 Passing. For now. I just need to be able to let out to all of you. So that's great. What we thought we would do tonight is walk through the memo is basically in three parts or at least two parts. One, to talk about what we've done already or are doing. Two, some suggested actions that we think the council could take tonight if they'd like. And then I think the third part of the meeting would be for some brainstorming from the council as to other things you'd like us to look at for future meetings. And we do have one more member of the public. Adrian Brownlee is here now as well. So I'm gonna have Cameron walk through the the memo since she drafted it and but we'll both be offering comments as we go through. All right. So to keep you guys fully informed and to make sure that the public understands the sort of full to date response that the city has taken in response to coronavirus. I'm just gonna walk through this memo regarding closings and remote access in order to continue to provide core services to residents. The city did limit access to its public buildings. We closed all offices in city hall except for by appointment accepting the city manager's office which remains open normally. We've required the city council meetings continue as scheduled but also we are communicating remote call and options to interact with council in the public. We will probably next week have a little bit more advanced options. Hopefully we'll get you on a screen next time. Other city facilities such as the senior center rec center the garage the water treatment plant wastewater police and fire are currently closed to the public. And then we've asked our committee members to either cancel any non vital meetings where no decisions needed to be made or have them by remote access. So just so everyone knows staff has to be on site or a member of a committee has to be on site during those committee meetings just so as the public does want to attend they can attend in person. We've also canceled all of our events in programming or we have either well or we postpone them for further notice. So we're also to address any concerns about the continuity of our operations. We have all been working on and updating and enacting our continuity of operations plans. These ensure that we maintain our internal capacity to provide our residents their core services. In addition to that departments are working really hard with other jurisdictions to create mutual aid of support and agreements specifically our wastewater and water plants just to make sure that we have shared trained staff between all jurisdictions to support each other. City staff is also as we've said before increased our frequency of scheduled cleaning. The senior center and the rec center have also hired on a part time worker to help them clean that facility because we know that that is a vulnerable population. We also want to ensure everyone that our city employee benefits are you know bolstered during this time our individual department directors are allowing their work their employees to work from home if their work permits it and other social distancing options. If an employee is formally quarantined by their doctor they will be paid administrative leave for those two weeks away from work. We are also not letting our staff run out of sick time for COVID-19 related illnesses and they can borrow sick time so they will be paid the whole time they're out for that illness. We're also working on implementing a child care option for city staff depending on guidance from the state so that we can continue to provide core services to the residents of Montpelier. We are looking pretty deeply at the budget impacts of the situation. We understand that we're probably going to lose a lot of our local options tax from hotels, the meals, yeah thank you Bill. So we're also looking at those projections and what that's going to mean for the city budget. We're also looking at how we determine our financial standing and opportunities for cost savings so if that includes projects, hiring etc. We're really looking at how we can curtail any costs. I also want to say how we've been communicating during this time. We have updated our website to have a front page button that directs people to sort of a clearing house we've been calling it of information regarding official sources for COVID-19 information as well as community resources such as volunteer opportunities. So we've gotten quite a few locally run and advocated groups that are doing really good work. We want to make sure that people can get connected to them. We're also updating our front porch forum in Facebook as often as possible. We've also been in constant contact with our state and area partners to make sure that we're up to date on any best practices for this response. This also includes outreach to our churches and food pantries to offer any guidance and connect them to volunteer networks. We also want the public to know that we have a lot of online payments and services options. You can pay quite a few things online through our website like property taxes, water bills, dog license fees etc. We also have quite a few online city services that you can access at any time including parking ticket appeals, birth death and marriage records and other services. We know that this illness is really affecting the vulnerable population so we wanted to address that briefly. The senior center's feast or meals on wheels program is really a top priority for us. We've transitioned into making all of those meals to go and are always looking for volunteers to help deliver meals but they have really been working on their contingency planning and feel very comfortable where they're at right now. We also know that the police department is closed because it is our emergency operations center and so that really disrupts our 24-7 bathroom access. Even though people can be buzzed in there we know that is a barrier so we wanted to address that by putting two accessible Porta John units out in areas of the city. We'll have one behind City Hall in the parking lot there and an accessible unit also behind the senior center. The one for the City Hall lot should be delivered tomorrow and the other one at the latest should be early next week. Our rec department is doing a lot to try to help our community stay healthy mentally and physically. They're putting together a really great list of activities that people can do while