 We have a forum, so I will call the meeting to order. Can you all indicate that you can hear me? Okay, great. This is the special meeting of my clear city council. I will touch briefly. I will touch briefly on the logistics of the state that we, even though it's a special meeting and certainly expected, we still have the typical items including general business and appearances. And so, as well, members of the council who have appeared remotely to identify themselves and going down the list as I see them on my screen. Hi, everyone, I'm picking on the stick to city council. And Brown. Okay, Carrie Brown district three. Hi, Lauren Hurl district one. Okay, and we have in person. Okay, the first item on the agenda. Requested changes to the agenda as it appears. Okay. Next item on the agenda general business appearances. This is an opportunity for anyone member of the public to address council for up to two minutes on any item that is not on the agenda. Peter Kelvin. Thank you, Jack. My wife, Teresa and I have just returned from a three week trip through the deep south, particularly rural Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia. Our intent was to visit historical sites involved with slavery lynchings Jim Crow segregation and civil rights. And it was something even broader than this. We saw how voting and inclusion are the cornerstones of democracy and of a just society. We saw also the tragic consequences of the denial of both of these cornerstones prior to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and increasingly throughout the country. Since 2013, when the US Supreme Court began to dismantle the Voting Rights Act in 1965. In the month where we pride ourselves on our inclusive voting processes and public participation in government. And to Montpelier where we have an ordinance that permits voting by non citizen property owners, and where we permit the flying of the black lives matter flag, and where we have a social and economic justice advisory committee. And where the city council voted that we be a sanctuary city, and where the city manager and city council take great pains to emphasize transparency as a core value. So we certainly talk the talk, but how well do we walk it specifically are our ballots available languages other than English. What provisions do we have to enable people with disabilities to vote, especially those may have significant vision impairment. Is it possible that the surprisingly light turnout which bill commented on about for Wednesday's city council meeting, which included the second and final budget and bond hearings, as well as the city council's consideration of the city meeting was due at least in part to confusion caused by rescheduling that meeting from Thursday, January 26 to Wednesday, January 25 and or possibly in part due to increasing cynicism among voters and other stakeholders about the entire opaque budgeting process. And finally, to address today's main topic are the articles of the ballot as shown in the warning written in a clear understandable unambiguous way, sometimes referred to as plain language. When we get to item eight on today's agenda. I'll have more to say about this last matter, and I will make some concrete suggestions for how some of the articles can be made clearer more understandable and less ambiguous. Thank you. Thank you, Peter. I just want to mention that you probably would attempt to correct your comments to say that the non city reporting applies to all non citizen residents property. Okay, thank you. Thank you. And just for information, we have an accessible voting. And then, Oh, Well, nobody can hear. Oh, I'm not speaking, I'm speaking into the mic. Carol working on anybody here. Okay. Can I just speak over here by zoom is not installed on my laptop. I just want to just for information purposes, we have an accessible voting machine for visually and hearing hair. We have the ballots last election I had the ballot. I cannot hear anything. There was a echo before not nothing. If anybody has any questions about accessibility voting. You can give me a quote. Sorry. Maybe we try. And it test I think it's actually pulling from this laptop, not the actual audio from the room. A little bit of an echo. My sound is turned on. But somehow we have to have a microphone going out. Right. And this one, I think. Yeah, that's why both Bill and John aren't clear because it's going through that microphone, not through their mics. Again, you know, we can address this issue separately. Point well taken. We have. We have a lot of facilities in place for many, many cities in place for accessibility. We can make sure we publicize those. This is. What? This is live off that machine. Okay. I'm seeing the people online can hear us. So to start the meeting now we can hear you. Not sure. I'm going to step down there and see about. Okay. Folks, can you hear me now? Okay, great. Thank you for your comments, Peter. Next item is consent agenda, which we do not have a consent agenda today. Next item is to review petitions. Have there been any petitions received since. Wednesday night. Nothing to add in petitions. So now we are. Up to item number seven public hearing for the warning. Oh, that is not on. Okay. We have the next item on the agenda is. A request for the council to sign on. To an