. If we're gonna cut one of those projects at one point or reduce it or stage something in or request that something be different or do what you can do with this type of cap, we ultimately are responsible for giving them that direction, right? Right, and we do also have a responsibility that we just keep voters that have moved forward in approving these projects. And I've said this is what we want for our community. Yeah, and I think that's the conversation. I think if it's gonna be blindly if the vote's yes, then we're gonna take whatever was voted yes on and charge forward with that, then that's a perspective. It's again, really important as the person who generally takes these yes approvals and takes them back to the community. Do I support it? I do, do I think a 15% tax increase is gonna be something that I'll support? I don't, and that's regardless of whether both bond votes are approved. That's, I mean, I can just, I can tell you that that's not something that I think is sustainable, so. We had looked at, we had in our packet last meeting, there was a financial modeling that was done that would essentially lessen the impact over time. I believe that was a concept that you had raised as a possibility. Yep. What happened to that? Is that still on the table as far as you're concerned? Absolutely still there. It's absolutely still there. And it's, and again, we're talking about something later that could put a lot of flexibility into this conversation and discussion. So I had previously voiced my concern similarly about this is a high tax impact for one item and it's not being, it's not happening in a bubble, right? We're talking about this other project. Additionally, even if we get outside funding to build this replacement project, that doesn't help us with the additional maintenance costs down the road. So we are actually, even if we get outside fundraising, we're still increasing our obligation for the next 40, 50 years, however long this facility lasts. This is why I did not support the full project scope. I think it was important that we had that discussion about the reduced tax impact and trying to relate that to fundraising possibilities. One thing that I've been thinking about, you know, the way that we've approached the Main Street project, there are options to like scale that back, depending on what the financing looks like. But when I read this bond language, it doesn't really sound like we have room for that if needed. Like it clearly states like these are the features that are going to be included in this project. So is there room to scale back if we don't have enough money to put this forward after approving it? I do think the projects are pretty different in what is scale backable and the difference between was the $26 million for Main Street and $3 million. And I think like it's, we could scale back the project to something that wouldn't meet the community vision that a lot of community members put a lot of head and work into and that wouldn't impact the operational costs year to year. So although it might have a percentage point impact on our debt obligation, I don't think you would substantially change what the financial landscape would look like. There's tens of thousands of dollars difference in operational costs between full scope and the previous single pool scenario. So there's impact to our budget on going from this. The one good thing there is you still have, if you do have the full number on there, you have the opportunity to scale it back is one consideration there that I at least find positive but I understand the concern. Well, and I agree like, I think we do need another communications approach like you're saying, like we do with Main Street so that people understand the full scope of this decision and also that, and this is something that I would advocate for obviously for my position, that if this doesn't pass, we can try again in November for a smaller project if need be, if the community doesn't, the whole community doesn't support this vision. I think the communication piece on it with the community, I mean that was, I understand that I'm not saying this to make anybody feel guilty. I know that there's just probably not a recognition of the amount of time that it takes to coordinate and scope that kind of narrative and to develop it and to get out there and do it. It takes a lot of work. It's not easy and this is complicated and it's coming in the middle of something else. So I think when I just, I watched the meeting from last week, not able to attend and was just noticing there really wasn't a conversation about that and how this is gonna go forward out into the community and outward facing way and what the message is and whether or not there's concurrence that if it's passed, you can expect that our full intent is to bundle this with the previous financial commitments we've made and move forward a budget that is at a 15% increase. And if I run that conversation I was prepared to say before I hit New Haven, the New Haven black hole of self-coverage, that I have real concerns about that. And I find that really a challenging place to be. So I think we need to try to do, if the decision is to move this forward, have it voted on, I do think it's gonna be approved. I think we need to be prepared to come up with a communication strategy that everybody can agree on if possible. And if not, that's okay too, that's the way that works sometimes. But I think we should at least give it a fair shot. Well, I applaud the mayor's leadership to step in and to make sure this vision happens. I had served on the Community Service Commission. I know how important this project is and given my experience with working in the nonprofit field and fundraising and so forth, I throw my weight into this as well. It would support you and your efforts to make sure this is feasible for a community because I know what's needed so you can count me in. You know, the subtext of that conversation to me is I think there would be a full blitz type effort to try to get something as close to understandable from a financing perspective. By December the 1st, we're gonna talk about the other grants that you've got going on for, you know, builds, but to have those try to at least get as close to converging a place in space where then could make a subsequent real decision about what goes forward on the tax base. I thought this was gonna be a really quick, easy meeting, didn't you? You thought the language looked nice, there's no issue with that. I'm sorry, I wasn't able to voice some of that last time. I think if I could just say one thing, I'm having had some conversations recently with members of the community who are still engaged as part of that fundraising committee, that community group, I think there's absolutely an understanding that a yes vote tonight to move this forward with a full amount is by no means us kicking back and putting our feet up. I think there's a real understanding that there's a lot of work yet to do. I think there's a commitment from that group, certainly I'll say from our side too, to acknowledge what you said, this is a big ask. And I think there are things we can do to sort of work within the scope of a full project to bring that impact down. So I do think there's, certainly on the staff side and also in the community, people committed to helping with that. So I wanna be clear from our side of the table, like there's no expectation that a yes vote tonight means we're done. I think we very much acknowledge there's work yet to do to get it to a number that's more palatable in the context of an operating budget. Heard and understood. Yeah, but when you're standing in front of the 150 to 200 people and trying to explain it, you've gotta say that a yes vote in combination with the other yes vote you gave us does this. This is the maximum that you're authorizing us to potentially put into your tax bill. We're gonna try to do better than that. We're gonna try to get it back and down. We absolutely are, but in the absence of any type of threshold or wheels being put on this whatsoever, which is fine sensitive to the fact that we're not saying we need you to raise $1.2 million or whatever that is. And I'm saying I feel like the best chance for this is for us to try to go as all in as possible on that front to try to get it to a reasonable amount. But it's gonna be a tough narrative. And I haven't figured out how to put that one either yet. I'm also happy to help out again. I think we need to have a discussion about what the communication message is. And I also wanna understand more what you're seeing as a decision points and how that would impact the timing of moving forward with the project. Because there's a lot of frustration out there that have been delayed this long. And what I don't want to have happen is another year long delay because we're, we've decided to move forward with Main Street, which is a $23 million project. And we can't find it within ourselves to move forward on a $3.9 million project. Thank you for saying that. Yeah, so. I just wanna. And I'll readdress that in an opposite stance and find and say that I think it's our most important responsibility to ensure that we hand the sustainable city off to the next generation of people who live here. And finding as amazing as a pool is and as great as we also have to spend money on infrastructure. That's just reality. And we've got to do that. So I don't wanna pit the two projects against each other or throw stones at it. I don't think that's particularly productive. It serves as a good point for divisiveness. But from a general standpoint, I'd like to try to figure out how we move those two things together. I don't at all think that it's a great thing for a public body to represent that we're not interested in spending money on infrastructure that serves community for a long time. But it can be disagreed upon. So I mean, I think what the decision point would be is when we get the finance package for Main Street, if that's gonna come in at 7% and this is coming in at 7% or 8%, that we have to reduce the scope on Main Street if we've committed to all the wording in this bond language. Eventually a difficult decision has to be made. So with that context, are there any other items from Council on that for questions, comments, concerns from the public? Yes, ma'am. My name's Caroline Bergeron. Just listening to you talk, you said you don't wanna pit it against each other. But then in the next breath, we're saying 15% and you're linking it together. It's really hard not to, this is no surprise that we need a pool. I mean, it's been deteriorating for several years and there was always budgeted money. Every single year we went to the vote and there's like the line item for the pool and now it was 2,000 points in the last 10 months. It's not a surprise we needed a pool. It's not a surprise we've been on it. Yeah, but it's also not a surprise though that we also have crumbling infrastructure across the city that we're trying to care for and trying to balance the best that we can. So it's not that this hasn't been on the narrows of sight. It has been, it hasn't moved as quickly as anybody would like. But look, we're just trying to balance the investments the best you can with limited resources. It's just hard being to hear you say that. I feel like you're saying there's a chance that it might not happen, you know? We're talking about putting a bond vote forward and ultimately it's a five-person body. I'm expressing my perspective of a concern of putting forward a 15% tax increase. I don't think that that's a sustainable thing to put forward to our community. I don't, I don't. I think we need to find a way in the interim to reduce these products to a reasonable rate. I don't have a magic number in my mind but that's huge, that's a lot of money. And as we sit and have conversations about how we keep the community affordable and how we grow sustainably and create a sustainable tax base, lobbying 15% tax increases that people is really challenging. Ultimately, it's your money and these people all get to represent you and if they want to vote to put that forward and do that, that's the beauty of democracy. So I'm expressing my concerns for it and my dilemma, so to speak, I mean, it's... You just said there were difficult decisions down the road that are going to need to remain so it has hit that 15%. To me, that sounds like something may not happen. Well, I think it's important we have honest transparent conversations. I think that's really important and the bond vote, again, I feel strongly it's gonna go forward out of here but I don't know. But I would expect that people get an opportunity to express themselves with that vote too. Yes, sir? My name is Peter O'Neil and I have a question on the 18% and how that is parsed between the two projects. Again, not putting them together but we're saying you don't feel comfortable with 15% because how much have we already agreed to in the Main Street revitalization plan and how much of that 15% comes from the pool? What we stated in during the presentations around Main Street is that we had projected between a four and six percent or four or six cent increase in tax rate. So again, just clarification. So was it $26 million for Wednesday, right? 23. 