still socially distancing themselves from each other but should still be able to be active and they're also cleaning out any of our external hard surface recreation facilities like our outdoor basketball courts so that people can still have recreation options. We also talk to the high school and they are providing breakfast and lunches for children to pick up at the loading dock and our rec department will be working with the school's food services director to ensure that lunches are still being distributed and if they need any help we can help them. Regarding the most vulnerable population that we have in our community, the homeless, the Washington County homelessness response team has been pulled together and our your city council's homelessness task force is working with them. Other representatives on this team are the State Department of Public Safety and Department of Health, the Central Vermont Hospital, Washington County Mental Health, Capstone and Good Samaritan Haven. They're leading local response and have created response groups focusing on congregate recovery sites, medical support, transportation, food access, street outreach, volunteer management and training opportunities. So the Washington County response team is also working with the state's health and human services to make sure that the state's EOC is getting real-time information. They're also working with the office of economic opportunity to open up some pathways to getting motels and hotels for folks so they don't have to stay in the shelter. Locally Good Samaritan is working really hard on lowering the concentration of folks in the shelters to get to that 10 limit and have found alternate shelters for many including hotels and motels and in one instance an empty area college for. So that sort of brings us to the place we were looking for potential action items and input from council. Can I just really quickly make a couple corrections just because I know that the press is probably listening and I don't want to go out in terms of clerk functions. It mentions dog licensing fees and business license online renewal system. Those are both limited. Just for information, a couple corrections from the clerk's office. It talks about dog licensing fees and business license online renewal system. Both are limited and both deadlines are off until further notice which has been pretty typical of clerk's offices so we're doing that too. So we will not be looking for the dog license renewals or the business license renewals until a later date. Also the birth death and marriage records we have it's not 2012 forward. We have them back and available to look at online to about 1907. Well I recommend that we update our website. That's on the website? Yes it is. Not my part of the website. Yes so we'll make sure it gets changed. Thank you. Yes that's correct. Chief Fakis is here if you'd like him to address the issue but in fact his directive has been to be even more visible than even normal to get people out and about in the community. As a prevention message but also we're here to help in whatever ways we can and we're looking at other ways just to have city officials out available for people but definitely the police presence is going to be continued and expanded as long as we have healthy staff. I said as long as there's healthy staff sufficient healthy staff. I'll just add and we've talked about this before but just to repeat you know we are working with groups like Cameron mentioned the county homeless response services and others and trying to keep as many resources as we can. We are you know really focused on maintaining core services making sure we can keep the clean water running our wastewater treatment functioning our public safety response both police fire ambulance basic sewage you know water and sewer lines functioning our maintenance those kinds of things so that people can get around and do the things that they normally do and we are assisting with human services items and economic development items as we can those aren't necessarily the city's expertise but we are certainly in contact with everybody will provide whatever assistance and leadership that we can within our means. Also something that touched on but we are looking at the budget we know that we would love to do a lot of things that perhaps provide financial assistance somehow into the community and that certainly may be possible but we also note that we anticipate particular shortfalls in a lot of areas in the budget most I think immediately the rooms meals and alcohol tax since restaurants and bars are essentially closed and people are being discouraged from traveling we we expect that that will drop off very dramatically parking of course and we're going to talk more about that hopefully the council will agree to and any parking meter rates and and enforcement tonight but that will drop off and and you know a lot of our functions are funded directly from that parking fund certainly activity revenue from the rec department senior center I mean those are used to fund those activities but there is usually a little extra that helps support those operations so we are looking at the impact of that we don't know what property tax payments will look like in May we are recommending that that deadline be extended by 30 days to help people out from May 15 to June 15 but typically we have very high collection rates here just people tend to pay on time we will see if that changes as people's income is changed and so all of this means that we are trying to identify areas where we can reduce the budget we're we're putting extra layers into the hiring process before we we hire vacant positions we are looking at projects and equipment and purchases and ordering everyone to cut back so while we would love to free up money to go into community services we also need to free up money to cover anticipated revenue losses Bill? Dan Richardson to add something well I just I actually had a question before we do move on to the next topic is Bill and Cameron what are the as far as the services the court services the city is providing okay I'll I'll I'll try and speak louder how's that speaking it turning the mic up yeah two questions one is you know have there been any hiccups or any issues with providing the court services so far and second do you foresee any so far there have not been I mean we haven't had a complaint about people being inconvenienced for