energy, energy code proposal. Bill, perhaps you could. Give us a brief. Introduction. If you can hear me. Can people hear me? So just very briefly, we were asked to support an effort. A group that is seeking to. Change building codes, national building codes. To be more energy friendly. And we got the request yesterday morning. They needed an answer by today. Our energy person looked at them thought it was a good idea. I think that's a great idea. I think that's a great idea. All the material was forwarded to the council yesterday. And it's simply, it's not really any action. The city can take would simply be the city council endorsing this effort if they chose to. So it's really up to the council. Thanks, Bill. Donna. I think you have to come down here. Yep. I think, I think this is a great idea. And I make a motion that we endorse. Their activity. Any discussion members of the council. I'm not seeing anyone. Raising their. Hand. Okay. Is any member of the public have. Any question or comment they'd like to make. Okay. In that case, we're ready for the vote. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. And opposed. Okay. We've adopted that. Resolution. Next, we will. Open the public hearing on the warning for the city meeting ballot. Sir. Peter Kellman. Yes, Jack. Thank you. And John, thank you for answering my questions about accessibility. I'm glad to know that I was actually just asking. I didn't know what it was. But let me just say at the outset that. I believe it is possible to write articles on a ballot. In language. That is legally sound. And yet understandable by the vast majority of the public. Otherwise known as plain language. As examples of this, I would cite the four articles. Submitted by the Montpelier Roxbury school district. Articles 8, 9, 12 and 13. Which I would suggest be used as models. The city to use in the future. Let me just add something that's probably obvious. Lawyers are not known for writing in plain English. So it is really best practice for municipality to have such articles written for them by appropriately skilled communications. Specialists who know how to write in plain language. And then have them vetted by council to make sure they're legally sound. Not have the lawyers write the language. That language is bound to be somewhat incomprehensible. But it's important to make sure that you're not going to be too much of an excuse to mention ambiguous in times. As to the articles in the warning before you today, in my opinion. Articles one through four dealing with elections and item 17 through 19. Are clear enough. I mean, it could be better, but they're clear enough. However, as a copy editor, I would would make a couple of small changes in articles. Five, six and seven, which I could share with you if you want. They're not critical, but. They are not critical. They are not critical. And they are not critical. And there are no clear articles in the warning of the census 2016, all of which are amendments to voted articles on town meeting day last year. Are unclear and or ambiguous and need some rewriting to make them less so. They all begin clearly enough by stating that the voters are being asked to amend quote authorization provided. Horrible passive voice. it's not particularly clear that the sentence is following that, refer to the amendment and not to the original authorization. It's lacking a transition. I would suggest the following fixes to that. Put the language of the original authorization in quotes so that we know very clearly that that's the original authorization and or after the words city council insert the phrase by the voters. So we know that the authorization was by the voters not by some passive, where did this come from? The voters approved it, let them know that. Then begin the second sentences in all three articles with the phrase, if amended, that makes it clear that everything that follows is if this is amended. It is not the part that was voted initially a year ago. I think those two changes alone will make this much clearer. However, article 14 is really a mishmash. I think John was right to not just try to fix it on the fly but I'm not sure that the fixes not on the fly really improve it. I'm gonna give an example. What is the meaning of amended improvements? I don't think that's, I know what you meant but the improvements aren't amended. The suggestions of the improvements are amended. What is meant by other highways infrastructure projects? There weren't any highway structure projects mentioned beforehand. And is it accurate to list Confluence Park as an improvement? I think that's going a little too far. And what is the point of stating the estimated cost of improvements? Especially if we suspect that Confluence Park alone would cost more than the amount listed there. In my opinion, that is just asking for a legal challenge, the whole thing. That sentence should be struck. Here I have a much simpler way of saying this that is much more grammatical, I think much clearer. If amended proceeds from this bond, this bond that was already approved, this bond funding may be used to finance a range of city infrastructure projects such as colon, a renewable heating system and other energy efficiency projects at the Public Works Garage, semicolon, new street lights, traffic lights and