 so we are gonna get started here okay thanks I know right thanks all for coming out so I'm gonna call this meeting to order so the first thing is review and approve the agenda I don't think there were any needed changes or I hadn't heard of any suggested changes to the agenda are there any comments or thoughts about changing the agenda okay so without objection we'll consider the agenda approved so on to general business and appearances so this is an opportunity for any member of the public to address the council on an item that is otherwise not on our agenda and if you would say your name and where you live and try to keep your comments to two minutes or less that would be wonderful thank you welcome hi there am I can you hear me okay good I'm Elizabeth Parker eight hillside Avenue here in Montpelier and the first thing I wanted to say is Bravo to public works for all their teamwork in getting the part of the multi-use bike path this side of the new bridge running along Shaw's paved I know that it took them a lot of work to talk to the state because of all the issues that are going on to be able to put temporary pavement down so that people who have been going to the old Shaw's bus stop can actually and people who want to use Shaw's can walk back and forth so Bravo to them the second thing I wanted to say is that we had a resident who talked about the fact that she wasn't allowed to make a deviation to the farmers market at Caledonia so I got in touch with GMT about that and they have resolved that issue so that it turns out that if someone wants to go to the farmers market they can take the city route midday between 9 20 a.m. and 2 30 p.m. ask for a deviation so you can actually get on the bus here at the transit center ask for a deviation to Caledonia but you have to have called in advance to get a deviation back and so I said well why can't the bus simply go to Caledonia as a matter of course on days when the farmers market happens and I got the following response let me see which part of it is here we go there's concerned that it would become a dedicated stop which impacts their overall ADA service area I don't exactly know what that means and I guess that I don't really and so then she talked about the fact this is Jamie Smith from GMT she talked about the fact that they'd already spoken with the farmers market and made it clear that they couldn't do this this regular deviation at that time and and so I have spent quite a bit of time on this and I'm giving this to you all to to ask about what this ADA service area means and why it's so limiting and why this accommodation can't be made because there are many people who are walkers who go to the farmers market and it's great that we have the multi-use bike path but it's winter and it's cold and it's inconvenient and I feel that in order to make people yep okay I'm stopping you get the gist thank you yeah what's that do you have an answer oh okay if you have a fixed route you're required to deviate a quarter of a mile to pick up anyone with disability issues so your fixed route has an obligation of a quarter of a mile so it becomes a fixed route then they have an obligation a quarter mile on all sides of that route to pick up people and so then involves time that's what it means that's I'm just telling you what it means yep thank you well Steve Whitaker Montpelier I've spoken too many times to no avail I ask you to consider whether or not you're actually doing damage to faith and trust in government we're letting our streets and our sidewalks decay and become unsafe we're investing in what I call fluffy projects with somebody's vision of the future of Montpelier which will likely gentrify and displace more Montpelierites we've had two shootings of mentally disturbed people recently I've uncovered another incident with the same officer that could have been served as a warning sign where a woman's ribs were broken we've decimated a homeless vulnerable homeless persons camp and take taking little to no responsibility for that I asked at the last meeting or two meetings ago about formal city council action to insist that public records lobby adhered to and I was reassured no we're not going to take council action the mayor's going to speak with city manager get it handled it hasn't been handled it has not been handled I've gotten a couple more trickle of records and we've got months old records requests we've got an appeal to the head of the agency was to send to both of you and it has not been responded to in the five day return around period you're becoming outlaws that is not okay you know you can't fly in the face of the laws that you're sworn to uphold the transit center is somewhat of a disaster person was hit there Friday night at the crosswalk location next to the bridges is unsafe the garage fiasco the homeless homelessness task force was apparently loaded to this point of ineffective nothing of action has come out of that other than they'll ask for a few thousand dollars and continue for another year the if the records requests are being delayed specifically to counter or delay press attention that hits a new level that turns into corruption okay I don't know the intent of these records request going on for months now there's about a dozen of them that have piled up have not been responded to so I'm sorry I don't bring you better news that balls in your court thank you thank you anyone else okay so on to the consent agenda yes learn I said one question about the wood floor refinishing it looked like in it said if we bought our own we could save a couple thousand dollars but we're asking for the full amount and not buying it and I was just wondering what the rationale was there can you want to come up to the the microphone thank you I don't have a good answer for that question and I apologize I do know that we put this out for a couple of bids and the refinishing was we got two bids one for fourteen thousand and one for seven thousand I think there might be cost savings if we get a like a way to refinish our floors ourselves in the future for right now we're just looking to replace the floors that exist yeah good so sorry so and maybe I was just misreading it but it I thought they said in the proposal if you choose to just purchase and they send a picture and everything of the specific floor polisher yourselves versus having us buy it would save two thousand plus dollars so it seemed like sure couldn't we go on Amazon and order it go to Abashon's if they have it or but I might have misread but that was the way I read I don't know if anyone else saw that I think it says if we're if we are willing to seal if we're willing to polyurethane ourselves we would say right it would be our labor right so it's not just the purchase of supplies it would be the labor of actually refinishing the floor we don't have anyone right now if that's the case I that's what I was wondering if I was misreading I thought is that just the literal purchase would save it's in that it's like the second to last sentence it's a thank you for clarifying that's yeah well you can authorize up to the full amount we can take a look and see if we can save some money that'd be happy to do that too okay I guess is there anyone in the city that can refinish a floor in the timeframe allocated that was not no I know well no I know but Bill said we could do that we can take a look and see what's feasible but I can't guarantee it but no reason to hold this up I'm saying is if we can save it we will if we can't we won't but we can always authorize okay all right any discussion or I should say is there a motion regarding the consent agenda or would anyone like to pull anything their motion I move the consent agenda second further discussion all in favor please say I opposed okay so well we have some appointments to make so for the Transportation Infrastructure Committee I know there's at least I think there's at least one person here for that so we have two expiring seats and three vacant seats so we have a total of five seats to fill and there were applications from three folks and one was still it was contingent on a employment opportunity so yeah if you're if you're here for an appointment to the Transportation Infrastructure Committee if you would come up and introduce yourself and tell us about your interest in this committee I'm looking to you hi I'm Elizabeth Parker I have been a resident now for seven years I was away for 20 years and so I lived here back in the 90s as well I'm very much interested in in transportation and in in in finding out solutions that work for everybody across the board for residents of her business and I have attended a few meetings and I'm very much interested in the transportation plan part of the city plan that is now going to be discussed and I've had some background in in a community I was a Marshfield Planning Commission and zoning administrator and raised half a million dollars to rehab the old schoolhouse common way back when and I've been on numerous other boards since then so I'd really appreciate the honor of being able to serve thank you thank you okay and I don't see the other candidates here if I'm wrong that's okay all right so is there a motion regarding the appointments to the Transportation Infrastructure Committee I move that we reappoint Steven Falbell and Constantino's to Varos and appoint Hanif Nazarali and Elizabeth Parker second further discussion I'm so proud of you with those names very envious I suppose with Constantino's if he wants to step down because of an employment issue he'll let us know right okay I think it's all set okay okay so right any further discussion all in favor please say I I post okay thank you to you and the those who are not here for your time and dedication yes I would just like to thank Liz especially because we're a little short on pedestrians in that committee and and so that's your your bicyclist but you're also pedestrian I had a question about the dates it were we not trying to put everyone in a certain time of year planning and zoning I don't know about this I can check on these dates though well just because these are December and the next group is November and I thought we were trying to work on all of them to be more in sync I'm sure we can arrange that next time around okay you know legally binding so we can yeah yeah yeah just want to bring it back up to the table thank you that's great I didn't notice that okay all right so to the Complete Streets Committee so for that committee that looks like there are six openings and I think there were five total applicants and with this one there's one of the six available seats is one year term so it would make sense to me regardless that we might need to go into executive session to discuss that aspect of it at the very least so I just want to flag that but otherwise if you're here for the appointment to the complete streets group we'd love to hear from you have you introduce yourself and I see some folks here so welcome my name is Dave worry I've lived in Montpelier I'm fairly new just been here a couple years I work as a urban planner professionally not in Vermont but other places and I walk a bike I've got kids really like that it's so easy to walk and bike around Montpelier and want to do my part to maintain that thank you for your time and attention thank you hi my name is Marianne Angel and I'm on Main Street in Montpelier I've lived here a little over a decade and I've never served on the committee in for the city or on a committee in this capacity I should say I did attend meeting last week and to see more about find out more about the committee and I have an interest in having a safe environment for us to travel on bikes on the streets sidewalks and I personally want to be able to try to take advantage of that and get out and get more exercise and have that more that social aspect available to the community to intermingle and I I just feel that I have good ideas and be able to follow through and it's time for me to step up and take some big responsibility and yes that's pretty much and just to give back to the community so thank you for the opportunity Nancy Scholes I am wrapping up my first term on the complete streets committee and have applied to renew I think we're in a great position now because we have had we've heard from seven people who expressing interest in joining the committee I don't know how many of them followed through with their applications but I thought it was great that one post in front porch forum generated that many responses so it's exciting time it I'm hoping to be reappointed and looking forward to having a complete complete streets committee for the first time which would be nine members and we just got a student from Montpelier high school so non-voting but that would be ten of us very exciting and I think we we are doing great work I think we're all committed whether we lean toward bicycling or walking or both I think everyone on the committee or applying for the committee is passionate about these things and about making Montpelier safer and friendlier to pedestrians people in wheelchairs people of all ages and I look forward and I hope I get reappointed thank you thank you okay is there a motion or there's no one else here or is no one else I recognize as being one of the other candidates all right so is there I guess Jack pursuant to one VSA section 313 a3 I move we enter executive session to discuss the appointment of a public officer second for the discussion all in favor please say aye opposed okay well we will be right back okay further discussion all in favor please say aye opposed okay and do we have a motion yeah sure I'd like to move that we appoint Phoenix Mitchell Nancy Schell's Marianne Angel and David Ory for the two-year terms and appoints a neef as a rally to the one-year alternate is there a second second further discussion all in favor please say aye opposed great thank you and thank you again for your dedication and your your time service to the city okay so we have an update from the Public Arts Commission and I know there's folks here for that so I'll come on up to the table welcome hello we're two members of the 8th member Commission that you appointed eight months ago I'm Bob Hanum and Kevin has been our guiding light throughout anyway we just wanted to briefly just tell you what we've been doing in hopes that we'll excite you to continue our work for another year first I just want to applaud you for realizing that you know a thriving arts community is really a backbone to a successful city to successful business to growth so with that I just wanted to let you know give you a brief outline Kevin has given you material about detailing our work but I just wanted to briefly go over and just say that you know for the past eight months we've been meeting a lot because we wanted to get our feet on the ground and do something to show for having appointed us so we have been following the Public Arts Master Plan that you commissioned and set us to do and in that plan there are basically three tasks that we've been given and the first one is to identify and assess and create maintenance plans for the public art that we have and that's been completed the second task is to create more public art in our city and we have actually gone through a lot of different options and we've settled on our first project which we intended to complete by July in cooperation with the arts festivals happening in July and thirdly we're tasked with raising money so that the dollars that you give us can go a long way and we are in the process of doing that we wanted to have a project under our belts so that we have something successful we can talk about to potential donors and that's been our work we've done a lot of work and so I'm appealing to you all to let us continue for another year and also just to add to what Bob had mentioned we are completing a piece of public art that it was done many years ago the vine sculpture that's in the alley between Zutano and the planche block we've already ordered lights for that that was originally intended to have lights but nobody ever got around to doing it so we've ordered lights and we we've just received them and we intend to install it in the next couple of days so that'll be completed and as Bob was mentioning we do intend to leverage other organizations in getting as much publicity and bang for a buck in these projects one of which we are working with Paul Gamble's group for the the festival this this summer and we're also coordinating with the 2020 vision initiative that's put together it's a statewide initiative put together by state curators and that's also one of the organizations we're working with I really like the report it reminds us how much we have sitting with throughout the town and that they need attendance so I really appreciate the report I have a question about you said you want to continue next year we didn't appoint them just for one year did we or were you or you were you really talking about the money for another year that's what I thought okay well and to that point I mean we're gonna be starting our budget conversation a little later this evening so I'm hoping that you weren't looking for an answer just exactly now but it is always good to hear you know about what that money would go towards and sort of where your vision is for moving forward in the future I like to have specific things to point at to say this is what that money is going for rather than just some you know