23, so that's four to 6% but the 3.8, 3.9 brings it from four to 6% up to 15%? Yes, so the project has a lot of different subsidies that go into it and we've also proposed two different funding streams that come from economic development, one being a 1% sales tax for businesses and the second being a four commitment of the portion of the TIF revenue from downtown redevelopment. So the additional tax benefit of that. So with that and federal, what we hope to be the federal subsidy levels in terms of the preference of loans. The big difference between the two projects is with pools, there's just not a lot of stuff out there for it to help. There's not as many federal programs. There's not as many grants. There's not as many subsidized entities and quite frankly, I think just strategically we said it's hard to turn to the business community and say we're gonna charge 1% taxes on that to build a swimming pool versus building main street infrastructure that also serves you as well. So basically that would play out in some sense that the city through taxes would need to raise something like what, $2 million for main street out of the 23 million and we have to raise 3.9 million for the pool to build it percentage-wise. It's a big percentage for the pool and a really small percentage increase for the main street with the subsidies. It's different. It's not a dollar for dollar match. The financing just looks, the debt service patches are just so different. The pool is a very straight line looking amortizing debt. There's a lot of interest-staged pieces with main street that the debt structure, I'm sorry, it's a really tall stack of funding. It just seems like a really big romantic tax increase for a much smaller number. And that's part of the conversation. Yeah, it is. So we are happy to sit and go through these models with you if you'd like to come and raise those. You know how to get in touch with you. Yeah, thank you. So if you'd like to sit down and go through those models, I'm sorry. Can I make a couple of, just while I have the floor, a couple of other just education points about what this means? Because I think we're, I think no thumb on the scale will lose, your staff will do what you vote on and what the community votes on. I do think it's important to remember what a bond vote is. So a bond vote authorizes the council to take out debt. It does not actually obligate the council to do so. So the pool bond and the main street bond can be approved and then ultimately the council can decide not to move forward with them, with the projects. And I think that often see that in communities where funding streams don't come together to support the affordability of a project for a community. So I wanted to clarify that. I think it's also important to note both in this necessity resolution and in the main street necessity resolution, there is language saying we are bonding for the full amount of the project that's subject to reduction through the receipt of other funds. So while we are bonding for the full amount, if we receive other funds either through fundraising on the pool or other grant subsidies, that number comes down and therefore the impact on the property tax rate for the pool and for main street the property tax rate as well as the water and wastewater rates could go down as well. Thirdly, two more points really quick. Thirdly, I think it's important to remember timeline here. So we've talked about this a number of times. So with an August bond vote, the early one can go to bond is January. So then the question will come back to council of well, what do you want, what risk do you want us to take on in the interim? Do we want to go to full design? There are going to be, so fourth point, there are going to be a series of votes that the council has to take and the public will have to take to enable either of these projects to move forward, whether it's a local options tax implementation or a future tax rate impact decision or a decision to move forward with the projects at all. So I just want to clarify that it's not that a yes vote tonight on the necessity resolution or a yes vote in the ballot box in August means that anything definitive is happening. There are still many series of decision points following that. It does send a very clear message to us what the community values and what we should work on and certainly direction to council. But I just wanted to make sure we understood all the different decision points that will be between here and there. Thank you. We had another hand. I have a couple of questions. First thing, I wanted to give you the feedback from the community. We know it hasn't been a lot. I just, I don't know if you can disclose that or not, but I know that we've been trying to get the word out that you know you guys and give people's feedback what they want. Have you guys just, has it been outpouring? Has it been just minimal? I have received a lot personally, yeah. And I think every single of the correspondents I've received is supportive of the pool. There's some difference between the different pool options that we discussed last meeting, but it's been overwhelmingly positive. And then just so you know for the future, most everything that we receive in our email since Republic officials is a public record that you could request access to at any time. Okay. Secondly, I don't know if we have the numbers in front of you, but when we started this process, I thought this pool tax plate was gonna be less than 6%. I thought it was gonna be about four or three even. And I'm trying to figure out how it's going from less than 6% to 15% for both projects. When it seems like, and I'm not being negative, so don't take any, don't take this the wrong way, but I've been doing this for three years now. And it seems like you guys can a slow plate pool to get to my major thing on board because there's some deadlines on the main series. And also now, there's some questions about taxes. When I want to grab the same conversation if we want the bottom of the pool first. Prior to that, I think we're already a year or two to have this conversation. So I'm kind of confused on how it goes from less than 6% to 15% now on Main Street. I don't know if you guys have the answers for that. Well, there's a second project. I don't know about the 6% piece. I mean, we've tried to bring in a couple of different numbers on updates a few times on where we think the cost was heading and sort of theoretically where things were. I also think that the early numbers that were discussed when I attended some of your meetings were way lower than $3.9 million. You know, I saw a couple numbers where when Christy was leading a couple of meetings that they were just spitballing and saying, you know, this would be round about this on debt service. But I don't think they were really able to put together kind of any kind of really. That's why you did the pooling engineer. What we think, yeah, the real number was until that. So maybe that caused some confusion. You know, I don't know how to address the political conspiracy thought. I don't know. It's, no, I don't understand. Also Main Street is on both, it's here. It's on deadlines, but you know what? This is it, the community has a deadline. There's been stuff on course for on Facebook. People are pissed that this pool is still not open. We're going forward and I'm hoping tonight we can kind of look just the rest a little bit and get moving forward again. Because it's just not me. It's the people that I see on the streets. I appear to ask for one more email here for counsel. And when the tentacles are early meetings, it was a lot more money on the board for the pool because we're going for a building structure. So they say the structure was for $700,000 to get it down to I thought it was 3.7, but 3.9. I'm hoping that now you're saying that you passed the bond and you're still hurtful and you still might not be able to tell the project. Yeah, and I think that's what we're trying to, you know, release us out tonight that even between now and the bond, there's not, there's still some things that I think need to really be ironed out. So that's, that's absolutely accurate. And I think it's, it's important to get a point about that. My last email is, I applaud you for trying to help out with fundraising because back in December, the city council wanted to have nothing to do with the fundraising efforts with us, the foundation. And I wanted to invite you to our meeting July 9th. So we should start putting our heads together because the fundraising that the Mayor's Foundation is going to do isn't going to go away. You know, we have a weird commitment of people that are on the foundation to raise money. And I'd say your commitment goes, there's going to be another commitment that comes in behind us. Or it's going to be the same people. And we're just going to do a year that we're committed to the funderies to help the budget, to help the whole business. This is what this community wants. So the foundation is behind the city and the council on the fundraising efforts. I mean, we've been bustin' bust, try to get it up and rollin' and it takes a lot of time. It's a part-time gig, trying to get people together once or twice a month. But once we get rollin' and now the Mayor's Office is gonna come in and get involved, hopefully. I think we have a good positive thing here for the maintenance or to help with the bond. If we raise that money. My perception would be that hopefully some demonstration of political stability around the project would help with the fundraising. And an understanding of a commitment that it's not gonna be something that's gonna get, that there's gonna be surprises in regards to the politics around it late in the game would be helpful. Those are the things I learned in talking to some other communities that had had success with those types of models. It is still important that we don't use staff and resources of the city to do that kind of work because ultimately we always need to keep our independence in case those entities come to us with applications for other stuff down the road. The main foundation is we have a committee and it's gonna be here for a while to keep the full rollin'. We're not gonna go away. The money, once we get rollin' I think that's what I think the hardest part for us is to get over the hump of actually getting rollin' on. Once it starts rollin' once we have a binder and a plan, I don't think it's gonna be as hard as trying to get started. So we're here. So if we can throw a few more shoulders into it. Yeah. Other comments? I have one more thing to say. I just wanna say that while I have, obviously there's a lot of support for reopening the pool. I also wanna see the pool replaced. It is not a surprise that this work needs to happen. What is surprising is that the scope of the replacement is so far removed from reopening the pool. And from my point of view, based on the data that we've seen, if we got closer to just keeping the facility similar to what we've had with the maintenance and longevity upgrades that have been proposed in here to extend the life and to make it higher quality infrastructure, that scenario is something like a 5% increase versus eight. So for me it's hard to swallow such a massive increase in scope of the facility when the narrative in the community has reopened the pool. And I think one of the most important pieces in the larger scope here is about the accessible entry, which is something that you could have within a single competition pool without having to have two separate features and these additional nice to have additions to the facility like the slide and the spraying things. And for me, if there had been a discussion at the beginning of here's how we get the pool replaced, I think this would have happened much sooner or could have, could have had more support for that. The thousands of input in the city is how we based this on. We had an event and we asked the community to offer people there and we asked the community what they wanted and that's why that's how we got the plan going and that's what the community wanted and that's how we did, that's how we took our pool design committee and how we started to do the work or what the community told us that they wanted to see. So that's how that came about. I think that's part of that conversation we moved forward though is we've maxed out the potential bond though as we get closer to having real number of conversations as we look at the real financing packages on these different things, at some point there's gonna have to be some kind of line that says, this is where we're comfortable, this is where we're not or, and I think that could be part of that, those levers that inch it down or back up again. I mean, I think we've made the commitment as the body to move it forward with this full amount but readjusting it at some point wouldn't be impossible. For the record then, I was the chair of the commission and I want to reiterate some of what Mike has been saying. The commission was very involved, all the way from the event that Mike mentioned. We had considerable discussion about what the replacement pool should look like. I don't think that we can separate the idea of a replacement pool with the idea of a pool that better serves the interests of the community. We have considerable interest from the community in the various features that ended up in the final proposal that was presented to council. We think, and I think it's the commission's history that that represents the best understanding of what the community wants. I don't think it's just a question of how we have to reopen the pool. That's part of it, that's the baseline. But it is reopening a pool that better serves the community in the current year and looking forward into the future. A pool that we anticipate will last another 40 years. I'd also like to say something about the cost of operating the pool. It is true, I think, that the pool's cost of operation will increase in this bigger facility. But quite a few of the facility pieces do not seriously impact the operational costs. A water slump, for example, does not seriously impact operations. The community will not seriously impact operations because it will be a revenue producer. Maybe not enough to fill the whole coffer, but it's going to be significant. The attraction of the pool generally, we believe quite strongly, will improve usage of the pool, which will positively impact revenues and therefore will serve to somewhat reduce the cost of operation that's built to the city. All of those factors are important