intersection improvements, semicolon, a retaining wall on Marvin Street, semicolon, various highway, I would say street, but if highway is the right language, okay, various highway infrastructure projects, semicolon and something like this, possibly some kind of Confluence River Park project. To distinguish it from the one that we already know is gonna cost far too much to be included. I could send this to you if you wanna consider it. I could also give you the very quick copy of any changes for the others if you wanna consider it. You don't wanna consider it, fine, thank you. Thank you, Peter. I'm actually interested in having you send that to us. And I'm not sure what the best way to do it is. So I'm not sitting at my computer, but I think you need an email to Bill and John. Or whoever, John, sure. Yeah, that's okay, I'll just do that. Thanks, Peter. Any other members of the council have anything to say or any thoughts on the warning? Carrie. Yeah, I appreciate the points that Peter's making about plain language. I will leave it up to staff, I think, for a judgment as to whether it makes sense to try to make any changes right now to this warning. But regardless of whether that happens or not, I do think it'd be worth approaching this from a writing and plain language standpoint going forward in the future from now. I think I agree with him, that's important and can be done. And I agree with Carrie. Because it's such a late time, I do think maybe Article 14 is more important than the other edits to consider. And Lauren, I can't tell if you're trying to be recognized. If you're not, that's fine. I would just echo, appreciate Peter's comments, I think making things while meeting the legal needs to like that it's clear and defensible, which sometimes conflicts with plain language, but doing our best to do that. I mean, I'm definitely open to looking at language for that. It makes me slightly uncomfortable to try to do this on the fly in case we are changing some legal meaning in a way that, but if we can look at it and it's very clearly doesn't change that, I'm open to looking at it. Okay, and Bill and John have you gotten the language yet? And I wonder if it would be helpful to share it on the screen? No, if I saw that community, we did not be able to see what has been installed, if we would be able to see what has been installed. If I put it right next to the block, I would be sure to see. I am also not a big fan of the lack of self-publishing. Okay. It's very important, I want to get a body of it. I want to be the first to sign it to the union. I think so. Open your email and then share it. Let's get our phones out. I know I'm just thinking out for a second. Here we are. Thank you. So members of the council we knew have had the language. Did you say that louder, John? I don't think so. The second email is when you should be looking at it. I think. The first email is my suggestion for article 14. I'm just going to just a phrase to put before articles 14, 15 and 16. Yeah. So do we. Could you put up the, the new. Email on the screen bill. The new email just says. It just suggested. That's your only thing. Okay. Okay. So I. Do we have a member of the council who wants to is. If we have a member of the council who wants to. Wanting to. Make either a motion or proposed amendment. Yes. Donate. I'd make a motion to accept this portion to go. To replace what has now stated in article 14 in the sentence. I think it's a second sentence. Proceed from the bond that we would remove that. Okay. So I'm just going to take away his question and just say various. Highway infrastructure. We do tell our streets highways when we're dealing with projects, because some are and some aren't. Streets. Just waiting to see what you'd like to do. So right now that I'm on it. Great. I'll get it. I'll get it here. Okay. And Donna does your. Motion include the language and possibly some kind of confluence river park project. It does. Okay. I've only changed from what Peter sent is removing the streets. The word street and the question mark. And likewise to this amendment would be to add. If amended in front of proceeds in the other. Article 14. 15 and 16. Okay. Is, is there a second. Second. I second. Okay. Thank you. Is there any discussion. Carrie. Yeah, so I choose things. I'd love to hear from Bill and John what they think about this. I think this is, this is okay. And then to, I'm not comfortable with the, the last wording of this, possibly some kind of confluence river park project. And so I would be happier if it said. And, you know, Confluence River Park. So that it's in there with, it's covered under May with everything else. Are you moving to amend. Counselor Bates motion to say that. Yes, I will move to amend. Counselor Bates motion. To change the last phrase to. And confluence river park. Is there a second for counselor Brown's motion. Second. Okay. Any discussion of counselor Brown's motion to amend the original motion. My concern, Donna Bates speaking. My concern is that when you say the confluence park, I think people have what they've seen, which is a major project. And I feel like what Peter added was a little more conditional. I think it's more acceptable by the community and myself. So that's why I accepted Peter's amendment has written. Anybody else wants to speak to that. One thought I have is that that's all true, but we're also operating with the, with the overall figure of 1,815,000. So I don't think anyone could read that and think that we're talking about the $2 to $3 million project that. People have been hearing about. I don't think people connect the dots. That could be right. It could be right. Yeah. So are you ready to vote on. On Carrie's motion. If so, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Any opposed. Okay. So we'll have to do a roll call. Do you want to do that? Oh, you don't have voice. So. Brown. Aye. Pearl. Aye. Cone. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. You may have, you'd have to vote for four. Right tonight for and the chair votes aye. So the motion has been amended. Now. Before we go to vote on the main motion. I heard councilor Brown indicated she wanted here from staff. So bill, you want, you have a. We're, this is relevant to the, to the main motion. So, first of all, say in general that all the articles that we staff draft, we do try to do them in as plain language as possible bonds come with that come with a very much higher legal threshold. They have to go through bond council. They get bond rated through the bond bank, et cetera. So those are the ones we've usually had attorneys. That said, I mean, I, I agree that I personally like the language better that's been proposed. You know, it would have been great if we'd had this earlier and had a chance to run it by a review. You know, I've not in a position to offer any kind of legal counsel on this. I, it would seem that it's going to work, but I can't really add more than that to it. Thanks. I'll just say that in my position as clerk, I'm agnostic about ballot language. Okay. Does any, any member of the council have anything else they would like to say about this before we proceed. And what I think I'm going to suggest is that if there's a, if, if we do vote to amend it, I'll ask the assistant city clerk to print us up a whole new warning before we vote on it. So we all have the actual warning that we're using. And I think she's prepared for that already. See, oh, I said clerk, sorry. Yeah. Okay. So are we ready to vote on councilor Bates motion as amended. I have one question. Okay. In the, the wording as written in this email has the first this italicized. Is that going to be part of what's written on the warrant or I don't see a need for that. I don't That's italicized. Yeah, that was not your intention. No, it was the words, not the tips. Okay, great. Valor. Okay. All those in favor of Councilor Bates motion to amend articles 1415 and 16 of the proposed warning indicate by saying aye. Oh, wait. Aye. Oh, sorry, Kerry. I'm sorry, I thought we were just doing the one about Um, I didn't know we were doing three. I thought she said I did. I Okay, I'm sorry. I added I added article 15 and 16 that we would add the if amended. What will it I'm sorry. Can you find the word for proceeds? So look at the item 15, for instance, can you just add the two words if amended? Is that what she said? That's what she said. Yes. And where would that go in article 15? Yeah, I was just to walk through the changes for everyone's benefit just to make sure I got clear because I'm not sure if I do and I don't want to I want to make sure I'm really clear on what you guys want. Okay, that would be awesome. I mean, what I'll do is I'll just kind of get close right there. Yeah, and we haven't voted yet. So I mean, why don't you come on up? Yes, on the later section, but that has to do with years. It's the only change. Oh, OK, so we don't need to do 15 and 16. All right. So OK, we're just doing the proposed amendment to article 14. We're going to verify the motion. And right, go ahead. Who seconded? I agree with the clarification. OK, so. To to be clear on what we're doing, the. Article 14 at the end of the first after the first sentence. We would read if amended proceeds from this bond funding. Right, we'll we'll be maybe used to finance a range of city infrastructure projects such as a renewable heating system and other energy efficiency projects at the public works garage, semicolon, new street lights, traffic lights and infrastructure improvements, intersection improvements. Thank you, Bill. Semi colon or retaining wall on Marvin Street, semicolon various highway infrastructure projects, comma, and the Confluence River Park project period. Got that. OK. Are we ready for that vote? If so, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. If opposed, OK, the motion carries. And we have amended article 14. Now I'm. You want to copy? Do you all want copies of this before we vote on the entire warning assistance city manager is sending it by email to all of us? Yeah, email will be good. Thank you. Folks, thanks. I receive it. Thank you, Kelly. And Peter, do you have any. Other comments on the warning is proposed. That you want to be heard on now. You know, they're they're minor. And I agree this is not the right time to do this. It should be done in the future. I think it's just a little more carefully. I'll just give me, for example, article six. It puts the central Vermont public authority thing. And then in parentheses, it uses the the acronym, which is good, except that article five should have used article five