the offices I suspect in some extent there you know there will be but certainly so far we've been able to fully staff our services the hiccups will come when people start getting sick and we've got to cover those costs as Cameron mentioned for things like water and sewer treatment public works we are looking regionally I think the police and public safety people are doing the same to how to cover each other is is different departments have shortages so that those core services can be be maintained okay Bill? So do you see us maybe in Connor speaking sorry so in addition to like tightening the bills you know partial hiring freeze you know equipment delays do you see the need maybe in the next few weeks to have sort of a like menu of a rescission plan for the current budget that we'd actually have to vote on possibly yes we're running those numbers now and we would we will probably at least try to get you a status report within the rack and then if we need further action we'll take it from there I'd be happy to do that I'll try to remember to do that every time so Connor Casey asked if in addition to just tightening the belt if there was going to be a rescission plan presented to the council in the next couple of weeks to help balance costs and I said possibly we are going to be running the numbers and we'll provide you a status report within a week and if there is a need to take formal action after that that would be on the agenda coming up shortly okay do you say that again maybe a half step slower most of us missed it actually there is no provision for emergency action if less than a quorum is available and obviously I suspect we're not the only people looking at that you know and I mean this is a different situation where people are more likely to be bedridden but you know you wonder what would happen if there were a major tornado or something and a bunch of people were killed and you couldn't have a quorum so you know I think that's a fair question we will have a succession you know line of succession here at the city again we're not necessarily expecting I mean we don't know but that people will be so out of commission that they can't at least answer a question or something but certainly we will have thought that through from a staff level and we're trying to make sure that we understand what things you know we have a our charter we couldn't find anything unique in it as far as is the council but unlike the general statutes for towns and cities because we have a manager plan there are certain administrative actions that can be taken by the staff and we just may have to outline like in an emergency situation what the council wants that to happen and what those parameters are and we're looking at all of them that basically that's what we're doing is saying that nobody can run out you know we have employees in far different situations as far as their leave some people have you know loads of leave you have sick leave time others that are relatively new don't have much and so our commitment is to make sure nobody goes if they're sick that they'll get paid and it will probably if something extraordinary happened we consider that on a case-by-case basis like we really want to make sure people stay whole and but we're also being trying to be careful that we're focusing on this particular sickness not we we feel very fortunate we don't have abusive sick leave within the city government and and our our employees are exemplary but we also wouldn't want to create a case where suddenly we're creating you know Sarah for any other outage or illness you know that that will be handled the way things normally are but for this particular illness the quarantine time sick time we're certainly taking that into account as well as people who are forced to stay on you know the sick leave law allows it to be used for childcare and so we're trying to take a liberal view of that as far as you know people that are now in the situations where their kids at home that they weren't expecting but we're also cognizant of the fact that many people in the community who are paying these bills don't have those benefits so we're trying to balance the you know the cost and expense to them and really using this as a way to make sure we keep delivering the services that they're paying for on bill on that point is is there a short-term disability yes and and when does that kick in i'm gonna say 14 days but it might be 30 we can get you the audience okay i i'm not necessarily concerned about the exact but it's it's good to know i mean because that that strikes me as another sort of tool in your toolbox so if there is an extended leave caused by illness that's usually when that type of coverage would that's correct and that's what that is typically useful okay and yes thank you so the question the comment from Dan Richardson was that was asked if we had short-term disability coverage and when it kicks in and my answer was yes we have it it's either 14 or 30 days that it kicks in it's it's been both during my time and i just can't remember off the top my head which one it is but what that means is if somebody is sick for longer than those periods they go on a short-term disability plan and that saves their use of sick leave so people with you know and that goes for about i think it's six-month period so people that have an extended illness beyond two to four weeks are protected anyway through that plan just following up on that um are we having regular meetings with the heads of the bargaining units just to make sure you know some of the stuff outlined in the memo said you might be working outside the scope of your duties a little bit so just thought there might be a need for a side letter or something in some of those contracts we've had we've had preliminary conversations as it as it so happens we are scheduled to begin bargaining with two of our units so we've been in meetings with them already and in fact are talking about maybe pushing those off i think even you know the union members feel like this isn't the time to be asking for more things but so far they've been very receptive to doing what what needs to be done within reason we have i think you know i don't want to speak i'd let the union speak for themselves if you want to ask him but i think we've got pretty good relations with our our units and they've always been extremely cooperative and when we've had times of crisis in the city uh no