factors. They're factors which I think speak very directly to what I like to call quality of life concerns, that the commission wrestles with all the time when we meet about all kinds of different aspects of city life, including the parks and recreation and the senior center and the library and so on. Quality of life is very important before a smaller community like Burlowski. If we don't have a good quality of life, people will leave. And I think you can look at smaller communities where that is a factor, people leave, because they don't like living where they can't get what they need. Thank you. Are there comments, concerns? Yes, sir. I'm wondering why the conversation about balancing the design of the pool and the tax rate didn't happen sooner than this, and we have to decide whether it goes on the farm or not. We've had the estimate since March. That's the number of months when we could have been talking about this and we could have directed, we could cut some out of this with concern about this or we could consider cutting some out of this with concern about this. Why now, at the very end, we're kind of deciding to put it on? Is this concern about the tax rate? So the three preceding conversations were just that. So what happened three conversations ago is council got the full scope, actually four conversations ago, four presentations ago, and we said, hey, scale this back to the basic, take this out, take this out, and then we want an engineer's recommendation if they could value engineer it down to the base level, what would that look like? And then we said, and then the full scope. So the last couple meetings have actually, that's exactly what they've been about. And then in the last meeting, the decision was made to move forward with the full build out on the bond issuance. I think- I don't know, the reductions were minor. I don't know, three million versus four million. They all kept the two pool decision design. Only what I'm hearing is, can we have something drastically and just replace the pool, you know? I would just like to respond that this actually came up initially at my first meeting with the city council and I regret that I did not bring this forward, this concern forward at that time, that it is coming up pretty late in the process. There is still theoretically the later in the game, the possibility of it being engineered back towards something that's not the full build out. That's still on the table. The decision is whether or not to put the bond forward with the full amount on there. And that's what's before us. I'm just going forward with that full amount. That's a decision that the group made last year around. So I understood and heard what you're saying. I think the decisions have been made from the funding perspective to go forward like this. I think we're reflecting the reality that if we are applicants to financial wall later on, that's something that could come back and apply. So when you talk about communication, that's something to me that needs to be communicated. Yeah, it does. And it's one of those conversations that until you sit in front of people and have it and people ask questions like that, you don't always know what questions you need to be answering because you guys are a lot smarter than us. So, and that's real. I mean, the crowd's always going to have more perspective to give back than what five people up here are going to think of in terms of presenting information. So, that's absolutely right. So essentially the spoke tonight is a yellow light and we have to come back later with a full-blown proposal with all the funding pieces figured out to make it go. So, and we're committed to do our best to meet that time. My concern is that for the main street vote, I don't think that was, maybe it was, I can't remember the language of the bond of parent and that was made apparent in all the meetings that you had and the fliers are sitting on, the postcards are sitting on. I'm not getting the sense that that's going to happen for this. So, I'm wondering how people are going to understand that because in the language of, I would think, we're moving ahead with the full proposal on this bond, but you're going to take this bond out and build a pool. That's what I would take from the plan. And so, that was the conversation that we, well, that's the conversation we had before we voted on the main street bond was to say, there's going to be a communication strategy and we're going to do this. This is essentially generally what we're going to talk about and what we all agree are some of the parameters that we understand to be true to this. And that's what's, that quite frankly, with my rambling introduction was what I was trying to say is that we need to get that. And because to me it's not clear. And I have some concerns apart from everybody, might have different things that they're thinking about. I don't think we've had that kind of cathartic, here's what's going forward in terms of what, what bumpers might be in the bully alley. And I, you know, I get that people could be mad, will be mad with a 15% or 30% tax increase, but it also could be mad if that communication doesn't happen. Yep. And all of a sudden something different than what they expected is happening. So I would encourage you to, yes, figure out the message and have a conservative communication effort based on this. Thank you. Any other questions, comments, or comments? Yes, sir. I would just say, you know, I'm very encouraged to hear you bring the sort of fundraising partnership up this evening, I've been a little confounded by the direction of the city to sort of keep these entities separate so far. I, I'm certainly aware of a lot of precedent and a lot of models of fundraising efforts between municipalities and organizations. And I think that if you, if we want to accomplish this and get some momentum going, and get all that messaging and all that fundraising strategy in place, that cooperation has to happen and has to start happening. So. Yeah. Mike, do you have his email? He's on the fundraising committee. Yeah. Other questions, comments, concerns? Okay. Anything else from council? So seeing and hearing none, I do retain motion for approval for Myers pool necessary and reimbursement resolution for Bonn vote. So motion by Nicole, second by Hal, any further discussion? Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. And those opposed, motion carries. Item E, approval Myers pool, warning of Bonn vote and public hearing. So this, as I said at the introduction to the previous item, just schedules the Bonn vote for the August primary and approves the morning that we'll go out, we'll go out publicly and sets the public hearing date for August 6th, which is your council meeting right before. And also in our cover sheet, we outline what we will, the steps that we propose the city to educate on the process. So in regards to police, go ahead. You discuss, you know, composing and distributing and highlighting the press release. Are there plans for ways to physically get a notification of this bond meeting out to the community? So this notification, sorry, case hit again. Yeah. Are there physical ways by which Winnowski residents are going to be notified about this bond folks? I know some Winnowski residents received something in the mail in regards to the main street bond. So are there similar plans? Yeah. So that's a great question. Thank you for bringing that up. So the notification the city did to individual property or individual residents for the main street bond was really an educational piece that there was an opportunity to vote. So that postcard shared the date of the vote and share the date of the public hearing. We traditionally in the city have not done that for every election. We don't do that for town meeting day. We don't traditionally do that for the primaries or the statewide primaries of the statewide elections which are August and November elections this year. Why we did that for main street was that it was a special meeting out of calendar. So it wasn't being noticed anywhere else. The August primary will be publicly noticed through our statutory requirements as well as it's a statewide vote. So people will know that there's an election coming up. We certainly can do more if the council tells us to do so. We haven't budgeted for that but we certainly can find the money within the budget if you are interested in some kind of promotional materials. Help us in the mailing or other natural opportunities to piggyback. So we could say, assuming we send out tax bills. That's right. We could send them out with tax bills or water bills. I do have some concerns. Water bills will be going out. They went out for the special bond vote. They went out with the water bills, correct? No, we did for the main street bond vote. We did a specific resident mailing for that. How is the list curated? So it's the all residents list. All addresses in Winooski. But water bills will be going out definitely. I do have some concerns with it just either going out with a tax bill or a water bill just because there are a lot of voters and residents who would not be receiving those. That's something that a landlord is doing. I am definitely interested in having a mailing before. I think it's a big decision for the community. And one of the things that kind of like after looking in my mind a lesson learned that I wish I had brought up before the main street bond vote was that some work go into a portion of that letter being translated into a few different languages as well for folks who speak primarily other languages. Any concept on the cost of what a special notice like that would run in terms of where we could pull from reserve or not reserves, but on balance maybe? It's about $1,000 to do that kind of postcard mailing every resident. That does not include the translation. Is there an opportunity to use Community Newsletter for making outreach? The School Newsletter? So I believe Christine has. I already submitted that for July. I did mention the bond vote coming up and it was entailed in link to the project page. Great. But we'll still get another one out prior to the vote. It actually hit like right before it. Yeah. So that's good. I just want to come back to this notion of a message. And so I'm not sure what our process is going to be. For us to get on the same page about what the message to the community is about what exactly we're voting on. So what we did last time is we had a very, I think pointed and quick meeting with staff and said your job is informational, not content. So their job was to say the vote is at this time in this place and this is what you're voting on. And these are the factual components of what that is. And that's it. And we drew that line very deliberately and said, when it comes to talking about tax impact and benefits and things like that, that that was our realm from a political standpoint to carry that water. That's really, you know, and in part because, you know, and I think that's important because there's no assurances we're all going to have agreement in this case either. Right. Exactly what the narrative around this is that the city portion of it be very targeted towards factual. So that's all these activities are designed to not talk about if this, then this is the next step. It's just there's a vote. It's on the state. Yeah, I guess the only thing I would say is that when there's a community dinner or something like that, that it's obviously expected that somebody's going to be there with a pitch. You know, that somebody's going to be there making the, this is why we move this forward. Right. This is what we think about it and why we think you should support it. I mean, we're not putting things forward. We don't think people can support it. Right, but so I think just the timing, if there's going to be a community dinner, we have to have a council meeting to have this discussion before we get up and make a pitch. One of our representatives gets up and makes a pitch. Yeah. And I don't know what the timing of all that is, we only have one meeting in July. So what we had outlined here, he included this, so obviously the regular notices we do of votes, Facebook events that Paul has started to do for all elections that goes out through all of our social media channels, a standing project page that will continue using the community services meeting as kind of a community dinner and light opportunity, supporting council or whoever wants to make that pitch to do that pitch at the Winooski Wednesday in August, which will be the week right before the bond vote and assist with any other material. So we can move forward with the part, why we outlined this on this memo was to say, this is how we're going to move forward with a notification about the vote details, how you all want to politically message to fall into these buckets is up to you. But our intention would be to move forward with these dates and times and opportunities, unless otherwise directed by you all. We could have two, I mean, what we did last time is we said Christine and I would jump in on that and do that. We could just say the same thing as have two people monitor that and work with. I mean, I do think that there's a larger discussion needed quite frankly on impacts, benefits and whether or not there's a point where anybody's going to draw any lines financially, but I don't know, I agree that the time scale for that is tighter. So it seems like at a minimum, we ought to have our collective narrative down by the July 25th Community Services Commission meeting. So that our next meeting, I'd like to make sure that there's ample time on the agenda for this discussion, July 16th, is that it? Yep. And just while I appreciate your volunteering, Christine, I feel like to have two counselors who haven't expressed reservations about the project is, or this scope or whatever, that's important that there be some balance on the team of folks that's