nebulous thing that's a little bit in not like vague or in you know not concrete so it's very it's very helpful but we'll certainly have to consider it together as a part of with the whole budget for sure as we get to it later on Glenn I want to thank you both and the rest of the Commission for the work you've done and for coming tonight and I also want to say I'm really impressed with how much has has been done and is being done especially considering that we we did fund it last year with half the request so I want to remind Council that we the recommended level of funding for this sort of thing is more than we're giving them and they're doing pretty great work as it is I think we should we should try as hard as we can understand this year is a very tight year but we should try as hard as we can to fund the Public Art Commission as as solidly as possible yes how are you deciding what to do for the public art our meetings having a monthly or more than monthly basis we're discussing various projects and we've narrowed it down to initially doing this lighting project in the alley and we have a light projection project we're working on but through our meetings we're discussing various ways and the public is welcome to come to our meetings I mean if you would say your your name for the record I'm Heather Corey and it would be neat to maybe put something in the Guardian or something giving some options for the public to vote on whether it was like a mural or thanks so your report may basically goes over the things that exist and costs to repair them now we started out with 50,000 related to the contest with one Taylor Street but maybe I missed it did you show us what's been spent on that I mean there's one place that says about 50,000 dollars and 50% spent on your chart but I don't really see like a budget with all these things listed right the the one Taylor Street project was prior to the Commission forming so so you don't have any of that money that wasn't included in any of our calculations I think I can answer that or at least the way I'm reading the the material that we got the 50% of 50,000 is one of the goals was get funded at $50,000 a year and we gave them half so I think that's where right but it may be yes or I'm gonna give them 20 should be adjusted down but I was asking about the allocation that was related to that and I'm glad you reminded me it was before thank you any other there's one outstanding issue as well that it there was never a clarification as to where the money for maintenance was coming from with our tight budget it's hard for us to allocate the money from our allotment for maintenance and we're hoping that the maintenance end of things was coming from additional funding but anyway that's that's an issue that we've been throwing around in the meetings and want you to consider it's tough to make that work well thank you any further questions please guys okay well thank you again and we'll be following up of course right thanks okay yeah absolutely we're gonna interrupt our regular schedule so yeah Casey are you mine coming up for a second yeah you can sit I I wasn't necessary to ask you to speak but you may I wanted to apologize on behalf of the city for what happened to you thanks the you know the your things were taken in inadvertently and we are very I know you may ask for bringing that one up my god but we're sorry about that and we listen do you hang wallpaper professionally or you just real good at White Outs belt well I'm just trying to tell you that we did not a hell of a job with all that shit by the way thanks for actually figuring out what a hiring a maintenance crew means you're welcome well we are sorry for what happened and we did try to make it right you can have the mic anytime and Casey I want to echo the same and I'd love to chat with you about it later too if you that if that be helpful yeah well thank you I did not appreciate paying three hundred eighty one dollars for carrying a damn knife around I was only straight resin with but I fell over a curb years ago and I try and they charge me first they said they were gonna charge me three hundred dollars for violently assaulting sidewalk then I had a meeting with somebody in your office decided they were gonna charge me more because I wasted their time I paid four hundred damn dollars for tripping over a sidewalk and exposing a knife I had for self-defense at a time when I had death threats okay so I don't really like the way you run your shop bill well I appreciate those comments I'm not familiar with the event that you're talking about I'm happy to follow up with you also all right well I hope you have a good night okay yes I have a question about previous items oh yeah sure I don't know I don't remember enough about the actual language for the art council do do we decide the maintenance what money goes to maintenance and what goes to new works or do we give them a certain amount of money and they decide so I don't know I'm not sure the last year there was any real definition we gave them a total sum of money right and I don't know I was trying to see in the report if there was an estimated amount we I know you know there's nothing we've got in the current budget proposal specifically for arts maintenance so we should probably talk with them about how much they think is appropriate and who and how and I don't know what's needed if it's specialists or something we can do or and and again you know we have personnel shortages ourselves so right I would just like to look at the language to see if we need to modify it because I would like to see the maintenance under them you know but maybe I'm wrong but I would like to at least look at that language and see what it would need to change it so what yours just to clarify so what you're saying is that you want them to be able to decide like how much money ought to go to maintenance rather than it's one of their responsibilities and they can decide yeah of that this is how much we're going to do a maintenance this is how much we're going to do for new work right I don't want to I prefer not to see it separated so that we're doing maintenance and they're doing new works I think you have to do new works with maintenance in mind yeah yeah that's fair oh yeah sure that'd be great if you if you wouldn't mind coming up to a mic though that'd be great thank you we have actually assessed all the current public art in our city there's about 20 pieces and that doesn't count private pieces or state owned pieces so and of all those pieces we just need about a couple of thousand a year to take very good care of them now the other option is that we could approach the public works department and see if they have the expert well doesn't really need expertise to do this actually but if they'd be willing to do it it's another option I guess from when you were talking at the table I thought you were asking us to come up with more money for maintenance or to make this decision do you understand what your language of your charge is it include maintenance we're not sure either we assume that to do it in the approved public art master plan it was pretty it was actually clearly laid out is that one of the key pieces is to separate from a public art Commission's role is keeping maintenance separate as a separate line item from an appropriation so that that was actually one of the key pieces is because as time goes on any approach appropriation can get eaten up by all of the the maintenance and then there is no new work okay that's good to know but you so you have a separate line item for maintenance a separate line item for new work but but but they basically oversee both it's within their charge well it's it it is and it isn't it is it it is a in their charge that they make sure that it is done it's not necessarily in their charge that they they take it from their appropriation do you understand yep so that's I just want to say though in the public art master plan that was separated thank you thank you that's that's helpful thank you yeah kind of quick question I don't even know if it's considered art but the Challenger Memorial over my national life I know this came up a few years ago talking about moving it maybe is that actually owned by the city or is it a national life monument I believe it's owned by the city but these folks may know better it didn't come didn't come up in these yeah no that's a I feel like I'm finding out new pieces right yeah I will find out yeah I believe it is the city's and it was the national life agreed to have it and the national life property and some years ago they indicated that they wanted to use that space maybe first sign or something and at the time actually our current public works director was working for our public structure and she was working with a committee to find a new location and it kind of died down and now it's come back up again so I don't think there's anything imminent but it is on in some back burner discussion to find a different location but I do believe it is the city's I'll find out and clarify for you all okay thank you any further questions on public art okay so we have a interim river hazard map amendment to discuss welcome I'm Mike Miller I'm the planning director and what I have is a quick discussion tonight this is this will be a hearing for next week what we have is the river hazard regulations which were adopted at the same time as disowning but there are separate set of regulations set separate set of rules and we adopted those changes in 2018 in January and since that time we have been issuing permits and this summer we had a couple of items couple of projects that came up that seemed like reasonable projects that we're gonna have difficulty being able to approve and so we felt the appropriate thing to do would be to go back and to see whether some changes needed to be made to the rules to allow projects to move forward one of those projects is on coming street and if you looked at the map that was attached to the memo that I sent out it's not perfectly clear but you can see where there's Elm Street and if you follow the green you see it crosses over coming street well that's the area that's in the river hazard area in the river corridor and according to the way the maps are supposed to be drawn they are supposed to stop when they hit a road your river corridor is the area rivers naturally meander across the landscape and what the state has tried to do is to get municipalities to adopt these river corridors to give rivers room to move but one of the rules they have is if that river moves and hits a road we're not going to go and discontinue the road we're going to protect the road and let it work within the balance of these roads and if you look throughout the rest of our corridor that's the way it's been mapped for whatever reason it got missed on coming street and it turns out we didn't notice it because it was such a minute thing on a large map that we never really noticed it until somebody came in with a project and they can't do the addition on their house because it would expand into the river corridor so that's the reason for that change it really is a very straightforward it shouldn't have been in the district at all so we're going to recommend taking it out the second set of changes that are in here are also discussing the river corridor that the river channel that moves and what we had was we did have rules about accessory structures but it turns out it really didn't work in all situations and what was a very simple project turned out to be something that we had a difficult time approving it was just a shed cover for somebody's sand pile he works doing sanding and plowing and he needs a place to store his sand for the winter it's a low value structure has low value content it is more than 50 feet from the river but it is in the river corridor and so we felt we we could amend those rules clarify them a little bit and to make sure they that you know it wasn't something that could be abused in another situation but would allow for some reasonable accommodations for these types of projects low value projects with low value contents we should be able to approve such a structure so that's what you have before you is because it takes a long time to adopt permanent we thought we would start with these interim changes and if they work we would be back at some point to do a full adoption process to adopt them so you'll develop some kind of form for the acknowledgement of the inherent risk to property as part of the process yes we felt that that that made a lot of sense that that we should have that included as you can see it was one of the additions and we felt if we were going to start to allow these things we had to have people acknowledge that this is a risky area thanks today here correctly you said you wanted to look at what what what was standing in the way of projects today is that it turned out there were two specific projects that came in we've had a number of projects that have come in that could meet these rules and or were adjusted so they didn't have to be in the river corridor but these were two specific projects one was to put potentially an accessory apartment onto an addition in their house and that that project was not going to be allowed because it was in the river corridor even though it was on the other side of the street and then this other project came up in a different part of the river corridor I I thank you for the explanation I just I don't like to assume things I think what I am struggling with is changing things in response to particularized requests and I guess what makes me uneasy is you know I've driven a lot lately and there were some pretty significant flooding north of here I know the river rose here quite a bit but we did not flood but parts of coal chester s6 I mean we're talking like lots and lots and lots of water like covering entire fields and I I am hesitant I mean I know 50 feet is 50 feet which in the grand scheme of things is not that much but on the flip side I guess if we want to preserve our waterways and and we are invested in sort of keeping space open because natural events happen I'm what I'm struggling with is is we I think we talked a lot about the 50 foot restriction if I am correct when we went through this the first time around and so I'm struggling with changing it now and and then sort of doing it as a piecemeal process because I could see changes you know to certain parcels where you know that might not be something that we ever intended to allow but and I know I think I know the answer I know no one likes the variance process is this something where we could simply add you know a variance option so you know if your project meets these criteria you can apply for a variance as opposed to a blanket change so to kind of answer the first part of your question when we get applications where something gets something doesn't meet the rules and gets disapproved you know we have a very careful and deliberate discussion of you know is this the intent of what we wanted when we adopted these rules in some case the answer is yes this absolutely is not a project we wanted to have happen this is you know in other cases we look at them and say you know this isn't what we intended is it is it worth making that change for just this one project in this case we really looked would we want to allow this to happen in other places which is why you saw us a number of different additional requirements that were added in we didn't strike any requirements or remove any requirements we actually added additional requirements to some of the lesser ones before allowing this new one so we already allowed things less than 480 square feet this one happened to be larger than 480 square feet because it had to fit the salt pile and we were and and we felt if there were certain conditions which we outlined then that could be okay um a little bit to get to your second question what we did add was a number four is actually a waiver which is what you would think of as a variance so variances are very difficult under state law to issue so we did allow for a waiver provision that if somebody wanted to have more flexibility they could go to the development review board and they could request some flexibility provided they met these restrictions that we outlined can i ask a follow-up my read it though of subsection four is they can request a variance in relation to the new 711 d2b and 711 d3b so that would be an additional variance from the change right from the proposed change that's before us right now so they could deviate further and so i guess i i understand what you're saying in terms of the the variances being restrictive under state law and i know we talked about sort of the the goal of streamlining as opposed to making people request a variance i i am uncomfortable with with having the the new proposal which would sort of allow for this other type of development but then also going even further and opening that up once again and saying well you know we also we're going to change this but then you can also apply for more than what's here and i i understand that there are criteria but i have learned that sometimes less is more and i just i this is this is not something that i support for a myriad of reasons but that part in particular so there's the expansion and then there's that sort of like extra it's like an expansion plus and that makes me a little uneasy given you know certainly the city wants people to be able