one's worried about union or management everyone's risen to the occasion and just delivered and i think that's across the board police fire public works and our non-union staff so i have full confidence that our folks will do what maybe needs to be done i think steven woodaker wants to say something a couple of things one i raised the issue from another meeting that and it was very questionable whether you can chair a meeting not being in the room that it it makes it very difficult to see who's talking or to moderate or to hear just file that one for later as far as changing or having input to the legislator legislature of the joint rules committee this is this discussion is going on nationwide about whether to change meeting open meeting requirements and this is a perfect example of the combination of three telephones and squeaking audio and you know it painful distortion etc this is not something we should do haphazardly especially not compromising participation rights in this case we're recorded but will all meetings be recorded is orca gonna show up for teleconferences or be contracted to engage in teleconferences and make sure there is a recording for those asynchronous review those are all things to consider i first want to propose that the city well i guess it's second that the city assigned a point person to address the needs of the most vulnerable do not be a restaurant uh lulled into thinking that this countywide group we don't have county government here by the way this county group that's had a few phone calls is is letting the city off of all its obligations there's a the city has an obligation to its vulnerable populations and it needs to be stepping up now not backing off further thinking that this brand new you know county level coordination has got it all under control i did review a memo a 10 page memo that came out of that process yesterday and it says plan and plan and and find a couple of buildings where you can stick all the homeless in and that that is not anywhere near what we should be uh doing we this is going to require lots of local initiative and but there's an idea that if potentially uh has merit in both caring for the food insecure as well as the businesses that are under stress uh we've got between barry and montpellier shelters we've got 30 60 75 food insecure people needing to be fed who are also congregating in unsafe densities that needs to be spread out and you can't just ship everybody to to bury the noon meet noon time meals that have been called soup kitchen or community meals have all been discontinued some of those churches are handing out bag lunches on their scheduled day but there's four restaurants that i know of positive pie uncommon mark are making efforts to stay open we have to be taking emergency measures to try to keep this city alive even on a most modest level and it occurred to me there might be a nice match there between so i'm just going to relay what you said so the next section of the meeting steve is for open suggestions so all she was saying is she sounded like you were making suggestions and she would be happy to hear that at that time so she wasn't saying stop just wait she wants to hear so okay so the next so our ability to uh in a place for you yeah we both will um so we i'd like to thank uh you mayor and also councilmember hurl who had provided an outline of a lot of thinking in advance to us suggestions that helped us organize our thinking and lay out some of these ideas so it was very helpful but as we sorted through there were certain things that you know we realized the city had no authority to do or couldn't get involved with but there were some things that we can and so we've we've tried to lay those out there are certain things that that the council could just write letters or statements of support to the people that can make those decisions there are other things that the city can take specific action on tonight and then i think as we talked about the next part would be the brainstorm ideas and talk about how um talk about how you know what we can follow up on so i'll let cameron go through the specifics of these potential actions but i we're hoping that you'll want to take some of these tonight i think they could have some benefit so um and do you want me to go through these one at a time or would you like me to read all of them and then we just discuss them all so some of the suggestions that we received for the first one on the the back of the handout is to reach out to utility providers including internet etc to ensure that they won't shut off their utilities at this time ensuring that folks have access to testing or have the state enact policies ensuring access to that and then work with local businesses to encourage and support them in offering paid sick leave um to employees so we understand that this isn't aren't things that we can force people to do but our suggestion would be uh for council to endorse a letter or something to that effect to these groups if you want to we're getting nods here just so you know i feel about sending letters and we can certainly write those for you to have feedback on we're not also not supporting that yeah right so happy to do the drafting i'm i'm happy to start talking i can tell you about jack dan's claiming the floor did you repeat that jack please repeat what you told me it was unanimous it was unanimous we're sorry if this isn't up to your quality control steve but we're trying to conduct a meeting under the best circumstances we can we'd realize this is a network television so commenting and talking to other people while the meeting is going on is not helping under these difficult situations thank you it has a little bit of it's fraught with a little bit more issues it's not just simply testing for everyone i i know i've read articles that suggest you know they have to be somewhat artful about the testing that they do because it can give people a false sense of security if they get testing and so some of the public health science and thought around that still hasn't necessarily congealed i mean i i get the sense of the state um and the health department are pushing for more testing and more access to testing but i i don't know if it's something where we as a city council need to to jump in um or if our letter would necessarily tip the balance or we'd be walking into a more complicated argument with a very simple statement so she said lauren is