out front on this. So I appreciate it. If we're doing it too, that makes sense to me. We're going to do a special tax rate meeting. Why don't we try to add this on if we can get, is everybody comfortable with that? Sure. Is turning that meeting into maybe an extra hour instead of a 15-minute meeting? Yeah, can you send it in and do it? Because I feel like there's been ample time for probably digestion here tonight. People to think what they were doing. To be determined, there's a due to pull out. So I'll send another one around. So that one was for a 15-minute meeting. So if this is going to take longer, it may change people's availability. So I will do that just if it's next Wednesdays, it would be great to notice that by Friday. So if people can, by this coming Friday, if they can respond, it'll be great. Yeah, I think in a perfect world, if we could get together next week and do that, that that would be great. Yeah. Sorry to push everybody on a holiday. What's that? So we're talking about the 27th or the 20th. I think the other good question would be we need to dedicate some type of funds if we could have that prepared. Is there anything else from a cost perspective? We can pull some of the info from Main Street to find out exactly what that cost will look like for a postcard mail or a season of it. Yeah, our other folks on board, too, it's somebody into translation services for maybe like three of the, and we can get info from the school about the most commonly spoken non-English languages. Yeah, typically our approach there, and when we can certainly have sort of a one-liner that's more specific, we've had sort of some stock translated language that says if you need this material translated or have questions that you need translated contact and there's a fill in the blank, so it would be probably the main number here. That's kind of been at the recommendation of our partners who work with a lot of our New American community that sometimes translating the whole enchilada is actually not super helpful, but I think we could look at sort of a key phrase or line that sort of, at the very least says, this vote is happening on this day on this thing and we can generally turn those around relatively fast. And that's cost-wise we have translation funds available so that element of the cost I don't think is a big. It's a new cost. We'll put together a financial package for you. Yeah, sure. Thank you. Other questions, comments, concerns? So seeing and hearing none, that how? Any questions, comments, concerns from the public in regards to this portion? Yes ma'am. I'm getting confused. You're probably back up on another vote. Are you going to discuss things? Are you not going to have a public meeting before the vote like you did for the infrastructure thing? Yes, there are. I'm not sure you're talking about because as you know, tons of questions went back and forth through that thing. What about this? What about that? So you have to get your act together so you have answers to these. Is that what you're saying? So the decision was made. There's a proposal in the package with a couple items on there in terms of here's what we'll do to be sure that we notice the meeting and make the public aware. In addition to that, we've asked for a specific postcard to go out. The conversation that happened earlier was it would be a good idea for us to get sort of a narrative online and an understanding of exactly what we're seeing the taxpayers in regards to this issue and the council needs a little time to formulate that. I understand that, but is it really a public thing like you didn't need to? Yes, that's what's being proposed. Yes, yes. And so we're talking about a special subsequent meeting to make sure we discuss that content, ensure that they're as close to a philosophical alignment for what the foot forward that's gonna happen at those meetings looks and sounds like and then we'll work from there on doing the messaging part. And the city part, again, we keep to being informational. I mean, when I say city, I mean staff when they're doing their jobs. And just to be clear, I mean, there's some specific activities outlined in our packet. There's a July 25th Community Services Commission meeting that will be an opportunity to have a refreshments and Q and A around the, which I would view as, you know, council being there to answer questions along with members of the commission, a plan to attend the Winooski Wednesday concert event on August 1st. And then there's a public hearing on August 6th. So those are three kind of, yes. So the bond vote would be August 14th. This would be a week before the public hearing. Very similar to what we did here when we did the presentation after the public presentation that occurred over at the community center. So, yeah. So I think we're looking at a fairly similar type of activity level there. Question, any other questions? Comments, concerns from the public? Yes. Are people gonna be available to vote by mail and ballot? Yes. When is that gonna be available? It's the first week of July. First week of July. Because it's, remember, paired with the state primary. So when we get the state ballots, we'll have the local ballots ready. Okay. Just August is a vacation month for most people around there. So, okay. Thank you. It was a thing to do. If the legislature doesn't reach a budget and there is a shutdown, that's also gonna impact some of the elections division for being able to provide ballots municipalities, depending on how long that shutdown goes into effect. So it's pretty unclear if that would throw a huge wrench in a lot of plants statewide. Yeah, can we come to city hall and vote? Yes. After July 1st or whatever? As soon as they're available. Sorry? As soon as they're available. As soon as they're okay. We'll do a push when the ballots are available, but pending government shutdown, I would say after like July 10th. But we'll do a push for that. Thank you. You're welcome. Any comments, questions, concerns? Mike, this means it's not too late to get your petition together to run a, or excuse me, run a writing campaign for the legislature too. I was there for a little bit of words. All right. Oh, wow. Well, that was thinly veiled, wasn't it? Oh, it was close. I'm sorry, don't worry, there's a plot on all of this. So with that, I would entertain a motion for approval of the Myers-Pool warning for a bond vote in public caring. So moved. Second. Motion by Eric, second by Hal. Any further discussion? Second hearing none. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. And those opposed, motion carries. Thank you all. Thank you all for being here. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Item F, approval. The state auditor's internal controls checklist. Looks familiar? So Dr. Tysers was unable to be here tonight, so Angela is here to answer any questions. This, let me give the quick intro. Sure, this is the annual checklist that we fill out for the state auditor's office on our internal controls and how we operate. Jim and I met last week, went through the questions. Not a lot has changed. We haven't really changed how we operate from last year when we did this, so. Just a reminder, no's aren't necessarily bad. They just require an explanation or notation. Part of our checks and balances procedures. My questions or concerns in regard to the report. Are there any public questions, concerns, or comments in the report? So seeing and hearing none, I would entertain approval for the state auditor's internal controls checklist. So moved. Second. Eric, second by Christine for the discussion. Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. And those opposed, motion carries. Thank you, Angela. Thank you. If you want to hang around. I'll tweet it. We're also going to sing to you at the end. Mm-hmm. Item G, the website vendor selection. Civic plus contract. Hello. So we had identified, staff had identified as part of our 2017-18 policies and priorities and strategies meeting, implementing a new website as one of our priorities for moving forward this year to help create self-safe, healthy, connected community. As we move into the last stage of completing our marketing and branding project, we've been concurrently moving forward in our efforts to look for a new website vendor. Staff issued a request for proposals for website development, design and implementation in late March and the city received 12 proposals in response to that RFP. We set up an internal selection team that was led by Paul Sarnar, communications coordinator who knows a lot more about website design than I do and I would venture any of us do. Also, that team included city manager, myself and the community services director. The team was unanimous in selecting Civic plus as the website vendor of our choice. Civic plus specializes in local government websites and services over 2,500 municipal clients. In addition, Civic plus offers functions such as recreation program and facility rental management software and public meeting agenda and minute modules with length reference materials. So there were a bunch of different benefits to this vendor which I've included in your packet. The Civic plus website one-time buildout costs will be $15,966. The annual service fee for hosting, maintenance, support and enhancements is $5,000 per year. The Civic plus pricing structure allows the city to redistribute those upfront buildout costs across the first three years of our contract with them and we had established as part of our FY19 CDC budget, $10,000 specifically for the buildout of the new website. So that pretty much exactly meets what we're looking at here with the Civic plus program. In addition, community services is using two separate platforms right now for their recreation and their volunteer software, MyRec and Volgistics. This is to manage their recreation registrations, their thrive registrations, facility reservations and volunteer management. MyRec presently costs $3,535 annually and Volgistics is about $500 for 12 months. Civic Rec would entail a one-time buildout cost of $7,500 which would include the annual service fees for the first year followed by a 4,500 annual service fee moving forward. The community services department would plan to absorb the additional annual cost of $473 for year two and beyond through their existing operating budget. However, they'd like to request one-time use of department reserves to cover the difference between the currently budgeted annual expenses for MyRec and Volgistics and the one-time buildout expense, a request for use of $3,473 in departmental reserves. So I have everything here in basically a layout of what the first, second and third year costs would be. In terms of the timeline and next steps, we need to execute the contract by June 20th which is two days from now. Although I have a sneaking suspicion they would extend that for us if we needed it. We don't have a timeline for the full buildout of the website yet. That's something that will be determined in the project kickoff meeting to be held within the next few weeks after we've signed the contract. We can move back six times. Happy to take any questions and I have to admit that my knowledge of website buildout is limited so make them nice questions. But I do think it's important to note that Paul, this is really Paul Sarge's work. And he is not here tonight, not because he did not want to present this to you but he is at the National Governors Communications Professionals Conference. National Association of Government Communications Professionals. Nice. Learning more. Learn this, speak the government, speak. Okay. You know, just one addition in there, I'm assuming we're not gonna have a whole lot of philosophical influence on the direction this takes as you try to build a very functional website is I think this is a really key accessibility tool. A lot of people, this is the first thing of the city they're gonna approach. It's as lovely and amazing as the humans that work here are. They're just people who are always gonna prefer to do things this way. And I think increasingly there's gonna be the strain as we talked about in our strategic planning meeting to ensure that it's accessible to as many of our members of the public from a language perspective and accessibility perspective is humanly possible. So, you know, that I'm sure will be part of the project scope and they'll make a, but you know, I think that was heard pretty loud and clear in terms of our last conversations, making sure it serves as many in the community as it can. In that vein, as you were looking through the proposals, does the Civic Plus have ADA compliance mechanism so that they felt they wanted to test it? It was written as part of our RFP as well. Any other questions, comments, thoughts from Councilor? I think this is exciting, yeah. Any questions? Questions, comments, concerns from the public? Are you gonna ask us about the reserves specifically? Yes, we do need an approval for the request of use of $3,473 of community services reserves. I think that Angela would love that in the motion. Actually, I'll say Janet would love that in the motion. So whoever makes that motion, should that be the direction that Council, please be sure to include that, including a one-time bill that expends from reserves at that number, please. And so with that queued up, I would entertain a motion for approval of the website vendor selections of the Plus contract. I can motion by Eric, second by Hal and you for the discussion. Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. And those opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. So we actually need to get it ready. Oh, we don't need your approval for the contract, but we will take it. What we really need is your approval for the use of reserves. So we're now gonna do a secondary approval on this item this evening. Could I please, I would entertain a motion in regards to use of reserves for the website bill out. I move that we authorize the use of $3,473 and departmental reserves for the one-time cost of website bill out. Second. Motion. Do I need to say a table? No, no, no, no, it's perfect. I'm just laughing, because one side of the table really messed us up, guys. I gotta leave it to the wizard. Motion by Nicole, second by Christine. Do you need for the discussion? Seeing and hearing on all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. And those opposed? Motion carries. Thank you. Hello, let's give an assist, because we have a civic teacher super-starter there. Do you mind helping? Thank you, thanks, sir. I want to do it over time. We have pins for the civic participation side. Okay, business item H, approval. Main street revitalization, better utilization, investments, leveraged development. And an acronym that only the federal government can build. So just as a little bit of place-setting for the next two items, actually both the next two are both about the Main Street Revitalization Project. One of the advantages of going through a preliminary engineering process, as we did over the last nine months for that effort, is that we are now more eligible for grant funding moving forward. So we're trying to identify every possible source and apply for those to reduce any tax impact for Main Street. So we are requesting an apply for the build grant, the acronym as a better utilizing investments to leverage development. They're trying to get the build out of this email. So we are requesting to put an application to a full project amount. We may have to pull out some of the water scope, but that would lead us, that's still $18 million that we'd be applying for. The grant is an 80-20 split, so local match we've been required to provide 20% local on that. There also would be a $20,000 approximately cost to do the application with a consultant, mainly to do a benefit cost analysis for the project application. Go ahead. So I think it's worth noting, this is a federal US Department of Transportation grant, formerly TIGER grants that now have been renamed under this administration, and much more highly funded than in past years they've tripled the funding to these projects. So while these are very competitive federal grants, we are as shovel-ready as you can get going into an application for this. So we believe we are highly competitive. This would be an application concurrent to the USDA application. This is a much larger subsidy than that would be, so it would significantly lower the tax rate. I'm gonna start this, but feel free to jump in. One of the big implications of applying for this and why we wanted to highlight it for you is that it's due the middle of July, so we needed your permission to apply before we did that. We will hear, there are several stages through the process where we will hear if we're eliminated and can make a decision based on that. We will not know if we are awarded these funds until December. So it potentially changes the timeline for making a decision about Main Street. Having said that, because it's such a significant subsidy to the project, we felt like we needed to bring it to you all as an option. TIGER grants are awesome. I mean, they make things happen that otherwise a witness shouldn't. So the most comparable project we have probably on our scope of mileage is Concord, New Hampshire in terms of their redevelopment. It's the exact same price tag as our Main Street redevelopment. And this was a massive, massive windfall for them. And a project that had limped along for like eight years in planning stages that was a huge waste of money that then came through because of TIGER. So great opportunity, I appreciate you finding it. Questions, concerns, comments? I think, I just want to verbalize, I think we need to go back after this conversation now that we've got that bond vote going on. And I think we need to do a choose your own venture type bubble map here where we talk about the different stops on all of both these projects funding. So we had a clear picture of that and had that as a visualization as best as we can. So we'll talk about that and work on that. I just want to say that as an on our to-do list. Do you have thoughts about how this impacts the go-no-go date on Main Street? Or what are you saying we need to discuss further? I think really it's going to put us in a place where at the end of August, where we had thought we would have that finalized funding package. We're probably still going to be in a, well theoretically we need to make a decision if we're going to move forward with the funding package we will have, but for this. Unless there's something really cool that comes out between now and then. I mean, in seriousness though, we should have everything else on the table except for knowing whether this works or not. Okay. I think it's also important to remember that, you know, that list we gave you a couple, maybe two meetings ago with all the next steps associated with Main Street. There are a lot of decision points in that including local options tax and potential ordinance changes and housing data and whatnot. I don't think you're going to get through all of that and make a go-no-go decision in one or two meetings. So I think this is kind of a, that's choose your own adventure decision chart. I think there are pieces of that we can decide and move forward according to the timeline regardless of whether we retain the right to wait for these funds to know how we're actually going to move forward. Does that make sense? Questions, concerns? Any questions, comments, concerns from the public? You're not explicitly asking for any opposition? So, no, we just need your approval to submit the grant application. Yeah, I guess the other thing I'll just say really is sometimes there's technical assistance grants out there for these federal applications that you can also write a grant for. So if you feel like doing that in a few days. Okay, so with that I would entertain a motion for approval of the Main Street Revitalization Bill Grant. I'll say a memorandum in the next steps. So moved. Motion by Christine, seconded by Eric. Any further discussion? Second hearing none. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. And those opposed, motion carries. Item aye, approval Main Street Revitalization B-Trans 2018 Bicycle and Pedestrian Grant. So this is similar to the previous grant. We're basically trying to pile on to the grants that we're planning for with USDA and through the SRF loans. This is another one where we met with V-Trans. We kind of talked about the project and walked in with them and they thought this was applicable for this grant. So typically these grants, usually up to a million dollars. So we're looking to max out, this would be for sidewalk improvements, potentially the payment for the uphill climbing bike lane. And again, this would be really to help that general fund piece where the weapon, the USDA are really helping us out with the grant. We're trying to find more money on the general fund side. So this application is to be submitted Friday. We're gonna get that together if you guys prove it. And just another one to consider as we start looking at these decisions. Great. Questions, concerns, comments? Any questions, concerns, comments from the public? Okay, so sitting here, I'm gonna entertain a motion for approval of the Main Street Advisor B-Trans 2018 Bicycle and Pedestrian Grant. So I move. Motion by House, second by Nicole. Any further discussion? So you can hear me now, I'll also be able to say aye. Aye. And those opposed? Motion carries. Can we take it to a minute break, please? I'm sorry? Can we take it to a minute break, please? Oh, yes. Thank you. So we'll reconvene at 7.54. We're gonna have a long break. As you know, I'm Jay, which is special around the Promise Commies update and library plan. All right, so last meeting, I believe, or May, I guess it was, we had come back to you and said we were gonna make the decision and recommend the decision to move away from pursuit of an early childhood childcare operator at the O'Brien Center, I think given some of the challenges we saw through that process, we felt like at this time in that site, the stars were not aligning. So with that, we have a significant grant that we are still trying to leverage towards the betterment of our early childhood efforts in the city and wanted to come back to you with an alternative proposal and plan. So the committee, Wellnowski Committee, which is sort of the Promise Community Steering Committee has been working hard on coming up with an alternative proposal, which you have in front of you tonight, at least in a preliminary state. So as you look at this proposal tonight, what at a high level we're proposing to do is relocate the Wellnowski Public Library from its current site to a different site within the O'Brien Community Center for a few reasons. Number one, I think it'll give us, it'll give us objectively some more square footage to play with and I think for anyone who's been in the library there, it's fair to say they are doing a lot with not a lot of space. It presents an opportunity for a more segmented space. So again, being one continuous rectangle makes it challenging when you have different types of patrons that you're trying to serve. And I think it also does some interesting things to the building and then it starts to open that building up to the neighborhood in ways that it hasn't traditionally by having a backdoor kind of opening towards the basketball court there. And the other piece that we're thinking we would do is to try to reposition the current library footprint as our new community room. There's a lot of benefits to that. Number one, that's about twice as big as our current space. So anyone who's been at a really crowded community dinner, I think can attest that our current setup is not quite accommodating our community's desire to gather and participate, which is a great problem to have. The other nice thing just operationally is that having a community room that is segmented from the rest of the building, which is what that would present, makes it a much more functional space for public use during off hours. One of the challenges right now is that if you wanna have your event on the night or weekend timeframe, you get a key to the building and have kind of the run of the place, which includes a number of privately leased spaces. So this would allow us to deal with what's been an operational challenge at points. So looking at this proposal tonight, certainly we tried our best to tie it back to a lot of the objectives of the Promise Communities Initiative, grounded in the strengthening families kind of model. And I think you can also draw some pretty clear straight lines back to the vision statement here and a lot of the pieces that have been discussed, Hal mentioned earlier at the commission level as well, just about the library's need from some additional supports. So within that public library through the Promise Communities Grant, we're proposing to stand up in Early Childhood Resource Hub, which would allow a place for increased programming, interaction with clinicians. That's something you see a lot of need for in the community and also then just general resources for literacy materials, play materials, parenting education materials. So we think it's a really innovative way to solve a number of issues potentially with this move. So really tonight, what we're hoping for is to discuss just from a conceptual standpoint where council's at, if there's a desire to see us kind of take this to the next level and do some further refinement. We've tried to do kind of at a high level a pretty good job of that, but certainly there's some more details to iron out here. So we just want to make sure we're not barking completely up the wrong tree before we start moving down a path of exploring other funding opportunities and kind of taking things along with design. That's the context. And you all got a lengthy memo, which I tried my best to keep not too lengthy, but there's a lot to kind of share there. So I'm gonna stop there. So you've got the pool of money. And the grantors have expressed what, in terms of flexibility of particular use, they've reflected positively on the community hub model. And was there any specific feedback from the concept of flowing it through the library or has that discussion taken place? No, yep. So we had a phone call with them and unfortunately, Kirstie's not here this evening. We did have a phone call with them whereby their basic concern is that we're not using that funding for pieces that are not specifically supporting the early childhood efforts. So long as we can show them that there's a significant amount of a piece that we're paying for with that grant money that benefits families and little ones, then we're good. So with that said, there's gonna be a need to do some legwork to find additional resources for the non-early childhood sections of the library move, which is again, sort of, if there's an interest in the concept, a lot of the work that would need to then happen over the next month or so for us staff-wise to look at what resources do we have within budgets that exist, what grants are out there, what other ways are there to sort of support a project like this? So library science is going into the field of library. It's interesting to me, I'm sure you've listed Gainesville and some other places where this kind of balance has been struck. It's interesting that there's, because it's almost, I don't know, I hate the blanket of social work, but it's asking librarians to engage in what is not to play thought of being within the field. Yeah. I think very much that is the direction that things are going. As we did research on kind of building out this model, there are countless examples, coast to coast of situations where folks are actually, in some cases, employing, larger libraries actually employing counselors and social workers through the library to support varying needs and issues, drug addiction being one, homelessness being another, that were kind of more prevalent recently. San Jose has a great example. They've got, I think, two or three social workers on staff who are dealing with a homelessness issue there. So, I agree that it is not sort of the traditional role that librarians have played, but I think more and more it is what we are seeing them being asked to do. And so, I think this does sort of bring in some of the resources to help them do that more easily. And I think to just add to that, I think one of the things you're seeing in libraries now is that there are places of things and resources, not just books. So, this fits in with that model of bringing the resources to the community where they're used to going for resources, but are expanding the definition of resources. So, it's not just the picture book for your four-year-old, but it's a nutritional resource and potentially a social worker and other things that we can package together to support. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, at that last point I see that more as the resource being a connective hub to those resources rather than asking staff to all of a sudden become those resources. Correct. And I'm not weighing in one way or another on the specific proposal, but I think across community services and this idea of using this Promise Community Grants funding is that we're not then asking community services staff to be childcare providers. The mission is still to provide programs for children. But we can't start mission creeping into it. Right. I think we very much become the conduit to get people to those resources, but provided by professionals who are trained to do that. And I think I would say we are doing that now, even in our current setup. Will the librarians be taking on the role of scheduling and managing use of that space? That's the hope. That would be an additional, that would be what the work looks like rather than delivery of direct service, but there is some managerial function that would need to occur. Of public spaces. Of the space. Correct, correct. But, and part of this model is that Ray's team would be co-located there. So for example, Kersti, as the child of the family program manager, she might have a role in scheduling some of that time. So it's not that that would just solely fall to the librarians. The whole community services team would be seen as part of a team to support that space and that hub, that resource hub. So when I was reading Drew this, it sounded to me like this change would improve the financial situation at O'Brien. Did I misread that? I'm not clear how that would happen. So there's a slight increase to the deficit on the spaces in question. It ended up being about $6,000 year to year and fiscal year 19. Looking at what, if the spaces were completely full as we projected in the current iteration, so we lease out the vacant spaces to new tenants, charging the rate we're expecting to charge, library stays put, community room stays put, versus this shift where we move things around. So it ends up being about a $6,000 additional burden on the community center budget. With that said, it doesn't fundamentally change the point at which the curve goes from red to black on the building. So we have presented that back in, I want to say March to you all looking out sort of fiscal year 18, 19, 20, 21 into the future and sort of what that budget is going to do if we can get to full tenancy. That additional $6,000 doesn't change the fiscal year when we get from red to black. It would still be fiscal year 20. It's just going to be $6,000 less of a curve, if you will, over the time. So that was definitely one of the pieces we looked at pretty hard because again, believe me, I know well the challenges of the finances of that building and I'm not trying to pile on there, but I think for a relatively small difference, we can make some significant operational improvements that I think will help functionally. And again, it doesn't fundamentally change the picture of that budget in a huge way. It does change it. Yeah, do you have any thoughts about the viability of renting the space? Do you see any difference there? Like would this help that? Or it's probably still the same scenario. It's, well, I think the advantage of the shift that we're proposing is that a couple things can happen. Number one is there's a tenant within the building who has expressed some interest in additional square footage. If we can package the kitchen space and the current community room together, that conjoins with that tenant and would give them the square footage that they need so we may have a ready tenant for those vacant spaces already, which we don't presently have. If that doesn't work out, I think the other thing we've heard pretty consistently through the kitchen rental process is that having a kitchen with no commercial space or no retail space is challenging. It really limits the type of renter that you could find. So I think if the internal tenant doesn't have a desire to expand after all or that doesn't work out, I think packaging the current community room together with the community kitchen creates a more rentable space, frankly, because you've got then a sort of storefront that that kitchen can be supporting. And then I think by having a larger community room that's in better shape, more functional, I do think there's potential there to see that space more actively used. I'm remembering Raghu making a comment at a meeting about the desire for larger gathering spaces. I think we certainly see that that our community room at times just doesn't accommodate larger community functions that I think are out there. So I think overall the finances, I think it's an easier path forward to get to full tenancy through this. With that said, could we change our approach and get those spaces rented more quickly? Maybe. It becomes a little bit of a waiting game. The teen center space, I will say, is not an easy space to rent. It is fairly rough, I think, for a non-civic kind of use. I think there'd be a lot of work that would have to go into it and not be a deterrent. Thanks for those details. Yeah. I think for me, the concept here makes sense. We discussed this before about just like getting more hub action there. Yeah. And we already have the health office down there. I can't remember the entity that that is affiliated with. Community health centers? Yes, exactly. So like there's some natural, it makes sense. Okay. So where are we at? Cause I know that even separate from this, it's another discussion that I know has been ongoing, but with the O'Brien Community Center in general, where discussions have with like security and especially let's say social workers are meeting with individuals there. You know, are we planning panic funds, things like that for staff now, and then if this were to be the case. So it's actually, it's a great question. So we actually are in the process right now working with PD to coordinate panic buttons for the library staff. That's something that's come up as a concern, especially in recent months, we've had a couple of incidences that have been somewhat troubling there. So we are working with Rick to kind of get a system in place that works. There is one that the community outreach team from Howard had been using, and unfortunately they were having some functional challenges with it. You know, you push the button and two hours later, somebody would show up, which is not really how that's supposed to work. So we're looking at a couple of different vendors to try to get that solved. And that would just be a little kind of handheld button. And it's actually something Amanda and I have discussed at points in the past as well, but I think recent incidences have kind of raised that up for us. So I think either way, that's something that's on our radar in a fairly short-term manner. You know, building security is an interesting question. I think it does, to my mind, and I think we've seen this play out, the more positive traffic and activity in a space tends to deter challenging behavior. I'm in no way gonna tell you that we're gonna have people, you know, suddenly no more rocks will ever be thrown on the property or any of those kinds of things. But I do think having more people through the space using it in a positive way, it helps. So I do think by having the library anchoring this, which is a very busy space, will be a good thing. And again, with the community room, one of the other challenges we've seen is because of the way the building's set up. Anybody on the weekend using that space, if for whatever reason the door's propped open or they don't pull it tight, that whole building is wide open and we've definitely had challenges with that. So I do think this helps in the off hours mitigate a security concern. So, oh, that's actually, thank you for that. So the other thing, really exciting development. So we've been working with the school resource officer actually who is gonna be based at the community center for the summer months. So in the past, that position, after the school year winds down has been based out of the PD office here. But Jason Zeider is gonna actually have a desk down there and that's gonna be his home base during the summer months, which is I think a really good thing. He's been phenomenal with the kids, had a really good rapport and so that's another sort of approach that we're developing to see how that works this summer. Thank you for reminding me. That's great, yeah, for really good things. Yeah, thanks. Yeah. I remain really concerned about the marketability of the remaining spaces afterwards and if we're doing anything that deters those. I mean, I've heard some of those explanations and that's, but we're, I think we've expressed enough times that the financing, the finance, the financials with the building are troubling and this is gonna have to be a conversation that's gonna probably take us looking outside of the footprint of the existing structures to solve in terms of use of the property and the traditional revenue, but in the meantime, I think maximizing that is really a key. From a service delivery standpoint, it's good to see the funds used and turning them back would have been really painful. I just wanna make sure that this is really something that the department's bought into from a philosophical delivery perspective and isn't just a convenience of funds being available. No, it's a really valid question and I'll give an example as sort of that happened recently. So Asher who'd done some initial studies in the building came up and he's my architect of choice when I need a design brand to kind of pick. So I was talking to him a little bit about the idea and the concept and I think it's fair to say initially he had some reservations about it, in particular, you know, store frontage for libraries being an important piece. So I talked to him for a little bit before bringing Amanda and LC from the library into the conversation and in about 10 minutes of spending time with them, he was like, yep, this makes sense. He's like, the operational things I'm hearing you talk about that this would solve resolve a lot of things. And I also think as a department, I think I can speak for the group. There's a real desire to get more cohesive. It's hard, we're scattered to the wind and I think as much as we try, staying in touch, communicating, sharing resources, it's not always happening to the degree that it could. So I think there's operational efficiency here that comes with co-location. That would be a much improved service for residents overall. Instead of having to run there to sign up for something to the school to sign up for something to here to sign up for something, you've got one stop shop where you can do all your service needs in one place. But for the senior center, which will remain. But just in the course of doing that, we just have to be very straight forward and blunt about it. We are taking leasable square footage and converting it into operational square footage. And that's a decision in approving this that we're doing and on a building that's not cash flowing properly. So that's, I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I think the benefit's great for the community. I just think it's important that we look at it like that because it's a reality we'll deal with when the budget comes. Yeah. And I think the proximity of the change to what the current situation is was where my comfort level was. I think if I'd done the budget modeling and it was gonna add another 30 grand a year of deficit, we wouldn't be having this conversation. But it's close enough that it warranted in my mind some exploration because I do think the operational benefits for $6,000 extra dollars are dramatic. I know, heard and understood for sure. Yeah. And I guess I weigh that with the benefit that this will provide to some of our most vulnerable citizens in terms of accessing services and support, which I think will have a lasting impact on our community. So it's, you know. So I also have concerns about the status of the center and the appreciate the thought that's gone into this and the sort of, if all the pieces come together and it fall into place, then I think it could do a lot for that center and for the overall health and sort of wellbeing of that facility in terms of it being a community center versus we've rented it to sort of a ragtag group of tenants. So I think the vision of that center is that it is this type of a resource hub and we've been caught in this perpetual sort of spiral around this building that it's not financially sustainable. So we run the risk of losing the whole thing entirely if we don't figure the pieces out. And so I guess, I think it's time that we, I mean, we still don't have leases for the SNAP fitness side signed. That's been a very lengthy