to use their property as it is but i think we as as the governing body here have an obligation to ensure public safety and to you know to make sure that structures when they are built are able to be insured because if there is damage people are going to need to replace that or sort of deal with the fallout of an event but i also again i really don't i really struggle with changing things because something comes up i would i would much prefer a more thoughtful approach you know why did we do this in the first place like this versus a reactionary you know well they want these projects and if we do this then those can happen okay and we usually don't look for hypotheticals so they we usually don't discover problems until somebody comes up with an application and i took an opposite approach i was pleased to see these are new rules and we don't know how they're going to impact until we have a project so i like seeing this because you kept in all three stances the structure is not within 50 feet of the streamer river bank and likewise is no closer than the existing principal structure so to me you kept protections in that really limits it but by the same token after you've gone through your thoughtful process you realize oh we missed this i feel we're going to be doing this with our zoning until we apply it for a while so i'm in favor of it so yeah and the the reason if i could just follow up a little bit on the the reason why we put the exception in for the for just b which is new structures cannot be closer than the existing principal structure is we have a couple of properties on elm street where all of the single family homes are outside of the river corridor but all of their backyards are in the river corridor so we as we were talking about looking at this and thinking about what we might see in the future we started thinking what if somebody wanted to put a garden shed in their backyard we can't do it as we currently have it written because it would be closer to the river than the principal building so we just looked at a number of the guns that you know i we can see this one coming and so let's put the waiver in because then we can go through and say we are you know we can limit the size of the structures the number of the structures we can say it's got to be the minimum so you can't go you can have that shed but you might not have it next to the or you know if you have a hundred feet we might say well you can't have that shed at the 50 foot mark we're going to want it to 75 foot mark we've got a way of having some right to say where that small shed or swimming pool or something else that might go in the backyard because that's what somebody could potentially have on on elm street is they want to put a swimming pool in their backyard and we'd have to say no and we felt before somebody comes in and we've got to amend the rules again we thought this was a great opportunity for us to to rethink about our rules and then because we had had accessory apartments discussed we wanted to make sure it's clear that whatever structure goes in there shouldn't be habitable and that was why we'd put the extra rules that said no more it can be an accessory structure but it couldn't be an accessory apartment in that area other thoughts yeah if you have more I might make a motion it's no more well I I have some thoughts but uh Lauren go ahead we'll go ahead first I have something to say to go ahead um one question to start so um Ashley had raised the question of insurance would these be insurable at this point if you're building what are the it's not our um we don't we don't get into the insurance and whether something is insurable or not there so there are within a river hazard area a number of different lines that are in there and they they tend to overlap they're not exclusive you're going to have the flood hazard area which is identified based on as water comes up to a certain point what area is covered that could be wider or narrower depending on um what the terrain is like so you'd have the river corridor and within that you've got the floodway so you've got the area where the water moves the fastest so that's usually right up next to the river channel so within the flood hazard rules those are your FEMA flood hazard rules that's one district in your river hazard area the river corridor is a second one that's the one that's looking at as the river moves so these both of these projects that we were talking about were not in the flood hazard area they were only in the river corridor which meant they're above the flood stage they will not flood in the flood um in a 100 year flood it exceeds 100 year flood I have no hashtag challenge accepted yes they won't flood in those 100 year events but they would both be theoretically subject to a river moving undermining the bank and dropping them in the river that's so that's the difference between those two so the insurance there is an insurance tying to the flood hazard piece because communities and individuals are only eligible for insurance if we adopt and enforce our FEMA the flood hazard rules consistent with the federal guidelines which we do thanks for that explanation um yeah I mean just thinking about so there's the 100 year floods we know in this era of climate change we're going to see more extreme flooding more often so I really don't like us encouraging development in flood prone areas I think I mean I lots of work I'm doing in other capacities are looking at how do we take structures out of flood river corridors and so on so to say that you know we're moving in the opposite direction really concerns me um I I understand the intent here and how frustrating it must be if you live in um in a home that is restricted in this way but it's it's areas that if we were developing a new city now you know you would probably look at certain uh have some different criteria perhaps so I I I just do have some concerns about you know there might be ways of tightening this up I mean even something like a garden shed what are you storing in there is it stuff that we want washing into our river I there might be tightening up of you know even further of what what exactly are we permitting but I I air towards more not wanting to open up new development in these areas personally so I know jack you had something to say too but I'm going to jump on that comment as well because that that was my thought as well um I was similarly worried about encouraging construction um near the near the river similarly um to that end particularly with anything related to uh changes in uh the the river hazard um codes you know the Norton's documents that sort of thing I would love to be getting input on that from the conservation commission uh I would love for them to just have a an opportunity to do a once over and see if they have any concerns about the language I mean that's um that's that's just me but uh and then similarly I was worried also about uh the contents of of the shed so not the shed but whatever it was right so I um the the fact that it the language currently says uh use for storage of low value contents um is on the one hand I I mean I understand why that would matter because if it's at a risk to be destroyed then uh you know what's the what's the loss there but um I I'm also interested in uh you know what type of hazardous chemicals are we uh keeping uh in the the um a flood prone area uh so uh I before uh I would love to see that language be modified to reflect that somehow if that if that's a reasonable request um and then one further thing um is just that uh in two B and two and three B I think that's the wrong principle it's grab the wrong I think it should be the other principle should be the PAL uh in two B and in three B meaning the principle should be the PAL yes yes yeah the wording yeah sorry I know it's super principle no it's particular I think that's right it's primary it's the principal structure as opposed to your PAL is a principal person right well isn't am I wrong no I'm wrong I just looked at the definitions okay I'm probably have that mistake a lot of places I think I'm with you mayor you agree with me well right I do but if but okay now I'm gonna look it up again the principal idea the main idea is le yes correct but if you look up PAL the first definition is first in order of importance of how PAL structure that is true yeah I learned it's the you look up the other one and see what doesn't say the same thing yeah I know you know we learn something all the time okay well in any case at least it's so you talked as if we can control what people store in their sheds well that's the garage I mean there's certain rules right the state says about flammables or whatever but can we control well that's a good question I don't know okay and I'm willing to concede that maybe we can't yeah just so we're clear the when I mentioned that there were the these two separate or three separate things that kind of overlap and can shift back and forth the rules are cumulative so if it's in the river corridor and the flood hazard area it would have to meet those flood hazard area rules as well which would prohibit the storage of those types of materials okay and if it's outside as in the case that we were looking at here it's a structure that is above the flood stage and 50 feet so our thought is that would enter the river if the river moved 50 feet which I think in most cases in this city that would be a tremendous event to move a river 50 feet actually um oh actually before you jack did you have something further I do go for she's directly responding to what you've got going on is this in response is this on the same time it is okay I think the only other thing that I would raise is you know with a 450 square foot accessory structure I mean that could do damage to abutting property owners as well and again I'm I'm I'm trying not to generally be like the worst case scenario or but that I mean that is the that's a pretty significant addition to a parcel and then if you have neighbors that are abutting and you know there's a major weather event it just it seems like kind of the same thing that there might be unintended damages to abutting or attendant properties that you know that those landowners are going to have to address you know and I just I'm not sure that that's what we were looking to do jack in general I think that what we're doing here is very similar to what we did earlier this year with the zoning ordinance where we the city found a series of things that were unanticipated that didn't allow for for for desirable uses and needed to make changes in order to enable those desirable uses to to occur and we had this guy you know fixing the zoning fixes as we kept calling them and the and the steep slopes issue and so I think this is a good good idea to be doing whether it's the exact right language I don't know but I I would I'm certainly going to support going forward and scheduling this for a for a public hearing the question that occurred to me is we've been talking about this and you and you mentioned a garden shed is that their garden their small buildings below a certain size that people don't even need to get a permit for so how would someone know whether they're if whether they're allowed to do it or not um the one of the big reasons that we decided to move the river hazard regulations outside of the zoning was because um of the exceptions that exist to zoning in many cases don't apply to river hazards so in mo zoning by lots of you look I don't say except in the flood hazard area garden shed less than 100 square feet doesn't need a permit well in the flood hazard area it does so it actually becomes confusing to some people who are doing things when we separated it out it becomes a lot clearer because everything all development in the flood hazard area needs a permit so even the smaller even the smaller projects so people are expected to know that or if they if they call the city and say hey I'm doing this little thing do I need a permit for it you'll tell them well you don't need a certain zoning permit but but you do need the river hazard permit because we have to make sure that the structure is going to be anchored if it were say a small shed we would say that's great make sure it's anchored and you'll have to bring in a permit and we will we'll be looking at that aspect of it to make sure it doesn't float away um so those are usually the the pieces that we look at and we always encourage and anyone who listens if you have a project idea always just email my office that's what we always encourage people to do because then we have a written record that goes and says hey I want it to put in a shed and we can look and say you're not in the flood hazard area or where you're looking to put it is not in the flood hazard area so you can just go ahead and do it but it's always good to contact us first because we can confirm you don't need permits and then you have something in writing thanks okay um what's your desired team is there a motion regarding setting the first hearing for next time would you like to send it to conservation commission or not do it at all um also I stand by my principle yes yes I actually have even a better definition I was gonna say I have a better definition that the one with the pile is PAL is a noun and an adjective but the PLE is only a noun and refers to high moral ground so your principle is your pile but friend it's my sudden accent sorry if you have a PAL you it can also mean a description of something to be main more important so you're right thank you and Tom Tom Brown from Montpelier I apologize for my outburst the mayor is correct stand by your stand by your principles yes or try to be flexible right yeah well regardless what is I can I can search for that typo to see where else it exists uh don't I would like to go ahead and make a motion to have a first hearing and meanwhile we can talk to the conservation well there were there there only needs to be one but you can always have more just so you know this isn't one that needs to be adopted through the two readings process um because it's an interim change it can it can be adopted with one hearing but it's up to you how many you want to have but if it's an interim change doesn't that mean that it has to be formally adopted later it it's effective for two years oh okay and then would have to be at sometime within the two-year period would have to be formally adopted okay and you're thinking within that two period we would do a more inclusive adoption yeah everything not just this um well these are the only changes if we find any other changes that at that time we probably would would look at that um but knowing um in this case we felt it's a little more timely to do them on an interim basis because there were existing projects one of which was looking at the adu program that we have going on and they can't advance their project until they can get their permits and so if we wanted to go through a four month process of revising the map that would mean they wouldn't be able to advance the adu project so that's that's why we voted to go with an interim rather than the full adoption process so i we'll see if it passes i'll make a motion that we set our first public hearing at our next meeting just december 18th to to uh approve the proposed interim river hazard area amendments second it's a conservation commission going to meet before then or i think ironically i think they are meeting at the exact same time they're meeting over in the managers conference room because i had to meet with them and i was like well i guess i'm already gonna be here but for this i will be able to go over and maybe we can ask them to maybe we just put later on the agenda and put it first on there exactly just pop over and say how that went yeah it's actually already warned because it had to be a warned hearing it's actually already warned for 645 so we already know when it will be next week unless you decided not to do it yeah all right okay um fair enough uh that works for me if we can hopefully get them to take it up early so any further discussion um yeah so just just on this point of like what you could store so it sounds like in flood hazard areas there are restrictions on what you're allowed to store i mean is that something that you think from your perspective could be appropriate or could be applicable here or do you see challenges with um just kind of dropping similar language into this we could certainly review it our concern we knew knowing this was built 50 feet from a bank we figured it's going to take a bit of time for that to probably meander its way over to whatever structure it is um but we certainly could look at what is in the existing limitations for the flood hazard area and replicate that in this case i would have to do a little bit to look up where it is i can't off the top of my head grab the numbers one possibility is that maybe we just add a reference in this section to wherever it has the the list spelled out or those regulations spelled out um is is that oh okay how do you feel about that of those who made that motion we can make modifications at the first hearing that's fair that's a good point it's true it's not really a part of this motion necessarily so okay cool any further conversation all right all in favor please say aye opposed nay okay thank you thank you okay and on to the winter parking ban ordinance amendment um for sibling and prospect street so this is the first public hearing so i am going to