saying and she thinks it might be important for the state to have letters of support from municipal or city government regarding um any budget needs they might have to cover folks who can't afford to get testing um or or access to health care at all so it's less about treatment treatment treatment the word is treatment okay um can i can i just throw in one possibility i'm looking at the other section down there that we haven't gone to with the evictions and i would see maybe a letter to the governor and legislature taking some form there with sort of a menu of things we'd like to see so i'm wondering if it might just be a comprehensive one letter as opposed to sort of piecemealing it on this that makes sense basically you're taking statements of policy here and we'll get themselves because you guys are all talking over each other so if you're not speaking if you could meet yourself that might clear the line for whoever is speaking they've all muted okay so it's their uh motion second well that's just coming from suggestions that we've heard from y'all to be honest so if if i can i i think this issue is somewhat related to the subsequent issue about the evictions and foreclosures in that maybe the best way to deal with this and i was thinking about this today was um you know Montpelier alive is already reaching out to local businesses um and is in good contact with them and i'm wondering if someone from the city or from our council even should be a point person with with the Montpelier alive for this specific topic um to work with them because you know on on the issue of evictions um you know we're in a very unique situation in that there are a number of businesses that are going to be shut down but unlike other times when landlords may say okay well i need to move to evict because i need to put somebody else in there no one else can go in there if you have a restaurant that's closed it's closed it's going to always stay closed as a restaurant um regardless of who the tenant is and so um you know it seems to me that the solutions to a lot of these problems are going to not necessarily be um a hold off on foreclosures and frankly the courts have already shut down non-emergency hearings um and so if we can have some type of relationship or develop or work with Dan over at Montpelier alive to start to talk to these landlords um maybe even convening a group if it seems if it seems uh sensible to to have these discussions and then if we can provide anything any support um or any direction or coordination that that would seem to be much more effective than necessarily writing a letter saying please don't evict people i mean that sounds a little wishy washy when but i think it's the best the best approach which is that we should have one person from the city um interfacing with Dan and you know sort of asking these questions and reaching out to him and having that channel of communication so that you know if we can make policy if we can do different types of things to support them that we would have that and that could affect other other policies down the line because i suspect the answer to these problems are going to be more complicated and require more sort of ongoing discussions keep up a little bit but um i actually participated on did you all hear him yeah okay so Jay said that he would be the council point person to work with Montpelier alive in the business community about trying to navigate the way through uh leases evictions etc we talked to the mdc and that he would bring up those legal issues i think you're going to need also need uh financial institutions involved in this because in many cases the landlords have mortgage payments do it strikes me sorry honor you go ahead i mean it strikes me that this is that the city may be in a unique position be given that we don't we're not a bank we're not a landlord we're not a business but it seems that all three of those people are going to have to sit down and talk at the table at some point and so you know the city's function here may be something where we encourage that type of communication working with the mdc and Montpelier alive trying to get you know these people to talk at the table understanding that there's pressures on all three you know the banks are driven by federal regulations um and their their governance for their loans the you know the landlords are governed by the banks to a certain extent as well as there are other external pressures and then obviously the tenants are sort of at the bottom and are you know governed by all of that plus the whims of fate so i think if we can get any type of of conversation going and and use the city as a as a neutral to facilitate that in some way um you know i think that's a really effective tool that we can use to help help these businesses um in this time i i would just say in addition to this i i would like the city to be on the record in some way of supporting the states coming out with a moratorium on evictions i you know hundreds of municipalities are looking at this right now boston just instituted a 90-day moratorium um we're disproportionately impacted by this having a community of 40 percent renters and if you know most people spend an average of a third of their salary on house in there this could hit us pretty hard i don't think it's going to hit too many people but even if it's one or two that make such a difference there so just get on the record with the state in some manner i think would be helpful and again uh i did reach out the league of cities and towns uh both burlington and barry and their charters do give them a mechanism to enforce this uh we have nothing so we are dependent as uh you know under doings rule well i just wanted to let everyone know i just heard from the mayor her phone call dropped out she tried to call back in and it was she got a busy signal so she's walking over from her apartment to join the meeting in person so uh i guess donna are you the council president are they all gone that would okay donna are you there should i be on mute are you on mute residing officer now until the mayor gets here in person but yeah sure if someone in the room will let you know no one's speaking now this is bill speaking this is bill i would suggest then um you know for sending a letter to the governor and the legislator and i used to my delegation uh we would certainly have the access to testing in there but i would also uh temporary moratorium