process that we're losing revenue on an entire half of the building that's not even included in this and these numbers. You know, I think if it's the case that combining the community room space with the kitchen makes it more marketable from a tenancy standpoint and that's great. And I'd like to see us put some focused energy on testing that theory and because I'm hesitant to add more burden to the building without some demonstrative signals that SNAP fitness and UVM is gonna close and we're gonna be able to make a move on the kitchen and the community room because we haven't, we've just sort of been in this holding pattern on those vacant and so the budget, yes, the budgets you've given us paint a picture but they assume a reality that hasn't come to pass. Correct. So we need to make that reality come to pass, I think. And so what I mean, this is a discussion item. We're gonna have to, I guess give you a signal or a sense of whether or not we think you should put some more energy into figuring out how to make the financing of it work. I'd also like as part of that report back to be sort of what's the status of SNAP and UVM? What's the status of options for the other side? So that's one piece. The other piece is on the operation side, I wanna be really careful that we're not gonna be back around budget time saying we need to know the position for the library or we need to sort of add staff so that we can really make this work. So it's different to move from concept and idea and I'm already doing this as part of my job but once you have a forum for people to actually go to and yes, this is where I expect I'm gonna have a need met that puts pressure on the staffing model. So I think we need to just make clear what our expectation is in terms of this transition that it isn't gonna lead to an expansion of service delivery from coming from the city but it's a allocation of city space to external partners. And then the last question I have is how are we going to spend $118,000 on early childhood specific investments in this? So within the memo. Yeah. So I see those at the bottom of page, what, three? Yeah, the second and last page at the top. So these are items that were sort of discussed at a high level with the funder relating to improvements to the facility. So that would be adding of windows for natural lighting, updating some of the public meeting space within the library in particular to support meetings with case managers, social workers, supervised visitation, which is all stuff we're seeing now happening in really open public space which is not appropriate. Some work to potentially open up the floor plan or shift the floor plan. That's depending on the head nods tonight and which direction they're going. That's work we would commence tomorrow with an architect to look at design elements. Looking at some movable partitions. So that would allow for some flexible space whereby portions of the facility could be used for play groups, larger family meetings, parent education classes, but then also open for general public use when that's not happening. Sort of really looking at flexibility of the space, making some improvements ideally to the bathroom facilities. Those are not currently great. And I can say this firsthand as still a diaper changer for anybody with little ones. It's not an ideal setting. We've also looked at the need for some better shelving and furniture for little ones right now. We're making do, but that's definitely an area where I think some sort of less permanent fixtures and improvements could be beneficial. And then also really interested dependent on how the costing goes with these other pieces looking at an outdoor play structure. That's actually something that Funder was very interested in. That side of town is really lacking for any sort of play structure for that age group. So looking at the possibility of using some of the outdoor space in the back of the building to add that in for sort of zero to three, zero to five, that younger crowd. I feel like we had a conversation that's about the Landry playground and it's definitely geared for an older child. And as someone with a small one can be a little bit high octane when you've got a toddler waddling around high up in here. So. Thank you. Yeah. Again, I would just be concerned that there not be an expectation that staff's going to be providing supervision out on the playground, you know. And I just think we need to be clear about what the role is that the city's taking on through this. And we could certainly I think bring some more detailed pieces around staffing back next time if that would be helpful. So right now when we read this we're seeing expansion of services, better, more efficient uses and we're not adding any operational expenses and costs other than the foregoing of the $6,000 or $100. So I think just to summarize that it would be disappointing to get back to December and be like, we need another $75,000 for another human to really make this go. But I'm hearing that because of those pooled resources being together, maybe that efficiency creates. Other questions, comments, concerns or most importantly, I think things that we want to see brought that. I mean, I just echo that. I mean, I think I would like to hear if there's any potential holes upcoming in the financing of the entire place. I think that that would be, that would be good. I know you've got the cool little spreadsheet with all the leases on there and everything. So I think that would be, that'd be great just to see those or at least have it handy from an operational perspective. If there's any other big expiring leases that we need to have huge, have on our radar. Other questions, comments, concerns or desires and there's still time to email Ray. I guess that's just me too, if something pops in your minds. Any questions, concerns, comments from the public? Okay, thank you Ray. And I mean, we bet the ideas but we appreciate you guys continuing to work through options, opportunities and try to think outside the box and we don't mean to make it sound belated or appreciate all the thinking. Great questions. I know that, yeah. Appreciate it. And item K, approval of the 2018-19 policy priority strategies. So this is the work coming out of our June 2nd retreat. So you have a very brief cover memo from us, from myself and the leadership team on the reporting structure, the discussion we had around moving the economic vitality language to the planning commission for discussion during the master planning process and then a series of mic run items and then an amended set of policy priorities and strategies based on our conversations. So if you don't mind, I'll just highlight the major things that changed from what we presented on June 2nd and the discussion on June 2nd. So we amended the, so we, this is arranged around the four strategic vision areas. We had put all category at the top. We amended that all category not just to include the master plan, but to include our discussion on the realignment of commissions to reflect the strategic vision areas and the customer service perspective of get to yes. There was some conversation about concern that that was very development targeted and it's really how we as a city provide our customer service. We wanted to broaden that. I'm just going to run through these. Stop me if you want to talk about any of them individually. On the economic vitality strategic vision area, the box, the strategies box that starts promote businesses and employment retention and expansion. We flesh that out a bit more based on the conversation we had in the room around looking at the parcel data analysis, how we can use city resources to promote, to create opportunities for locally owned business startups and expansions both from a employment perspective and a workforce perspective. And then consider the impact of those promotion and retention efforts on the city wide financial sustainability. So we tried to capture that and the intent of that conversation, but if we haven't captured it well, we of course welcome feedback tonight. The other things I wanted to highlight were on the housing strategic vision area. Again, the first box there, we tried to be more articulate about what we were actually going to do to support the housing commission and planning commission. Again, that parcel data analysis, establishing the targets, the programs to look to incentivize those targets and then updating form-based code. And then the other big change we made was in the safe, healthy and connected people strategic vision area. We had this great conversation on June 2nd around the strength of our diversity and how we're connected to one another and how we are being inclusive. So we separated out the work that staff will do around programming and the work that the council articulated wanting to do around elected and appointed officials. So I'm hopeful that we've captured the conversation, but if you have any edits or suggestions you would like to make to this document tonight, we certainly can do that or we can take feedback tonight and provide you a final draft for adoption at our tax rate impact meeting. That was really fast, sorry. No, it's okay. Because it's a pretty comprehensive document. I just want to give the reflection that I think walking on that meeting what I thought quite a bit about is that we have this strategic vision here and we actually spent more time instead of telling, I think there was widespread acceptance because we moved the conversation pretty quickly about not what people were working on and the focuses of that work about how they were doing it. And I would actually like to see us come back and think about adding, oh boy, this word is gonna give me, exclusivity, you guys gotta state that to that, to pass back to commissions and to not just say this is what we want you working on but in a way this is how we'd like you to work on it. This reflective of, I thought, you know, a lot of the really interesting thoughts that came out about, or concerns about legitimately whether or not people were being properly represented to put back into people's mind because I know I left that meeting thinking a lot about my responsibility, not just looking back at staff and saying, hey, who'd you guys talk to about this? But who did I talk to about this? As somebody who's supposed to be representing the community and being sure that we're kind of, we're reminding everybody of that when they go to those chairs and seats that they're not just there to represent their own perspective and interests. So I think for my, I just walked away as a major work item here that we could add to that. I don't think there's any thoughts on that concept. I think we could draft something, you know, one or two people could work on drafting something pretty easily. Sorry, I just wanted to throw that out there before getting to any of these specifics. Just because when I read this document, that's what I thought about. So you think what's under safe, healthy and connected people, like we would need a whole new domain area or a goal area or we might wanna, I don't guess. It's almost like, well, so we're passing this back to committees and commissions to work on these issues. What we talked about was not what we wanted them to work on, we talked about how we wanted them to work on and how we wanted those perspectives brought to the table. We haven't actually given them that direction in any way, shape, or form. So I'm wondering if that looks like, you know, one of the other things we talked about is as we realign the commission structure, providing more structured guidance to them about the work. So Vermont opening laws is an obvious example. We should be giving that to everyone who's appointed. We should be giving them your ethics policy that we adopt every year that should guide their work. I see this almost as an inclusivity value policy that we adopt as a community that says in each of our individual roles, whether it's a staff role or an elected role or an appointed role, these are the values we bring to that professionalism. And if we adopt that as a policy that's then provided to them as they're appointed, this is our expectation of how you're going to do the work. It's not necessarily changing our vision statement, it's more saying these are the guiding principles, open meeting law, ethics, inclusivity that we expect you to bring to the table when you do the work. And I see that it's becoming the lens of how they do the work. Yeah. I don't know if that was your intention but that's how I heard. It was really supposed to be an indendum to this or a preamble, one or the other. I don't know, there's part of me that was like maybe we have each person sign that pack, that recognition as an exercise to talk about. I mean, that's down the road, but just that thought popped into my head from the content of the conversation discussion that I think you guys did the best you could to work that into this document, but if we missed an opportunity to really address that, I don't want to, you know, because that was really a lot of our conversation that day. Yeah, I mean, I think what I would, I like that use of a framework to incorporate that value through a policy or whatever the specific vehicle is. And I think part of what we talked about was counsel having the benefit of some training. And so I'd like to seek the advice of the professional in terms of what's the best way to, you know, really infuse these values throughout this organization and is it through a policy statement and then if so, then what, right? Because the risk you run is, words on a page don't actually get translated into action. So I think to me, that's the more, the really interesting conversation is on how do you support people so that they go outside their comfort zone and seek input from people that don't. Look like them, look near where they are, et cetera. So I think it's like a, really good idea and I'd