officially open the public hearing uh and uh and yeah so are there any comments from counselors or the public well i know that there's a couple people from the public that want to comment but i just say in general this was done because we had discovered there were a couple areas where it was difficulty for vehicles to get through when snow banks existed and under storm conditions and for emergency vehicles so we've raised this once before council asked us to notify nearby residents which was done and that's why we're here great um comments i'm heather quarry and i live on sibley ab and i was wondering um why is it more difficult to move the snow on that part of sibley ab than other streets um is this for the whole winter a parking ban for the whole winter for sibley and prospect and um if it has been difficult to move the snow on particular streets why not make it a two-day parking ban for those locations um i live there last winter and it seemed like we needed a parking ban about once a week was how much i had to move my car um currently i myself am able to park in a friend's driveway but i don't really foresee that happening all winter long and i'm not really sure of like the safe locations where i can park my vehicle at night and walk back every single evening um i rent i don't have a driveway to park in um there is one that the landlords use but they are able to get up with you know big strong trucks and stuff and my vehicle can't do that uh i just um i think it would be simple enough you know if i understand it's a lot to plow in the winter i think it'd be simple enough for the city to add yet one more alert to our streets to say the parking ban is in effect for or no longer in effect except for sibley avenue etc etc thank you great thank you hi i'm valerie lewis um i live at one sabin street uh so i'm on the corner of sabin and sibley i grew up on lower uh sibley avenue so i grew up on the area that we're talking about um and i'm here to ask you to amend the parking uh winter parking ban ordinance for lower sibley only i don't think it's a problem at the top of the hill it gets much wider up there but i grew up on the street and i'm down in that area every day because my mother still lives in that house and it gets very very congested in the winter it's bad enough anytime of the year if you've driven up there and tried to go around the corner when someone's coming down the street you know how tight it gets in the winter the snow gets pushed out and particularly in front of my mother's house there was a repair a temporary repair made to the sidewalk several years ago and it was intended only to be temporary because it was crumbling pretty badly they weren't able to do a regular curb there and so they had to slope it and so anyone parking in front of there parks a little farther out because the curb is slow so that's pretty close to the corner and it the snow just when it gets pushed out you've got people coming down the hill many of whom really don't like to stop at the base of college street and then you've got people trying to come up around the corner and it just gets really dangerous um there there are times when it's almost terrifying to try to get out of my mother's driveway at eight and ten um I think that anybody who doesn't have a place to park could park farther up the street because I don't think there there is a problem from college street up to Saban it's just that small section that just is really hazardous and I just live in fear that somebody's going to get hit and there's going to be a real real bad accident there so and we have made an offer for our neighbor when our driveway is available to park in our driveway because we we try to park in the driveway and leave space out on the street for that particular house doesn't have a lot of parking everybody else does but we we have made that offer but I think that you would be able to park up the street and it's pretty safe because I walk the street every night back and forth between my house and Sibley so thank you very much for your consideration thank you does she have your number does she have your number okay very nice good evening my name is Stephen Cohen I'm a resident at 46 Prospect Street um my wife and I own 46 and 48 we're duplex uh we have two families including ours we're a four car household um we all commute um she knows a challenge here in Vermont getting around transportation she talked about earlier this evening um it would be a pretty massive inconvenience for us to we have two off-street parking spots so we split those between our units um it'd be a pretty massive inconvenience for us as well as the other three to four cars that are typically on the street every night um that don't have driveway parking um the closest place to Prospect to legally park is down here at City Hall um in the same places that are reserved for off-street parking during the parking ban um I know a lot of us leave really early and come home really late uh based on our work commuting and working service industry jobs and things like that uh so it's kind of a schlep especially in the winter there's ice I don't know if anybody's been up Prospect Street walking up that hill uh but it's can be fairly treacherous um especially when there's no lights and it's black ice um the other piece that I've heard come up about this uh amendment is that it's in regard to um creating more passageway for emergency vehicles which I think is interesting because the section of street that the non-ban applies to um even when there are cars parked there isn't even close to the most narrow point on the street there are points on the street that are two to four feet uh more narrow than that section with cars so if emergency vehicles coming up as a concern the cars parked in that area of the road are the least of the concern um yeah it's two feet on I took measurements this morning before I came up here it's two feet on the uh at the intersection with cherry and then coming up the other side off of hill street um I don't know really if an emergency vehicle could make that turn it's uh it's steeper than a 90 degree turn and on a pretty steep hill so that would be pretty challenging so yeah I asked that I like your idea about um you know potentially keeping it with um you know you call for a van if you need more time to remove snow in those areas that are a little bit challenging extend the van like we're all pretty reasonable about moving our cars off the street when there is a van so you know we're flexible but it'd be pretty inconvenient to have to park at city hall for three and a half months out of the year every night thanks yeah thank you hi I'm Stephanie Quaranta I live on Berlin street but my family owns the eight and ten Sibley so I have 61 years of experience on that street um I've also worked for 39 years in municipal government between Barry and Montpelier so well some of the suggestions of like additional parking ban times sound great but financially somebody's got to go out put all these you know tags notify people you know it's a lot of labor for that whereas right now like Sibley as an example it was so frustrating that the snow banks got so big but yet if there was a ban on that part okay so like a weather like this DPW is not outstanding solid thing today but they could take a crew out tonight without a lot of you know they're you know possibly not over time maybe shift differential but get out there and clear that um and keep it you know just a lot safer so the corner of Sibley it gets wide you can't see around it um you know Heather wonderful person I understand that part but from the bottom of college to the corner Sibley you're talking like three and a quarter houses and we own one of them we have folks from the legislature that stay there they all go up the driveway and it's been pretty scary sometimes I'm even trying to get in one of the gentlemen is handicapped and there is just no way he could even park on the street if he had to so I'm just asking please after you know many years of experience with that street to please consider and again our household would be one that would be impacted but for the safety every night I'm there and I'm fearful push the mirrors in I'm even afraid getting out I'm there like um you know five o'clock six o'clock and um I think you're in that air who's the um representative what do you call them here Alderman or what I do but I'm not but I don't live there but but I go by there all the time so yeah I have no treasure does anyone travel that yes okay so anyway I won't keep you and keep rambling I know the two minute kind of rule you know I've been on the other side of the table so thank you and anytime Heather you still can park thank you any further comments okay comments from council or did you have something you want to follow up okay yeah good um there's still many many days in the winter where we don't have treacherous conditions and we are a park pretty far from that corner of Barry and Sibley I don't really see the difference between the conditions on Sibley Ave in the winter and for example Barry Street I know you don't have control over drivers behaviors but people are pretty generous driving away from the side of the road and taking up more space than not really allowing another car to get by I often see people driving about four feet from the cars parked on the side and people can drive slower in the winter as well and I know this would be a different um thing to address that's separate from the parking band perhaps the challenges of Sibley Ave should be more about changing that part of the street to a one way rather than a two way thank you okay Ashley so I used to live right down the street from here at 178 Barry and I take Sibley every day to get home and I am a renter and I've lived in places with no parking and I I understand why because I too have had many a closer call than I feel comfortable with at that intersection but I am the sort of question that's been like playing over and over in my mind is like what what is the the crux of the issue and I mean that intersection has existed that way for I mean I've lived here for five years six years now and it's been like that ever since I can remember is like that when I used to come up here when I was a kid and so you know we've always had snow we've always had cold miserable weather um and you know but when you rent and you have to walk I mean I used to live in Boston and I would have to park like seven eight nine blocks from home and have to walk home alone which I don't feel safe or comfortable doing and I used to live on that section of Barry Street and I was uncomfortable walking from downtown Montpelier home um and I understand that that is a dangerous corner but I feel like to me the question more is is this an issue year round in which case I think we would have one approach to it but it seems like this is a winter specific thing and so we know that the number of cars that are presumably parking there aren't changing between the seasons so the only the only difference really seems to be the snow and so I wonder if the you know sort of coming at this from addressing the parking situation isn't actually addressing the root of the problem because if the snow is still coming out too far and you have to pull I mean there have been times we have to pull pretty much out on to Barry Street to be able to see who's coming um I'm certainly not comfortable you know telling people who rent who I mean I when I rented a place that didn't have an off-street parking place I made sure that there was sufficient on-street parking and that was you know a material piece of moving to a place because if I don't have a place to park that's not a place that I can live because I have to commute for work and so I am not going to vote in favor of this I just to me there's got to be a different approach to take that doesn't you know limit the parking given how hard it is to be a tenant in this community in terms of paying your rent and being able to keep ahead or even keep up frankly um but and I understand the safety concerns but I really feel like there's something that we could do with DPW to address that particular spot and I don't know if there's something separate that we could do for winter to like make sure that people are paying attention um but I I know what that walk is like and even where I live now sometimes I can't get up the hill in the winter so I have to park down here and then I have to walk up the hill to get home and um it's it's I just I don't I'm not sure that that changing this actually changes the issue I can answer part of your question Ashley one of the reasons it you know was not a problem for many years was because the city had a complete parking band this temper this you know occasional parking band is relatively new within the city so these problems have occurred primarily since this partial here band has gone on you know if there's some other way to do it that's fine I have empathy for folks who are renting I have to park sometimes if someone else is in our driveway and I'm going to my mother's house I have to park up above college street and walk down because there are renters who prefer to park in front of their building a lot of times we can't park in front of my mother's building so we're talking about parking three houses up the street on a street that's basically pretty safe so I don't think that's too far and there's a lot of parking at the top of that street so in the interest of safety and it's only really impacting one house everyone else has off street parking so if people could park three houses up unless we can come up with a another way to deal with it thank you jack um as I read the proposed ordinance the the parking band would only apply to uh between uh barry street and college street and so up where you are past college street you still would have the ability to park during parking band uh evenings and a lot during parking band meetings during non parking parking right okay okay um and uh donna well is it also I mean for me one of the things besides the snow is just icy and so you sometimes take up more space to get up the hill um so it is that condition of how much more ice hot cold hot cold that we have our winners recently so I just want to put that in um before before you go um I want to see if uh there's anyone else who hasn't uh just just conscious of like uh how many times people are speaking is is there anyone else who's um spoken who would like to speak again okay and any counselors who haven't um spoken um yes go ahead but go ahead no no no so um bringing it back to prospect street then I live on prospect street I spoke uh with Stephanie Cohen earlier I don't know if Steven's still here yeah so I I got uh some of the same points um and a couple of uh expansions on Steven's points um I also have been hearing from other neighbors on prospect um and you're by a couple of possible uh shifts in the amendment um if it's possible to to uh keep the the lower part of prospect street open between northfield street and call it I'm sorry and and school avenue um where it's nice and wide kind of put between numbers one and two that feels like it might help uh those prospect street people who do need on street parking there's also a kind of bulb out underneath number 67 uh that in past years has been used for for snow storage which is a useful use but if it could be plowed we could squeeze a couple of cars in there I think that uh I don't know if if Steven has a thought on that but I I feel like if if those two areas were uh also exempted from the ban um that would go a long way to to making it palatable um for for some folks I also have heard from neighbors who really do feel like it urgently needs better clearing that the the complete ban would provide uh it does get it frighteningly narrow uh at some points and it's already narrow even without snow uh at a couple of choke points as Steven mentioned so I if we can follow up on that before the second public hearing at least on those open potential open spots that'd be great to repeat your numbers again yeah so uh there's a wide section between I think it's between numbers one and two prospect street it's like right down at the bottom 35 to 51 does it not but it's that is the the space on one side of the of prospect street that is exempted between 35 and you're suggesting maybe also exempt also exempt between one and two one and two and this one little bulb out around number 67 okay I wasn't sure if you're exempting it yeah or wanting to exclude it so just okay um and I have a question too um the has actually brought up you know that what's the crux of the issue here and for me it's about the emergency vehicle passage and so I will be very interested to hear if with these potential changes you know if you exempt between one and two uh does that jeopardize emergency vehicles um getting through that space yeah if you if you have thoughts on that and then we'll get to your here come in thank you I think leaving that bottom section open between Northfield and School Ave would not that's not an issue for emergency vehicles we have plenty of them there it's from there beyond and it gets very tight um I got at least six or eight complaints last year from residents who were concerned and we would check and we could not get through with it keeping in mind that the only access to prospect street is on the one end we can't access it from the other end because we can't make the turn off from Hill Street