on evictions uh that the state would pass in one of their emergency bills that they're considering so connor has asked me yes i'd like to move uh the city supports a more temporary moratorium on evictions um in a letter to the legislator and governor i do great this is this is dan commenting the the one comment i'd add is i think you you find i i agree you know it's a different game with the residential evictions but i think we find the same pressures that are going to bear on landlords as well as you know uh and residential as well as commercial which is that you know they have mortgages they have to pay i i guess i would like an amendment that that would include you know a moratorium not only on uh evictions but also on uh foreclosures during this time period as well not good mr parliamentarian can i just consider that yeah i'd offer that as a friendly amendment so for those that we're having trouble hearing and we initially moved that we uh go on record of supporting a moratorium on evictions for residents and businesses and dan offered a friendly amendment to also include foreclosures which connor accepted uh so that's the motion before you does jack need to accept that too yes jack are you and the mayor has arrived in person so do you want to take over the yeah you go ahead sorry i'm just picking up what's happening parking enforcement parking enforcement uh actually i'm gonna let you explain this bill well so um obviously with businesses closed uh there is not the demand for parking that we normally see our main reason for parking enforcement is to keep spaces open for people uh and it seems somewhat cruel that in a time when we would like people to be visiting downtown and there are open spaces that we would be charging for parking or finding or ticketing people we would continue to take it for uh things like handicap zones hydrant violations blocking driveways those types of things but for just general time and meter violations we would recommend that not we we waive or suspend temporarily suspend all collections from meters temporarily suspend all enforcement of meters and in fact that we we would take the meters what we call put them to sleep their electronic meters because we have to actually pay a five dollar per month per meter activation fee so by actually turning them off we'd save about two thousand dollars a month so we would we think that's council might want to do that it seems like a great idea to me this is jack yep yep um i wouldn't like to make this and do you need a motion yes please don't notice until you decide not to i'll second okay Connor seconded okay and uh any further discussion and that includes putting the meters right the question on that just as someone we don't if it's in the contract but um with it with that potentially free up some resources that we could redeploy the party staff that is one of the things around us yes and we are looking at that right okay uh any further discussion all in favor please say i opposed okay thank you uh that passes thank you uh all right property taxes this is uh something that we have well the bill and i have talked about anyway but yeah go ahead um so at this point you know our next property tax payments are not due until may 15th and no one knows what kind of situation we will be in on may 15th um immediate suggestion so we don't really have the authority to just wave or relieve property taxes those have to go through the board of abatement um but what we can do is delay the collection time so we're recommending at least for now that we add another 30 days of collection until June 15 and that obviously if people and we would ask that if people have the means to pay by May 15 that would really be great for cash flow and the ability to do some of these other services we're hoping to do but that those that wait until June 15 we would not charge interest in penalties until after that how would you feel about making that um i'm just going to jump in um how how would you feel about making that July um the only reason is we have to do with closing out the fiscal year so i mean we would we could always reconsider that when we get closer to that time if it appears that that's necessary um so i mean it's obviously up to you we think it's cleaner at least for now uh in march just still say June 15 but uh again we have to really till May to make that decision okay thank you uh Connor go ahead no not looking for a hard number but about what percent to draw in automatic payments for property taxes i don't know the answer to that um we can get you that information the question was what percentage of people are on automatic payment for property taxes and i i don't know the answer but we can get that answer donna did you have another question yes jack did you have something to add you might have cut out at that point unless you want to object oh no uh proposal to um push back uh at least uh interest in penalties um to June 15th uh jack or lauren did you have any comment on that or i'm sorry j j and dan no i was just gonna say i'll make the motion that we uh delay the fourth installment of the property taxes for the fiscal year 20 uh from May 15th 2020 until June 15th 2020 is there a second second all right uh any further discussion hey all in favor please say i hi hi hi i i i i i closed great all right that passes thank you and we can revisit pushing that further back uh later on um water sewer bills similarly i guess you know at this point they're not due until June um so i i think we can discuss whether we want to have a collection delay waving the fees the same the same way uh or we can take this up later when we have a better sense of what's going on we don't have as firm a resolution on that right now uh dan this might make sense to take up in in in June or in may when we have a better sense i mean you know part of it is that we we know this isn't necessarily going to resolve itself quickly um but at the same time i think we'll have a better snapshot too of what you know economic harm people are feeling at that point in time and i have no problem pushing it forward when the time's appropriate but it might make sense to do it along with the property taxes sort of in in tandem if we are moving beyond the normal cycle uh con or anything to add now you like people with that suggestion uh dana okay i'm just going to keep rolling through people just because it's easier um lauren any thoughts jack j did