like to get some guidance about the best way to have it really be meaningful. And that's something how am I? Yes. Great that we would come back to the group with some ideas for folks that do that work with us. So maybe we'll just hit pause on that and let you guys have your conversation and when you're ready to talk about it again. Sure. So we'll turn back towards the document. Is there any big glaring holes, any big misses, any wording that folks? I think for me, the bigger, the language around under economic vitality, consider how, consider how, consider R. I'm not sure what that, what it means to consider. So, are we saying that we want to prioritize city, I mean, there's no direction necessarily there in terms of should we be using city resources to create opportunities for local and own businesses? It just seems more like, do we do that or not, but not an objective. I will, not that you pointed out the words consider, yeah. We could, yeah. So I guess how I was intending them and Heather if you have different suggestions to jump in was you have set a goal for us so now we need to develop a recommendation for you of how to do this. So when I say consider how, what I mean is put together the recommendation of how we do this. So maybe it's just recommend how we use city resources to consider, okay. And I would actually skip the recommend piece. Let's presume that we're gonna go through the process of you guys considering it, giving us a proposal, discussing a proposal and getting to an ends and we're gonna do the thing. We're gonna use city resources to create opportunities for local businesses. It's for an application for a job. I tell somebody, let's use some active verbs, like manage, execute, but I mean, right. So use city resources to create employment, opportunities for residents, expand available goods and services for residents versus consider. Yeah, we were actively trying not to be that strong because we don't know what that looks like yet. So we were trying not to box you into a, you have to approve this recommendation that comes forward but we are going to give you some options of how you can do that. But if you would like it to be strong, we certainly can make it strong. Well, I think with those particular ones, they're all pretty consistent things that we've said are good and that we're striving towards. So I don't think as an ideal that there's anything controversial there because it almost sounds like we're saying, we're gonna consider whether or not we're gonna use resources to create employment opportunities. That was not my intention. No, I understand. The board's my thing. Well, and again, I just think that the value of this document is that we're really clear with one another about what is intended. So that's why I asked what it meant. I'm happy to use strong language, given that it is an annual document that we revisit. And if it turns out that the recommendations are totally unworkable or foreclose other options, we can change. Other concerns, comments, submissions, additions? I think by and large, you did a wonderful job. Obviously, you guys did a great job before the meeting, after the meeting, during the meeting, but this is great. I think it's extremely helpful and reflective of an agreement we have about what type of work is being done. Any questions, concerns, comments from the public? Seeing and hearing none, this is on as a discussion approval item. So I will open it up for, we'll discuss it today. You wanna discuss it? Well, actually, we gave you some amendments, so we'll leave it at discussion and hold on for approval. Can I put it on the tax rate meeting? Consent internet. And if people see stuff on there from a word perspective, could we just put an addendum in there that there's gonna be a follow-up conversation on the net word that I used earlier that you guys helped me with? My notes have in the focus on the strength of Winooski's diversity connectedness for you all, elected and appointed officials, implement an inclusivity statement, and how we decide to do that. We can decide. Perfect. And if you have other wordsmithing things, we do want this to be clear, so please feel free to email them to me between now and Friday as well. Thank you, thanks for all the work on that. Item L, approval, municipal bond post issuance compliance procedures. This is where the stuff really happens. So you have a document, the post issuance compliance procedures. This is actually presented to us by our bond council, Tom alone. He recommended that we adopt these procedures as a method for tracking the compliance with federal laws for tax-exempt debt. This is something that the Vermont Municipal Bond Bank likes to see adopted by communities that have met with them. It is something that we would need to maintain over time as laws change, but is highly recommended that we approve it. It would be included in the bond documents if we do. And considering we are finalizing our headworks bond documents and considering Main Street and the pool, we thought it was important to have these in place. The federal funder, I cannot agree more. Any questions, concerns in regards to the document? I'm assuming these are been vetted by bond council. Bond council, et cetera, yeah. And there will be certifications that they will sign over and over again during the federal signing process as the various components of impart this policy are in place. Mm-hmm. And bond council will alert us when the procedures need to be updated if the law changes or is that something you all take responsibility? Angela? I guess not my mom. Yeah. Whoever we appoint compliance officer, I'm gonna guess it might be me, but yeah. Yeah, thanks for your work. Questions, concerns, comments in regards to the postpon issuance compliance procedures? Any questions, concerns from the public? Seeing and hearing none, I entertain a motion for approval of the municipal postpon issuance compliance procedures. So moved. Second. Motion by Nicole, second by Christine. Further discussion? Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye, those opposed? Motion carries. Thank you, Angela. It should be noted that Thomas Maloney, I think is new to Paul Franken-Collins, our bond council, and we have been working with him fairly closely over the last six months, and he is fantastic in giving us really great guidance. We are very fortunate. That's awesome. Great. You should watch the videos. They say the nice things like that about you guys all the time. Yeah. Item M, approval, debt service coverage ratio amendment. So this is a change to the 2014 bond bank purchase agreement with TD for the TIF debt. So there was a financial covenant that was approved in the original document that was very complex. And we've been going back and forth for a number of years since the inception about how to calculate it because the bank can't calculate it out of our financial statements. Some of these numbers don't exist in the way that our financial statements are presented. And in addition, with the way that the current language is set up, we are unable to use money that we have set aside in prior years to pay down our debt because it runs on net operating. So revenues minus expenses, if that's ever negative, we don't meet the one-to-one ratio under the current definition. We've talked to the bank and they agreed that that was not the intent of the language, that it is not feasible for us to not be able to use reserves to pay down this debt. And we've come up with a much simpler calculation that uses fund balance. They don't commonly have debt service ratios for municipalities in this way. So it was a little bit of tweaking of language that they commonly use. This is language that they presented to us. It has been brought to Kate Cronk or Kate Dingle for review and she's said that it looks fine to her. And just to be clear, it doesn't change any of the finances of the TIF district. It's solely a clarification of how we calculate the debt service coverage ratio and how they are able to replicate that based on our financial statements. Well, my bifurcating the senior to the total debt service coverage makes sense. Any questions, concerns from council? We're still at a one-to-one. Questions, concerns, comments from the public? So seeing and hearing none, I entertain a motion for approval in regards to the debt service coverage ratio amendment relative to the tax and permit finance and bond. Motion by Nicole, second by Hal, and further discussion. Seeing and hearing none, all those in favor if they say aye. Aye. And those opposed? Motion carries. Happy birthday, Angela. Happy birthday. Thank you for spending it with us. Thank you for spending it with us. It's the worst birthday present ever. Second session is gonna be better. All right, item in, discussion of the goal update for a safe, healthy, connected people. So I'm gonna take some liberty here and say this is our last official goal update of last year's strategies and priorities. We'll stay on the same schedule, rotating as you saw in the last memo. We've provided here, we can talk through it if you'd like, or we can simply answer questions. Anything you wanna see in the one-minute version of what we're most proud of? Just for folks at home that don't look at the document. I think one thing I'll say is that we did arm wrestle before, so I'm gonna play police chief here for the next few minutes. But Noah, Rick had asked to share that there's just been a really solid start to the community outreach team effort. And I would say as a community services director too, that's been a really nice tool in the toolbox for us to deal with some community members who are struggling and need some softer supports. And then also he is getting very close with his strategic plan that he's been working on. I've been kind of part of that team as well. That's been really cool to see the type of thinking going into the police work here. So on Rick's behalf, those were two updates he had asked to share. We'll bounce over to you. Yeah, we listed some pretty specific stuff in there. I guess I would overall touch on this process of this document. For me, it's huge. I think it's allowing, it's a roadmap that keeps us focused. And I think as we see these continue to come back to council, it's very useful for us. Hopefully it is for you and the public. Again, very useful process. So if I can brag on the Chief for a minute, I think, and you haven't seen this yet, you will with the wage classification study. I think the work Chief Audie has done over the last couple of months to put into place a pay scale for the fire department that didn't previously exist, that's linked to capacity and linked to training that's been achieved by our officers is a huge step into professionalizing the department. We have more people trained on more things now than we have in the past 20 years. And that's all been done as we brought on a new truck. So it's a huge step towards the professionalization of that department. And I've been really impressed by the work he's done. Thank you. Seven years of the city. That'll be six in July. Six. Seven. Seven, right? So I guess when I was reading this document, I was just thinking how what a massive cultural change has taken place here and that you guys have done a tremendous amount of work. There's a lot of people who have here, but just to focus on the three of you who have achieved in there too, for a long time it felt like it was all cultural work and now you're seeing that cultural work trickle down into operations in a way that is really exciting in the projects that you're getting done and the changes you're making and then the service delivery that the people are seeing as a result of that. So I just wanna, when I was reading through this, I was thinking back of what's happened the last six or seven years, all of us together and just how proud we should be about not just the individual little achievements here, but what they represent from a larger cultural shift you guys have really driven that is really, really impressive. Thank you. I'm very proud of the work you've done. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. A lot to help from the others on the team. Yes, yes. Yep. Well none of you can do anything without Angela. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's it. That's where it all starts. It's a long line in the morning and then just. That's it. That's it. I'll use it here before Ray, but. And this is the questions regarding the report we received. Any questions or comments from the public? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And the last item on this evening's agenda is executive session pursuant to the Vermont Statutes 3131E regarding pinning litigation in which the city is a party and or the negotiation of real estate purchase release options where the tax increment finance district that to discuss in public would put the city at both a little compromised legal positions from a confidentiality standpoint and also a negotiation standpoint compromised by the state's position in that place as well. So that is the reason for the proposal of executive session to take tonight. In tonight's executive session we're proposing to bring our city manager, Jesse Baker, also Angela. And we'll also be joined by the city's attorney, Robert Apollo from Paul Freckin Collins. Any other folks you'd like to bring? Okay. That concludes tonight's regular agenda. The council will not take any action during executive session. We'll come out on executive session only to adjourn. So that completes tonight's regular informal agenda. Again, council will reconvene only to adjourn. No additional actions will be taken this evening. So with that I would entertain a motion to adjourn the executive session as described. So moved. Motion by Eric, second by Christine. Any further discussion? Seeing and hearing none, those in favor please say aye. Aye. Opposed opposed? Motion carries for now on executive session.