back we have done that before it's not a good option but you pull up Hill Street and then back down prospect not a great option but there have been there was a situation where that was our only way in because the street with snow banks gets so narrow and um I think with Valerie it made the point when we had a complete parking van this it's only become a problem since the complete parking van so that that section of prospect street needs a complete parking van um thank you and uh yeah since this is your second time yeah thanks um yeah I think we've talked about uh Glenn's point about you know some conciliatory parking either at the bottom of the hill or in the bump out in front of whatever did you say that was I said 67 yeah in front of 67 where they've usually banks know I think that that's a it's a reasonable concession I'd like to see it go the other way but I'd certainly prefer that over a full van and people not having access to vehicles on that street at all sorry can you just say that one more time so yeah are you are you sit well actually let me ask a question about what you're saying are you sure um you're saying finding a closer lot that where you can park all the time in the event of a parking van right well uh you know in having having spots in between one and two prospect if those are and that too okay right if those are available during the during the winter not during the emergency van yep or however whatever the verbiage is um yeah then that would be that would be be I think reasonable um uh to the point about the passage though I I just haven't seen it I haven't seen it be I haven't seen anything be more narrow than where you actually go through the stop sign at cherry street and so I'm curious as to like how how that's not more of uh more of a choke point than anywhere else on the street um and also kind of like actually was talking about that it seems like the parking isn't really the issue it's the snow removal um and I see other places like and maybe Sibley is a good example of this too where DPW comes in with with a loader and a dump truck and you know maybe you have to do one of those every every month every six weeks if we're getting a lot of snow I feel like that's almost uh and similarly to passage for emergency vehicles to do that is going to be I think a more thorough solution than to say that people can't park yeah so I'm not yeah information our argument so the the point was we always used to do that snow removal when there was a complete winter band you could just go out and do it whenever and so what what typically happens is you have the snow event and the crews out all night doing their thing and so it isn't always the next night that they can get out and do it they're exhausted so it might be a couple nights later so we call a second ban for snow removal and the compliance in the second ban is you know we'll end up towing 50 60 cars or it might be only three cars during an actual storm people just will ignore it they'll say well it's not snowing I don't need to do it and so we see you either end up towing cars or you don't get the snow bank removed and so then it freezes and it becomes this problem so if people if everyone actually complied when and it's not just these two areas it's you know the whole down you know it's all over sure and and so I you know and I think the council's been clear and I think even staff gets it that you know the the full ban is extremely difficult for for people you know I don't know what people did up to four years ago what what folks where you live did all winter or where you live I have no idea how they manage that but that's that was what we did and we had many many beautiful nights where there was no snow on the ground and no one could park and that that prompted the change to try to make it friendlier for people and I think what you're seeing now is is residual tweaking of where did we miss where could it be fine tuned and that's why these conversations are helpful and I think we can we can go look at these areas between now and the next meaning see if there's anything Ashley and then we'll get to your question I just want to make sure that I am correct that the first in essence like house and a half of Sibley if you're headed down the hill before you get to the stop sign it's like the house and a half before the stop sign has no parking right there's like a sign that says no parking here to corner is that right I think it's so funny I drive there all the time and I like couldn't I cannot distinctively remember whether it's there or not but I'm pretty sure it is so and then there are if so I know that there's three there's those first three houses so there's five houses on Sibley total that would be that would be before College Street that would be impacted do we know how many units are in those five properties in that area on Sibley so there's there's two units there so six six says at least four if not so there's five so that so that's okay so there's five units in one building and I'm not sure I'm in hearing four behind the building four I think four has at least four do you know you're the next door number four number six you're at number six and then you said there's five units there so then number four has I think four but I'm not sure okay so it's more than they're more than single-family homes or duplexes correct okay um I just wanted to make sure that my math thank you where do they park when there's a full van well I think that's I mean but that's a once in a while thing as opposed to and I the corner very granted there's a gigantic parking space there that all these cars I mean they all park in there and I think the landlord rented spaces landlord for six at one point I don't know right this year rent and spaces I just that's that's I mean I know I know we're talking about this now it I mean I I know renters like you know that's part of the you know things are going to change in your community I also have a lot of appreciation for the fact that I would have made different decisions if there were no parking because I have to have I mean I used to leave for work at 5 a.m. when I commuted and you know the prospect of walking in the snow you know I had to walk to city hall a few times and I would have made very different choices and I would have been I would be if I were in this situation today and you know because sometimes I have to work late and if I get home late and there's no parking there I mean that means city hall lot if there's spaces or you know trying to find a friend and I I wish that we if we were going to take this up had taken this up sooner because it feels fundamentally unfair to me that someone enters into a lease agreement you know with the understanding that this is this is the situation we know that it could change but you are you know you're stuck in a lease now and I just I'm I'm mindful that you know there are those of us that don't have to worry about it for reasons but then there are some for whom that is a significant impediment to sort of life right now and I just I don't know what the solution is to that but it feels really wrong to me to just kind of look at folks who entered into a rental agreement based on a certain understanding and and now that is changing through no fault of theirs and certainly you know the landlord isn't changing that unilaterally but that's a I think that's a significant concern Heather Corey again yes thank you it's it's not just one house being affected on Lower Sibley Ave there are plenty of other renters on that street I think it's challenging that someone that does not live there is speaking against letting renters park on the street I will say there were plenty of parking bans last winter where there was no plowing done on Sibley Ave and that's a challenge as well I think it's also unfair that I would need to park further up on Sibley Ave and it's really treacherous right there there's a house the yellow house where the that big massive tree came down and it is like a sheet of ice at the end of their driveway and down the sidewalk and I don't think that that's fair that every night of the winter that's what I'm gonna have to do and you know risk falling myself and then getting across college and Sibley which is also just a sheet of ice from water cascading down the sidewalk thank you all right so you don't live there so let's not have that argument yeah um this is a public discussion all right so we could have a move to a motion to actually I'm going to close a public hearing and wondering if there's feedback that you would like to give the city manager regarding how if you want to look into anything or you know make any changes I mean we've talked about looking into exempting the between one and into Prospect Street just there are any other changes that people are interested in or I mean I know Ashley you're objecting to it generally but are there any other thoughts from other folks who haven't said anything yet or is there a motion I have a question okay yeah despite my continued opposition I'm wondering if there is what the city has for parking spaces down that far and the last ones that I can think of are the co-op on stone cutters way but they're the ones right before the co-op parking lot I think on the street the public street parking yes and I don't know if those are well those aren't full ban we can look at that I guess so if that if this is going to happen and it seems as though there are enough votes for that to happen I just I'm putting it out there that like it would seem that there may be something that the city could do at least for now so that you know landlords can figure something out and so that it doesn't result in you know forcing the folks who are impacted on the lower end to like make a significant disruption to wherever it is that they have to park and well actually to that point I was looking at the map of places where people can park during a parking ban and I had thought that the spaces on stone cutters way sort of across from Alan Lumber were in the spaces where you can always park but it's not showing up at least on the map that I was able to to pull up on the city's website which makes me wonder like is that is that still the case I had remembered that as being a space so if it's that it would be good to clear I would love to if we're going to you know talk about this again I'd love to clarify that point because that at the very least we could clarify in the city map that that is available if it is or consider opening that up if it's not but anyway other thoughts or comments from the council I might might ask would just be that it be actually like preferential spaces for folks who live in the unit for those that are in those units who have a car right now that does not include off street parking that if there were a way to designate you know x number of spaces I don't know if you have any mechanism for doing that but in case Jack I think people made some valid concerns that I hope we can discuss more but for now I move that we schedule a second public hearing on this proposed ordinance and based on the timing I assume it would be next week which isn't very much time but I know that there are also concerns with getting the notice out to people so it can be effective so my motion would be that the second public hearing would be next week well it could be I mean you could do it in January it just be wouldn't be a month of the big middle of winter where it wasn't resolved so sorry your motion is to have a next meeting on the 18th on December 18th I'll second it okay any further discussion okay all in favor please say aye opposed okay thank you all for your very thoughtful comments and maybe see you back next week and we will council knows this but you folks wouldn't as our staff team meets every Thursday morning after these meetings and debriefs what happened so we will and the chief police and fire chief are here so we will spend some time seeing what what we can come up with because it certainly makes you know I get the situation yes you know right now it's they just voted it'll be next Wednesday okay yes there was also a statement from this gentleman I thought he was asking not to do the snow storage at number 67 all of that is that included okay I was looking at Ms. Corey but I meant all the comments that were raised we'll have to go in okay good evaluate yes yeah I'm interested in that but if that's not an option that's okay but let's look at it so yeah okay great all right thank you all yes well let's take a little break and then we'll go into the budget okay our last regular item is the budget so I'm gonna actually I'm gonna move right there there you go and thanks first of all I would like to start by apologizing that we don't have more detail for you as you have been told in advance the the budget this year was particularly challenging and we really were working on numbers I was actually you know home working on them last night we were tweaking some today we met this afternoon on our capital and equipment plan to try to get that straightened out so this is really rolling out we but where we're at we feel like we're pretty comfortable proposing my original plan for tonight had been to share our tale of woe with you and when we first when we first laid out the budget we we had a very large increase as most of you know and I think for the folks that are watching the biggest challenge we had this year was our health and our workers comp insurance which really was about a three and a half you know that comprised about three and a half percent increase in the budget just on its own and so we first looked at trying to do everything that we could that we wanted to do that you wanted to do and maintain our services and at least keep things level where they were we were up in a five and a half to six percent tax increase which I think most of us felt were was not going to fly here and then we took a look at how to get it at least to about last year we had a four cent increase about three point seven percent tax increases so how do we get it back into that area and that was pretty scary in terms of meeting our goals and then we said well you know inflation is running about two I think if I came out today it's two point one percent but I think it was like one point nine percent it was about two percent so what does it look like if we get it to two percent and that was you know a major change in how we did that so my plan tonight was to come and sort of lay out these range of things and say give us some direction you know what what do you want but instead we we tweaked and we worked and we came up as I said really this is sort of hot off the press so I'm just going to give you an outline tonight and tell you where we're at we'll have your budget books for you hopefully by the end of the week certainly by Monday plenty in advance of next week's meetings you can look at all the detail but I think I can hit the high notes but to cut to the chase which is actually in the last slide we're at a at a budget at a tax percent increase of about three point six percent which is really 100 percent due to uh the the insurance increases so basically holding the line on everything else and the tax rate I think is around four or four point one cents so that's that's where we're at and it includes most of what you want not everything so I'll just walk down through it I don't know if we need to turn the lights out can everybody see this fine you want him out I know she doesn't I don't you don't no I would like them on scared of the dark no I'm not afraid of the dark anymore my monsters are real but no it's just it's hard like for my eyes to adjust so basically um you know a lot of this is just the the dog and pony show but it's the FY 21 budget obviously our goal is to increase implement the strategic plan uh we've we've had a commitment about our capital and equipment funding plan and is some of you may remember last year we originally planned to increase it 50 000 last year and then we compromised that we would do 25 last year and another 25 this year so our goal was to honor that commitment deliver our responsible services and again this year our major challenge was the insurance costs just a reminder I mean this is hard to read but just we do have a strategic plan we do have key areas and different strategies we're going to go into that in a little bit more detail uh so when we look at what we've got in the budget under our community prosperity we've maintained the hundred thousand dollars in funding for the mobility development plan we've um I actually meant to update that from last year that second bullet but uh we have not touched our planning and zoning staff so we have new zoning we're working on a master plan and we're implementing the TIF district uh hopefully we'll have some projects this year that we can bring forward later in the year under environmental stewardship we've continued uh the five thousand dollars from MEAC we have the stormwater projects in our capital plan we have the GMT circulator bus included although that may well turn into being the on-demand transit funding I think they're counting on that so we left the funding in so we would have that ability to talk about it we do need to talk about the energy planning grant we did not get it um and uh as of today we didn't have the funding included in the budget we think we may have found a place for it in the capital plan to fund some or all of it so that's a little bit of a question mark we'll know more