you make a motion you don't die i don't think we need a motion we're taking it later never mind uh great okay and capital area neighborhoods i'm going to speak to that one sorry did uh did someone have something to say no okay um so capital area neighborhoods this is something that keeps coming up in conversations that i'm having i don't know if you're hearing much about this but um lots of folks are asking for it um this was a um sort of a network of neighborhoods across the city where there was um usually one uh leader who would be sort of in charge of doing things like disseminating information or collecting information um you know this could be city projects so i'm sort of stepping back from just the particular crisis we're in now but uh looking more generally it could be about um things like uh letting people know that their street was going to be paved that you know the coming summer and um making sure that uh people were aware that was coming um it could it could even be as something as um uh you know relevant or preventative like now is just knowing what the resources are in your neighborhood things like who has a who has a generator or you know who's growing local food or that that sort of thing in this particular situation i think it could be useful to have capital area neighborhoods for the purposes of getting basically volunteer forms and need forms to folks who particularly aren't computer savvy or maybe they are on computers but maybe they're just not that exposed to these need forms so it would be a way to do a little bit of a deeper dive into um you know knowing what the needs are in our community um this was a program of the city about 10 years ago and that sort of fizzled out but i think it's pretty relevant now i don't know that this needs a motion um i'd sort of volunteered myself to help coordinate this and organize it um i've already started talking to some folks about maybe being leaders but would love to just open this up for suggestions thoughts uh discussion uh dan i'll offer i mean i think um it's a good idea um and it actually the mutual aid group may be a logical group to start with to work this out because they've already collected my understanding is about a hundred names like 200 yeah of people who want to help and this strikes me as as one of the great ways in which we could we could organize that on sort of a sub uh subsidy neighborhood level where people can identify needs um or issues as they rise and then have a way to sort of trickle that up um up to up to the city level so i think that's that's a great place to start and i would suggest that yep that's great and just so you're aware um they are i've been in touch with them they know that um that that we're maybe gonna work on this and they see this as a a way to um potentially uh delegate some of their um their work in terms of volunteers or or getting to know people's needs um yeah so yeah working closely with them for sure and uh donna donna here and you have time yep go for it donna i'm really glad you brought this up i think it's a wonderful resource and it should tie in with people yeah for sure um con or anything yeah no i think it's a great i think it's gonna be a heavy lift to set up but once you do it could really be a lot less daunting with some of these things we're talking about as time goes on so yep police supportive uh lauren your point is well taken um i i think it's important to have some redundancy in this uh in the system uh and so you know also knowing that two one one is out there i think is important but also to your point about staff um i think uh actually i would love to hear from bill or Cameron about well so how um and and then i have another idea about about that but yeah so it was it was done um at the time at oil prices in particular were quite bad and people were facing pretty severe needs it was organized through the planning department at that point we had two um what's the not volunteers but the vistas thank you to vista people and they were the staff coordinators for this so really they did all the legwork helping keep keep everything together uh and you know the lists of names and helping set up the meetings and those kind of things so there was a fair amount of legwork done out of this building and it was with you know vista vista staff people we have to figure out who had those skills abilities and time to do that but it's certainly i mean keeping our folks safe is top priority so so um in that same uh spirit i um i mean so having vistas cost us something um i could also picture uh like this is pretty discrete work in terms of like it's pretty clear that for a city um for the city's responsibility it would be about communicating and sort of directing um directing information and you know both collecting it and getting it out um and that i i feel like that's pretty finite i could also see us having some help from outside organizations i'm just going to say for example sustainable montpelier coalition has is very interested in this um i don't i'm not necessarily right now suggesting that we just go with them but that we could partner with someone to um make sense to to do this in the long term i'm just interested in getting this up and running basically asap um and so based on the just everyone knows based on the previous uh neighborhood uh delineations there were 14 regions and we already have two um uh volunteers who have said that they'd be willing to be leaders um so just putting that out there um so other comments um uh jack anything to add people i guess we heard from lauren uh j anything to add don't i'm donna you've donna or lauren anything more then you're good no i was just gonna say i'm happy to help okay oh great awesome um all right well and i don't think we need a motion regarding that um okay thank you so moving on from there um so now we're in the brainstorming section um other ideas i have at least two other ideas that i'd like to uh mention but um i'll let others start first and then once we've gone through uh anything else then i you probably have something more to add and i would love to hear so and there are two two more folks that weren't here at the beginning of the meeting that may i don't know if they are here with comments or not okay um all right uh any other suggestions connor um guys he's talking about closer man sure i was talking to mary hooper there and uh you know she made the good point that you know i