preceded it. So article five should have had that. And then that same designation. And the only other thing I'd say is if you look just for future, if you look at the difference between article seven from the city and article eight from the school board, you'll see a very clear the way in which the school boards articles are just much clearer to say the same thing. It's very, I think great in article eight says, shall the voters of school district adopt a budget of rather than appropriate to sum up? I mean, I think it's just that's just clearer language. And if you go through it, you'll just see that the way that they wrote that article is very clear. But I'm not saying that I need to address this because they're actually they're not the same. OK, under law again. The school budgets adopt an entire budget and and that is the way the state education funding system is set up. And this is exactly the way the state mandates that they write their article. The city only appropriates the tax appropriation. You're not approving the entire city budget. You're only approving the amount of property taxes to be raised. So if we get more money, we can change the budget. We can spend it differently. That is different from municipal governments than school budgets. So they're not actually you're not approving the overall budget. You're just so much we're taxing ourselves. I understand, Bill, but we stay stay for a minute, Bill, please stay for a minute. But what about the the following sentence in article eight? It is estimated that this they go on and explain it a little bit. Is there no is there a reason why you couldn't go on and explain a little bit? What you just said, what you just said is great. But I don't think most people know that. I think 80 percent of the people have had been pretty clear on what they're doing over the last 10 years. So I'm not worried about it. Yeah, I'm going to I'm going to say we move on if we want to have a discussion sometime in the future about wording of articles that you made your points, Peter. So at this point, we will close the public hearing. Now, the question before the council is, shall we approve the draft warning as amended? Is there a motion and I make a suggestion before we get to that point for a couple of changes to make? OK, sure. OK, just a couple of little sort of technical things. In article six, there I believe there should be a question mark at the end that's missing. I see instead of a period at that, after the word board, OK. Well, no, not after the question marks. Somebody has something still. Oh, article five and six are both missing question marks. Yeah, not just yeah. And all the others have question marks because they're questions. People are saying yes or no. And then also 15 and 16. Do not say requested by the city council after them. And I'm wondering if that if there's a reason for that or if that's something we want to include since we're doing that on the other ones. We'll do that, too. Yeah. OK. And then similarly for 18 and 19, I don't know if we want to just for consistency. Well, actually, those those are requested by the city council, too. So they should be on there. Well, they were so those were committed to be on. There are any questions they would have been petitions that I know. But the council put them on. Right. But you know, so first of all, it's a hundred percent of the council what you want to put there. But the the past practices then when it was I think the city council requested the sort of asking the lawyers to support OK, just something to put it on when you have somebody else. OK, I got it. That makes sense. OK. Thanks, Phil. Satisfied now, Perry. Yeah, I didn't mean any sarcastic content by saying that. I didn't take it. OK, good. Now is someone prepared to move the approval of the budget? There are the ballot has has been amended, including the changes that that you suggested. Donate, I'll make the motion. Is there a second second? OK, just to be clear, you say this out loud, question marks on five and six. Yeah, this time for parenthetical 15. Right. Yes. And no changes to 18 and 19. Right. Yep. OK, any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed. All right, we have adopted the. Draft ballot. Any other business? I'm not aware of any city council reports. Anyone have a city council report? See you all next month. I'll just just raise your hand if you want to make one. Otherwise, I'll just move to the next item, which is the city clerk's report. Oh, it's enormous. OK, another 45 minutes or so. OK, you're passing city. Oh, Helen Kohn. Sorry. Can I announce that I am having gathering on Saturday at the library? If anyone wants to come and meet me because I'm running in March, can I say that or sure? What time? OK, so I will be at the haze room at our local library between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. tomorrow. So I want to invite everyone who wants to come and meet me and just talk about our vision for our community. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Is there a city manager report? Just remind everybody here is an event at 10. Also attending tomorrow, the country club road, exciting people interested in discussing people outside. Yep. Great. OK, and with that, our very quick meeting is adjourned at. 12.43 p.m. Thanks, folks.