about that certainly by next week uh our inclusive equity equitable welcoming community we have um the community fund is funded actually a slight increase three or four thousand that they had requested we have the ten thousand that you've already included for the social equity contract uh and we funded again feast mobiliar live in our community enhancements sustainable infrastructure we've uh we do have the additional twenty five thousand dollars for cip in there the water and sewer plan is continues to be followed you may recall we had a presentation about um needs of dpw so we had a retiree a supervisor retiring and the plan is to confirm that to a line staff to have an extra plow person and we also have a contract right now a private contract for um collecting trash in the downtown and the plan the proposal right now is to convert that to another uh full-time position have dpw assume the the trash pickup work in downtown cleanup but that would free up another extra person for plowing in the winter uh so that was a there was a slight increase over the contract price but we felt that it it was worth it uh to try to deal with the snow plowing issues thoughtfully planned uh built environment we again have the downtown improvement district funding uh we have our funding for downtown projects in the capital plan and we we kept the twenty thousand for public art uh we had the presentation tonight i think they thought it was twenty five thousand but it was twenty and we've retained that in in this year's budget uh for more housing again last year we funded a hundred and ten thousand uh i know it wasn't as much as what people had hoped it had been a significant increase and we've kept that in the budget for this year uh and we again have our tip tiff program which we hope will lead to some additional housing public health and safety we have our share of a social worker to be partly grant funded and partly shared with the city of berry for the public police department again we've uh tried to anticipate public events we've continued our paramedic program which means that you know we're getting more people certified in the paramedic program each year as we hire new firefighters we are seeking to replace firefighters with paramedics so we're trying to incrementally grow the program and that includes um it it's great because it not only does it provide additional service um but we can charge higher ambulance bills which are insurance covered because we're providing a higher level of service we can bring in more revenue but there's also much more costly equipment and the drugs that are used and those sorts of things so it's um so that's taken again for we're continuing um project safe catch responsive and responsible government we are continuing communications efforts and actually hoping we can ramp some up but there's no specific funding our polo wellness remains funded and basically keeping the same service levels including the good old faithful bridge article okay tom yeah i mean good with that so in the strategic plan we had some specific budget items you may recall there were certain things we talked about and in fact if you look at the list we put on your desk every week which has the upcoming meeting there's been this list all year of you know items to talk about at budget time so i felt that we should probably talk about those the the current uh so the first one on the list at least is the order i wrote him down is the upgrade the street lights to led uh the the right now we have a chance to buy the lights and ballasts for a really good price uh from efficiency for months we're planning to do that we can't really do the full change out without redoing all our wiring uh so that we're looking we're still costing that out and looking at options and doing cost benefit but we're eyeing a possible hundred and forty thousand dollar bond vote or we're trying to figure the best way to structure this but it might be in november so there's no money for that part of it yet but definitely on the front burner cso projects we're following our plan there are some in the capital plan the highest priorities the equity consultant is in the budget interesting that we had actually identified that in last year's strategic plan as a need and then came up and you funded it so good for you uh the downtown master plan is being completed there is funding in in the capital plan for coordinated signals one of the first items of that so as the plan gets completed and we start looking at really restructuring intersections those kind of thing but one of the things that happens to happen is those high tech signals that all talk to each other and so I think we have twenty five thousand dollars for those signal upgrades emergency management we did up increase funding this year just to reflect costs that we've actually had it's not a drastic increase but it is an increase alternative fuel the plan is to purchase alternative fuel when it's available and we do have a police hybrid that's actually in this current year it's not in next year's budget although our plan would be to order we have we replace a cruiser every year so we would ideally have a hybrid next year as well assuming this one works it's huge delay right now chief could explain it better than I but there's a kind of a shortage in cruisers right now some of the companies are getting out of the market and so your choices of sizes and options and things and we've we've had this car in order for a long time hasn't shown up yet so you know it used to be there were more city end type things and now people have gone to the more four-wheel drive and those things and Chevy's pretty much gotten out of the market and they used to be the market so it's it's just one of them you know that's the way it is parking garage operation so obviously we've just deferred that until we actually know when it's going to be open and functioning so we didn't spend a lot of time on that housing trust fund we maintained funding for that infrastructure we increased the 25,000 personnel plans we haven't completed that but we do have updated personnel costs in the budget and we've tried to anticipate some of the changes that are likely to occur as I mentioned the social worker would and again these are all things we'd called out last spring the city shares in the budget public wi-fi was on the list we took a look at that it's going to cost 60 to $90,000 for installation plus some annual costs so we didn't take that much further obviously if the council wants to pursue that we can but it's not included in the budget simply due to cost and what our staff at least believed were the priorities so recreation center you've seen the presentation decision is pending from you folks about that probably something we'll talk about next week we'll be getting the updated numbers you know it's going to be ballpark six million dollar bond I think that the key there is that would be a $300,000 bond payment the first year first full year one way to look at it is that typically we we put those into the capital plan so they fall within the total capital funding so in that regard it's good taxes don't necessarily go up the bad news is that's 300,000 less that we have to spend on other projects so or we could choose to increase the capital plan to help pay for this so I think that's a policy decision. Coughlitz Park we have approved a design and we don't have any real hard numbers yet so there's no thing and Sabin's pasture there's also no firm plan in place you know who knows maybe if some of those come to fruition if we have to have a vote in November some of those can be packaged up then possibly TIF projects or those kinds of things so those were the the list of budget items in the strategic plan what's not included although I may be going back on this right is the energy plan which was a $35,000 cost we I may have different news about that next week I don't know but right now in my head it's not included the homelessness task force I just heard today might be asking for as much as $57,000 I think it's broken out into discrete asks but totaled together so that's on the list there's nothing in there and not even the $10,000 for the shelters right now. Ashboro funds last year we funded positions and then we had also done a $20,000 allocation I think there was some thought that that allocation was intended to be carried forward every year wasn't the understanding that at least the finance director and I had they they've always spent $4,000 there's $16,000 left so there are there's $10,000 for the medications or whatever the inoculations that's not in there by annual like citizen survey we were going to include it this year we haven't done the one this current year that we had said we were going to do out of reserve and we were going to then put 5,000 a year away to do them every three years but didn't make the cut again the public wi-fi not in there the led street lights already talked about rec building confidence park and savings so those are items to be considered so all that taken I already mentioned that the projected property tax rate would be a 3.6 percent increase 4.1 cents this is all I think last year was four I think that's almost exact as last year might have been 3.7 cents last year but right around that same excuse me 3.7 percent last year the average tax bill would be increased $93 for this and again really that's all that is the hit from the health insurance everything else is kept even for everything else and then our other rates are simply as plan district key water sewer all those kind of things so those are the main municipal rates this is our schedule next week it will have our first real in-depth budget workshop staff will be here you'll have had chance to see detail and those kinds of things and then we're doing that again on the 8th and then the 15th is our first public hearing on the budget and the warning ballot articles and all those kind of things and then Thursday night January 23 we all remember it's always a Thursday night the last one because why come on here's a quiz who remembers why John be so many days that's a petition deadline so that's the deadline for petitions so we can if we have it on Wednesday then we might have to come back to accept petitions on Thursday so we've just decided to do it all one night so that is the 40 day prior to the vote deadline day for finalizing any ballot items petitions anything else and then March 3rd is the voting and then early voting to start in February so that's our schedule I'm happy to answer any questions to the extent that I can like I said I don't have huge detail in front of me nor do you but I'm happy to answer at least any big picture questions as I am able Donna and then Jack do you have something I don't know if they're big enough questions but when you were going along it's like when you talked about the lights is are we going to see like a map I mean we've had I've had a lot of constituent complaints particularly on outer on state street and some other downtown locations about the lights not being strong enough focus and that so if we're going to do this are we going to also consider meeting that demand that's correct so the I mean obviously we would show you I mean for us to cost this out appropriately we need to know what lights and what the cost is so some of this you know with LED lighting you save quite a bit on electricity and lease costs but there's an up front cost we've got to calculate the payback but also there is an improvement in light quality at least some people think so not everyone likes LED lighting but we seem to think you know the the ones that we have tried is trial seem to work fine and provide sufficient light so since we're doing the wiring we can do some replacement of lights but it would be taking the downtown coral lights and changing them all to LED it would be a pretty substantial project it wouldn't be just changing a couple lights and then my other question on the same slide was about you said you talked about the coordinated signals does that include a brand new one at Berry Street in Maine I don't know or just the existing ones I don't know okay I mean we like I said we literally put those capital numbers together but we'll take a note of the question and make sure we get back to you so we have Jack then Ashley and then Connor what was that a hand okay this is Bill this is pretty encouraging it looks better than I have feared so us too I say he's gonna scare us every year now no at a boy and add a girl to the team for that yeah well we our team did a lot of hard work and Todd Proventure decided to go out with a bang thank you Todd yeah I'm I'm wondering about the experience we had last year with with public works and the and the water main breaks and do we have all our expenses in including any kind of contracted work that we might have had for things that weren't able to be done in-house and how do we feel about what we're putting in for this year so all of those those are all in the water fund this is generally the general fund that we're talking about here that so those are funded particularly by water rates we are feeling the water budget is sufficient to cover those and again with the you know we have a 50-year plan to deal with those so every year it's replacing either replacing or putting in reserve funds to replace lines sometimes it's more efficient to wait and do a bigger chunk but the the approved plan was to basically take cost of living plus an additional percent each year on the rate so that we could we could be building up sufficient funds so all of that water repair work and sewer repair work which is in the sewer fund are are addressed through that we do have we do have a water and sewer benefit fund the the two cents that we put on and that can be allocated between the two and I think we may be looking at reallocating that just to make sure it's put in the right place but it's no impact to the rate payer is that sewer benefit the fund that's paid by people like me who pay a charge but we have a septic tank and so we just get pumped yes the social worker the shared social worker has the city of berry put that in their proposed budget we understand they are going to that was the communicate obviously it doesn't work if either community doesn't do it so obviously if they don't then then we can reduce that out of our budget but the we understand there's gonna be a fairly significant ask for police services in berry so this would be a minor part of it it's gonna say I think it was six off four I believe um no Tony so the other I just want to be mindful uh working in the social services profession that $32,000 a year is not no it that's also to match grant funds from the state oh so it's 64 it's some larger number I don't know what the percentage is I was like two cities are the 32 local shares the berry Montpelio share then we're splitting that and then there's another looks like Tony has something to say about this yeah um the way so first of all I just question the last word I had from Chief Bombardier was there's a placeholder you know it's up to $20,000 okay last keynote knows it's at least it's still there because absolutely needs both communities the employee would be a washington county mental health clinician and and the so the ask the primary ask and what we're hoping for through the legislature uh through appropriations is the other funding from that so wouldn't actually I thought we heard we got that now not yet and then but in addition to that for long-term sustainability we've also are working with um in particular I reached out to Eric Miller from some from UVM um medical center because we also think that they should be you know and they want to be a partner as well as we provide as a community better care for the people so that's kind of the the makeup of provide all this comes through the concern is any one leg of the stool the whole thing does not happen so cool thank you and then my endless shameless um plug about a 25 increase to health care I accept that that it is what it is it is just unacceptable to me that health insurance companies can literally like hold people hostage so I I do appreciate that and I I would you know my personal opinion is that the health insurance system in the country probably could change that's obviously as a professional I have no opinion on it um but that said last year we had almost no increase uh and which is one of the reasons why we were able to do what we did in the budget and get a lot of this stuff in I'm not saying 25 percent is great or anything else but you know over a two-year period I think they were serious certainly years when we would get 12 or 13 percent each year and it's crazy the the the struggle we have and I think we have to understand this and I'm not trying to paint insurance companies as good or bad people but we have a small pool of 110 employees of which only I think 70 or 80 are actually in insured other people take the buy out so we very small insurance pool and so they collect you know whatever I'm going to make these numbers up a little bit but uh two million dollars let's say or more three million dollars from the city in in in premiums and last year we had claims of four or five million dollars so people are human and get no that's right that's what insurance is for I get that but if if you're looking at this you know if you're not covering those claims you've got to get the money back somehow I mean they paid them don't get me wrong you know the insurance claims are paid so they're you know they look at our experience so and and this is what insurance markets do right you get a you get an automobile accident your insurance goes up because they had to pay out a claim and so this is this is the way it goes I think what we've really and we looked at every possible option Todd would be happy to explain to you all the different angles we looked at and at the end concluded that none were better than for for the short run for than what we're doing now I think we've got to figure out a way to get to a larger pool my my frustration was definitely not with any of the work that the city has done I am just I I really well see but I think that to me saying that we can't do anything is and I understand like the size of Montpelier versus like the insurance industry I I understand all of those sort of practical pragmatic things but as someone who has been incredibly sick and could have died recently you know the fact that we as a community have to accept a 25 percent increase to offer our employees the care and coverage that we believe is adequate is unconscionable I mean in what universe do I go in and ask for a raise at 25 percent and be like I'm getting it like that that's not real life like that's not how the world works and I know that insurance companies have the power and authority to do this because they're huge but it's and it's a marketplace so you know we could have opted not to take it but we couldn't find any any sufficient substitute but I think though that so our choice was to not ensure employees and I'm not saying that but what I am saying is that this is an opportunity for Montpelier to like make a point to two other areas that a 25 percent increase I mean so if it's 25 percent this year and then next year it's the 12 to 13 percent I mean at some point like it just becomes an option that is not sustainable well I you know I'd agree with that and I simply say we've had this conversation many many many many I'm just loud I'm getting loud for Blue Cross because I'm done well I don't think it's just you know I have been paying this time of year I pay attention to what other communities in school districts and others and I'm you know I hear budgets that are coming out and across the board I'm either reading or hearing about well they had this huge insurance increase so it's a real problem I mean we're hoping maybe we can get it to the state pool but even then you know you're still at the mercy of you know they're insured through Blue Cross so I think that's that it's my disagreement is more of a policy issue than in terms of any sort of city anything I mean I know that we offer solid health insurance and I have no interest in changing that but I really encourage people I mean if the ask if if insurance companies can keep doing this this ask is going to keep coming and at some point it is not going to be something that people who like who want to live here can continue to afford in tax increases whether it's property taxes or rent and that's all I'm saying thank you Connor just questions or ideas as well anything it's fine okay open discussion and if the same as the social worker one has actually got that answered might be unpopular how much do we spend on the strategic planning retreat at the beginning of the year for the council I want to say around ten thousand okay don't have that in the budget this year oh really we didn't last year we took out a fund balance but actually we have a new assistant city manager who's a strategic planning person so I was thinking of having her lead it this year see how that goes cool trial by fire okay have we done like an analysis I know we contract out for legal services and I see a lot of municipalities have in-house city attorneys have we ever done like just cost analysis to see if we actually save money by bringing that in-house we have looked at that and you know this last year we've had a really high amount of legal fees the the issue that we have and so I you know the only one I really know well Burlington I think has been South Burlington the only ones I really know that in-house attorneys Burlington South Burlington has two and I've talked to them about that but then they still contract out for other issues so one of the issues we have is that you know there's sort of general legal work contracts easements you know the kind of those sorts of things in general do we have the authority to do x I call it general municipal law type thing but then we have you know there's more specialized zoning land use act 250 stuff we have personnel labor law we have you know any number of environmental law so depending on the topic depending on the topic you know we're using different attorneys or different firms for different things so you know could we get in a person for the price we're paying maybe are they specialized you know do they have the ability to handle all the different issues I don't I don't know so I think that so far we've concluded you know I don't think it's been enough and like I said I talked to South Burlington and they said even with two full-time they're still contracting out specialized work you know on top of that so you know I haven't seen it that it made sense for us to do that and last at some point I'd like to propose that we have up to a $10,000 contract with a lobbying firm because we have so many moving pieces at the state house right now in the social worker position we got microtransit we got rail we got a ton of things in the appropriations bill that I think it makes sense it would actually be an investment to bring down state funds in some of these areas if we had some something limited in scope where somebody was in the building watching said hey Chief Bacos we need you up in government operations like Tuesday at 10 you know so just consideration with the council I was just thinking about the DPW and so you have a supervisor converted to line staff and this supervisor it's leaving so we're placing that with a line staff and the conversion of the contract into which I appreciate I'm really glad to see some work being done trying to address some of the staffing challenges that DPW has been facing can you describe how the so with with one fewer supervisor like what can you just describe what the structure of the department would be and knowing that Donna was kind of taking on two roles does that all fall on to her then right so part of that had to do with the restructuring that we we did there is so the supervisor Brian title who's retiring has been the superintendent we call it and so oversees the water sewer and street crews and then there's another supervisor that oversees all of our equipment mechanics those kinds of things and then supervisors at the water plant and the wastewater plant but the the street clue had crew has a foreman the water water and sewer crew has a foreman and they're very capable so we're not sure they need that the direct you know somebody over them when when we brought Donnie and we also restructured underneath so that we we have sort of Kurt who is really oversees all of our water and sewer operations including the plants and then Zach is taking a higher look over the the other operations as well as doing some engineering so we felt that between having Zach and and Tom is still here Tom's now stationed at the garage even though he's a project he's going to be he's in the budget as a part-time project manager but still we have eyes on the ground in the garage so we felt that the the the guys that are doing the the foreman the oversight work are actually handling the day-to-day work and they need they need boots on the ground more than they need a supervisor they're capable of doing and we've got sufficient staff to handle that all right so I have a few questions I made a couple notes as we were just going through these slides so early on under the one that was community prosperity it says implement tiff districts but there's not really anything to implement no I mean so the tiff so first of all in all candor that was left over from last year I forgot to take it out so there's that that's the truthfully answer but we do have I appreciate that I appreciate we do have we do have the tiff district and we are actively in discussions with potential projects so along with mdc and others so even though there's nothing right now to to show to talk about you know it's possible and and that we could be coming forward and that would normally be another tiff bond of front the infrastructure to get back through the tiff fund so it is happening and we also have a fair you know we have to keep track of all the increases in value so there's ongoing work with tiff even if we're not fair enough under the next one environmental stewardship stormwater projects is listed I have faith that they are happening and continuing to be done I'm just going to reiterate that I would love to and this is something that we've talked about before but I would just love to have a list of things from the stormwater master plan that have been checked off and I believe that's in progress okay great it's been asked for okay and then that's also related to that with the no change required for the sewer benefit and the cso benefit it's just reminding me that we were perhaps gonna have a conversation about the financing for stormwater plans and just recognizing that time is getting short for this council and so just trying to is that what is meant by I'm trying to I don't think it's on this list well it's probably a short end it could be I mean it could be the hazard mitigation no that's something completely different so just want to put it out there that I would still love to have that conversation if at all possible about stormwater about utility the utility right it should we be exploring so I believe I believe that is on the front burner you know not to make excuses but we've had a big change at the top yeah dpw and we're having a change in finance and those are both very key positions and so I think managing those transitions is probably taken higher priority than this at this time but definitely a utility is something that we're okay I just want to make sure that I'm at least mentioning it because it is still of interest and not to say that like we have to do that I just want to mention that it's an option I think it's still worth exploring other one possibility for the led street lights is what if that what if that was its own separate bond that I don't know how the council would feel about that so that is what we're envisioning oh you are we but we're just not quite ready to I think if we're going to do a bond for leds we should be in a position to give real clear information about the payback and the work involved and that you know and really do a good presentation on it so the staff is suggesting that might be a November so depending on what we choose to do with the rec center and if we have tiff bonds you know we're gonna you know and it'll be a slow election in November anyway so it won't be much happening so fair fair so well okay fair enough I'm glad that that's a part of that discussion because especially is something that theoretically ought to be saving us money than putting it I think rather than just say we think it's going to save us money we'd rather be able to right and be able to show it and in addition I appreciate Donna you're bringing up you know should we be adjusting any lighting along with that plan and I know we had also just want to bring up for the safety council as well and had some comments about the lack of a street light where the new bike path extension crosses Berry Street and that would be a great sort of obvious place to to do to have an additional street light and I could picture that easily also being built into that if it were a bond or whatever that cost is so that's that's great and I think those are my only comments for now I will have a question for the council about if if we decide to go in the direction of a rec building bond if we want to have any extra meetings for the public about that particularly calling that out and and discussing it but we don't have to jump to that for now one thing that I think would be useful unless you're but there's anything else one thing that I think might be useful for this discussion is I'd love to hear from people about how they're feeling about this proposed budget plan are there items that are in it that you think should not be are there to that point actually just reminded me you will be getting by email probably tomorrow this is the some of you may have heard this worksheet from last year so this has been updated this is the thing where you can just click these x's on the left to put items either in or out of the budget and you get to see the tax increase it and we're just we've got it again this is we're really this stuff is just rolling out today even so you can see some of the things on the bottom the items and we're just going to make it a little more user friendly as far as if you want to change the amounts but this is you know almost done as you can see and we will have this to you to play with in advance this week and it will be well like we did last year we'll have it live on the screen as we talk through it you'll get your books with all the detail and the summary of all this it'll obviously it'll be what you've just heard but it'll be something that you can actually look at would it be possible to I know this would be an easy thing to set out via email to all of us but also hoping that we can potentially add this as a file to the website so that I think we did that last okay so that people could you know the public can do the same process go through the same exercise okay that's great thank you um I looks like there's some comments I'm happy to pause well so uh based on you know that we're we're going to get this soon one possibility is if if people want to make a pitch for anything extra or put on a list yeah or or something that you know we should take out whatever it is that seems like that'd be probably an appropriate thing to do at this point and then we'll get into playing unless unless people want to take the time to to do this right now go through this yeah I think we should we should each have some time with this document to to see how it looks if we add or subtract things or whatever are there some lines yeah are there some lines that function that have nothing in it that we could put something in it I mean as a formulas work I think so I'll you know what I mean if I wanted like you want to add something down at the bottom like here just adding stuff but right so we could have like donnas and then if and you wanted um 10 000 and then you put an x so I'm doing this live I have no idea what's gonna happen here yeah sure enough okay cool so then you can so we can add things that aren't there right great it's just going to remember to check it on the side that the x is the key that's what triggers so I know and it's anything with here if you want to cut something you take it out and if so I know Connor you'd made a pitch for something and if anyone else wants to advocate for something great but go ahead Donna how do we know what you already have like okay my concern is parks we did this thing of funding a full person but we wouldn't let them start for a full year and we said we were going to then put in a person to follow up yeah that's those those are funded okay so we you'll get that okay so that's okay great things that were sort of operational that you had approved last year that were going along those are you know we we would have flagged those if something had changed if we had not funded or continued that but the idea was this is anything that's kind of an add-on or something unusual is on these lists like the social worker or calling out that we changed DPW a little bit otherwise the assumption is it's is what we've same level that we've been at but when you get the actual book and my written summary that'll call that out in more detail but that's a good question um just in terms of the things not included it sounds like maybe there's some work being done on the energy plan but that definitely is a big priority and if we're going to hit 2030 if we don't start doing a real plan now there's no way we're going to do it so that would be something I want to look at what our options are and I mean maybe there are possible other grants or things that we could explore but would love to keep a focus on trying to get that funded well and that's one of the reasons why we put it on the list is you know we just found out about the the grant funding pretty close to the budget time we the grant would have been for 22,000 and we would have had to make up the difference which we had planned to do in the current fiscal year so I put it on this list of unfunded and literally today we were which is why I'm hedging a little bit on this but as we were doing the capital plan we had we have some money in the capital plan which you know may or may not be the right place for this but times are tough right so four energy projects you know tax will do energy efficiency projects and we had some identified and there was like 34,000 left and I was like well that's about the plan so we were gonna just tweak some numbers and see if we could come in and just say how about we just pay for that out of you know it's one time money is pay for it out of the capital plan and get it done and then if we can find grants offset it then we can free that money for the thing so is is a person wiser than me this week called the budget a shell game anyway and I guess just you know so I don't know what what all will be in the homelessness task force request I mean that to me is an example where advocacy at the state house for the kinds of funding that I think should be really looked at and what can we bring to the city and what pots of money are there it it does take a lot of work so I think trying to compile that list of state funding I mean the advocacy we might want around trying to get in the state pool I think there there is a whole suite of things that we can look at where could where could we be looking for increased state funding or ensuring that Montpelier would be on a list to get certain programs and other things and then where how does that fit into our city budget right and again I think that I can't speak particularly knowledgeable but I understand that the task force asks or you know for like ten thousand dollars for the shelter expansion some money for locker some money for bathrooms you know there's specific items so that when total together so obviously the council could say well you know we can do some but not all but yeah but I agree I mean I think you know editorializing a little bit you know we're in this position because the other levels of government that are supposed to be handling this stuff aren't and it's falling to you know whether it's health insurance or homeless to services or social equity or any of these things it's dumping on us because there's no place else to go um actually um just a quick question about the wi-fi the downtown wi-fi proposal um was that sort of the rain like do we get a range of like estimates and that was so what what it was and again there are others that could talk more knowledge but you all had put that on the list as something we wanted to pursue so we wanted to get prices for budget and it was basically depends on how how wide we cast the net so you know how big we make the range of downtown wi-fi that's the the price range but then there's annual operating fee so I just plucked out 80 out of that 60 to 90 is a budget number I mean it could be more could be less but um and and to try to keep the budget in the range that we were trying to keep it in which is where we came in you know 80 to 100 thousand dollars first for a new and expanded thing that from in our judgment wasn't but obviously that's where you get to make those priority calls so if you want to put that on and raise taxes or cut something else you go for it and the thing that I would I was I did a little research when I realized that it um it wasn't in the the budget although I know that it's still a fluid document um and there are organizations that offer this service that actually partner with municipalities to to kind of make these projects happen um so I agree that at this point given what we have to absorb um begrudgingly I still stand by um that is something that might be worth exploring um because to me internet access is sort of a fundamental thing at this point in in our life you know if you can't look online for jobs or if you can't access um you know your emails for example you know it it I know that it seems very strange to say that like it's almost debilitating but if you don't have access to anything you can't get a job you can't you know get life done um and so to me that's sort of a fundamental like crux of you know what are we doing is a city to make sure that we're sort of leveling the access playing field um and so I I reached out to a couple of people that I know around the country who um live in cities where they've implemented this where they've partnered um with organizations to see if I can get some information to find a way where that wouldn't be the price tag that we would be paying but that would also be reflective of our values and sort of what we're trying to do it's very interesting uh glenn um I just want to uh signal I am uh I think that a couple of the things on the not included list are high priorities for me the energy plan as Lauren mentioned I think also the ash borer funds it doesn't make much sense to me to uh to start treating the trees and then stop uh and that seems like a small enough uh piece that we should we should continue that if I'm if I understand that number is just to continue that preventive treatment of the the large high yeah we'll get more detail and well and it looks like allocates I think we go to fit through there you go good thanks I just sent you an email but oh you did not check in your emails I'll just bend over here um so the ash borer request last year was meant to be year one of a two-year request um and then after that it would fall to zero so um that's a short story I sent you a breakdown of the cost but we secured some of the things that we were going to buy this year for lower prices or through grant funding and um next year it's just planned a couple larger purchases that we felt weren't feasible in one year so is it ten thousand or is it six thousand what the four thousand left over uh it was so it was supposed to be fourteen thousand this year yeah and then we yeah it's supposed to be fourteen thousand yeah I thought we voted it for more than one year but oh we'd have to go back to the motion so you can't you don't vote your budget for more than one year no but our commitment I thought was that we were going to start because at one time we wanted more and we were going to commit ten thousand to try to do the trees and then just the third uh item on that list that that stands out for me is the homelessness task force I don't want to steal their thunder they're going to come next week and and speak to us but I think that that is uh an emergent need that uh I think it's pretty clear that we need to pay attention to it and do what we can regardless of whether the state is doing their job as much as we can so I expect to be fighting over that and the uh and the public art commission as well so we're going to get this document play with some numbers come back and have a conversation next week anything further about the budget okay well thank you to uh to you Bill but it was really the rest of staff um so grateful for all of your work with this and and and to Todd especially um thanks for putting putting this spreadsheet together and crunching all the numbers and um it was very grateful so I'll just say on behalf of the staff you know we do work as a team to come up with this and it's not an easy so I hats off to them for for everyone pitching in but also say that it's very helpful to us you know I know sometimes it seems long but that strategic planning session that we go through I mean you can see that does guide our decisions when we're making these things and setting those priorities is important and it is you know it guides what comes before you so um you know we're hoping to even improve that more in future years but um we do try you know when when we're having our conversations and we're trying to decide what to include and whatnot that's kind of what we go back to and say all right well you know there's this this is something that they said was important and so great well thank you I'm gonna move back to my other seat okay so that I think is the end of our regular business uh so uh we're gonna start with the council reports Donner UK to start sure thank you you're always so great to go uh yes actually I have a few things and one I I have meant to brought up before is that on our slides we saw a shared use pass with a bike route sign and internationally I see all over the place the wonderful signs that show a human pedestrian with a child holding hands with a line and a bike which shows that it's shared so I would hope we would move forward with a sign all throughout our shared use path that truly is a shared use path and Kevin reminded me downtown street scape master plan is having their meeting tomorrow night in this room six to seven thirty and it's going to be a fluid meeting you don't have to come and sit through all of that hour and a half but if you show up you'll be given an opportunity to see some of what they're working on and to share your opinion and leave but you can stay for the whole thing if you want to hear other people's opinions and I want to congratulate that the state house ice rink is going to hopefully open before Christmas I somehow missed that twenty five thousand dollar comes out of the city rec department budget that's what the paper reported is that true okay so it that's what I was asking whether it was an ongoing it just listed there no the ongoing cost for the rec center is in staff right now okay we've already purchased the okay yeah and and you may recall the city used to run an ice rink at the pool the pool was frozen we maintained that for skating so when we switched to the rake so the basically the expenses we were incurring to run the pool skating is now switched to the skate the state house skating so yes we're spending money but it's the same money we were spending it just read twenty five thousand dollars city rec department I went wow okay um and well okay I did maybe fine good I'm glad for that clarity the other thing Times Argus today had an article reporting on the state panel on racial disparities on equal inequalities and I was just reading and how much they're struggling so we too are struggling but so are they but it'd be helpful to stay in tune with what they're doing so that's all I'm good I'll pass um I want to go back to uh Elizabeth Parker at the beginning I think who was congratulating city staff on the opening of that little stretch of shared use path between the bridge and main street I second that it's really great to have that open and today some of the fencing that was left on that site was taken away and it's also great and I can't wait for that big pile of dirt to go away so thank you for that um I'll be at baggios tomorrow morning as usual and I want to let everyone know that I am not going to stand and run again for the seat uh in the spring um it's been uh an honor to serve with you all and to represent my friends and neighbors in district three um and I look forward to the next few months of doing that continuing to do that but I will not stand up again um at least for now two years at a time is enough for me uh and uh I look forward to working with the city and some of the organizations that I've connected with through city council uh in any way that I can so thanks very much actually um one thing I wanted to mention and I I assume that uh the manager got a copy of this email let's just take a look but we got an email um yesterday from uh from a resident about uh Gertin Park and uh it it's it's the person said it's become a hangout and part of my reaction as well yeah what people do with parks is in part hang out but but the place is also by the pictures we've seen looking pretty uh pretty crummy and uh garbagey and uh I hope we can have a response to that so that even though it costs money to send people there to clean it up we cleaned it up today um it was really bad um and there are people camping there staying there um we talked to some of them and they are going to try to prevent the some of the trashing of the place but it it has you know ever since we've opened it really it's it it's been a constant issue I know there was some asked for maybe a trash receptacle but our concern is that someone might start fires in it um and that it's a wooden structure so uh that's not going to happen but um yeah it's you know and we don't I think the city wants to be careful I don't we don't want to be taking on permanent cleanup of the place but it was really bad and broken glass and we needed to be taken care of can I back up on what he asked yeah because I'm so glad you remembered that I mean the concern is that everybody have access to it so it's not a amount of denying those that there but how do others get an opportunity so I don't know if Tony or others have an idea but I think we have to do more than just I think we have to work on this I think it's part of that discussion of so cool social equity as long as we're talking well I'll I'll talk about that more when my turn sorry go ahead I just wanted to share that following up on the decision last meeting to make an investment in the social and economic justice advisory committee that group met this morning and we'll be putting some information out on front porch forum for people who read that and updating the website but we would love if people want to get involved in the process as we develop a request for proposal for hiring the kind of expertise to help us with this process so anyone who is is watching today if you are a consultant if you are interested in just getting involved in this group at this kind of exciting time as we develop this process and look how we really work together as a community to make progress and this would love more folks to get involved especially people who are less well represented in city government on the group right now all are welcome but it'll be great to kind of get more types of voices in that process as well so we'll be sending out more information in different venues but just wanted to put a plug for people who would like to get involved we love really appreciate that so this past Saturday was the VCAN conference in Fairleigh Vermont which is the Vermont energy committee action network and it was a great great event lots of great workshops just so you're aware I ended up speaking on behalf of the City of Montpelier in terms of what or a project that I guess we're sort of working on which is the movement of our trimmers I suppose to electric so thinking about how anyway I had a meeting with some folks over the summer from the rec department and where they got to try out they got to demo some electric weed whackers and thought they were great which is awesome and so we're going to be looking further into that and how that might affect our equipment policy plan is that is that a fair thing to yeah yeah so anyway I just said it because I said it out loud to a whole bunch of people you might be asked questions about that so I just wanted you to be aware and then also what else did you commit us to but then also there was a great event last night at the garage cultural center about food security and climate change and that was very interesting and looking forward to having more conversation about food security and food sovereignty in central Vermont so again just it's on on my radar I wanted to thank Glenn thank you so much for your time on the council it has been a delight down here we're sad to lose you but you know I mean you gotta you gotta do you gotta make good choices for you so so but thank you and I will I'll say this again too when it's so there's that and then coming back to the Gerton pocket park I am it's yeah it's beyond it feels like it's it's sort of beyond just we'll just commit to cleaning it up periodically I would love to and I feel I will confess I feel a little partially responsible for this because I had a hand in making this happen and and I feel like you know Tony was like you know this is gonna happen so I appreciate appreciate there that but one thought is that you know we might need to just rethink some aspects of that park or or not you know do we leave it because it is in a certain sense providing a service and that's that's a hard conversation to have and one that I would actually love to I mean I may just send this to Ken Russell as well but I know there's other multiple people here who attend the homelessness task force but just thinking about that I mean that seems like it is potentially right in the middle of why we formed that group in the first place you know the thinking thinking about the conflict between the business community and homeless community and so similarly you know how can this well in that I have don't have a great solution for it at this point I would be very interested in the homelessness task force's opinion as to what we can be doing is that something that you all feel like you can take to the task force and and see if there's any agendas are full but I think that is something that we should talk about yeah because it needs a more long-term solution and and that's complicated so we'll just leave it there for now and I think that's it for me yeah uh first of all water sewer bills are due Monday get that out there so you all know one of the two they're really the really cool thing that I was kind of hoping to announce doesn't seem like it's happening and that's that an insider that I know put our department forward for a possible HBO documentary that would follow election you know stuff around and doesn't seem like it's happening gosh I was really hoping to be able to announce that but and the other thing is I'm the one who switched the flags it's Tony's fault he told me they were supposed to be the other way so I take full responsibility that's okay I don't have a lot we've covered an awful lot tonight we'll say that we are going to be announcing two really great hires for a finance director and assistant to the city manager tomorrow or Friday whenever we get around to writing the release and getting all the information together but we have great people and they're going to be joining our new team along with Cameron and all our new generation moving forward so we're excited all right anything further all right so without objection we'll consider the meeting adjourned 932