think a lot of hourly workers in town don't know that they're eligible for unemployment um so i think it'd be great if we could just have a really clear link on the webpage to that there's a eight to ten day processing delay is my understanding now so anybody watching uh would really recommend you get those you get that in asap and at the moment i don't think that covers anybody under like 10 99s or something but they should probably keep an eye out too because things are changing all the time with the rules but if we could have a link on the website just uh point to them in that direction uh dan two things one i discussed earlier when i was on the uh homeless task force conference meeting with with cameron the idea of linking montpelier alive who seems to be really taking the lead on or communicating with businesses to establish who's open who's closed who's available for certain services and i think we just need to make sure that we cross cross post with them um and coordinate and the second thing is actually sorry if you can't hear me um the second thing is is actually a project that uh i'm going to start working with uh two of the lawyers from legal aid on tomorrow is that um there's going to be a lot of credit card use in the next several months as people lean heavy into that where they don't have the resources um and there's going to need to be some guidance on that so hopefully whatever we develop from that we can post on the on the city's website because i think that's going to be a really important piece of consumer information um just because there are there are things people can do now and in the short term to lessen any burden that comes from you utilizing those credit cards and the consumer debt that comes with it do you have any like an example or well just just as a for example i mean the classic thing is that you know knowing that it's eighteen percent interest that can be charged um paying paying certain minimums the idea that consumer debt is ultimately while it's bad it's not as it's not like a mortgage that can't take away your home they can't take away certain things and so you know if you do find yourself leaning on it so heavy that you don't you fall into a hole of of knowing who to approach to help you with that type of situation so you don't make bad decisions such as taking out a mortgage or reverse mortgage i mean you see a lot of this in the elderly where they have a credit card debt and they lean on it and then they you know get scared because they have this debt so they take a reverse mortgage which is the worst thing in the world you can possibly do because now people can take away your home kind of things but you know so so so issues like that that people can be aware of with i think their credit card um is just it's with more of a general service but i i do think it would be important to post on the city website thank you um j anything uh that you want to suggest jack anything to add just a moment this is john odum i just forwarded you all let's summary class in about just what you're talking about it came in this afternoon while i was out of the doctor so i apologize but there is information in your inboxes that might help facilitate that i think she might have even wanted some of that um read into the record and maybe we can do that towards the end there were a couple relevant parts that i think would be good to just um maybe not the whole thing but at least uh part of it but um actually maybe i'll just do that right now since we're talking about it um so the the part i really she was um so she was writing on behalf of um p i e which i think is um oh it's partners in education for montpellier rock's republic schools and she was mostly in this letter emphasizing coordination between the city and um the school district and and just breaking down silos in general like having um lots of communication and partnership um across uh across groups and she wanted to note that uh the partners in education um were ready to help meet um some needs and those included child care support um meal prep distribution uh financial assistance um noting that they have a great track record for fundraising um emotional emotional and social support uh curriculum support communication support um grassroots community organizing um and then she also brought up this idea of um some kind of a task force um that may be something that we want to revisit um but i just wanted to make sure that that um that was out there um she had a really lovely closing paragraph also but i'll let you read that um in any case um where were we we were talking about connecting with the schools connecting with schools um and lauren was there anything else you wanted to add and um adrian do you want to add anything and if you do uh you should come up to this mic to the table if you if you dare that get that close to us i'll move over here make sure you were distanced from us yeah that has been disinfected okay but i actually came if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself oh i'm sorry adrian brownlee i own alavita in town on state street and i'm here because steven widaker had approached me yesterday and emailed me again today about an idea and he has his left so i don't really feel comfortable speaking in his in his place but um i can just say that he pushed me with the idea that there's a possibility that maybe meals on wheels needs hope or or the homeless population needs help with providing food and there are some businesses open in town so maybe there could be a collaboration um and i'm willing to help with that and that's why i showed up tonight um certainly would not be able to donate my time or the food given the fact that business is pretty dismal at the moment but in an effort to keep my business open i would be willing to subsidize and and give help if it's off if it's needed but there was a report earlier at the meeting that meals on wheels is comfortable with where they're at right now so maybe they don't even need help we will always take help i just put that out there they they feel comfortable in the staff that they have to get me to provide that service at the level that they've been providing it but as soon as people start getting sick and you may or may not know the community may or may not know is a lot of the people who volunteer for that service are vulnerable populations themselves i say so right now we're okay but that can change any second so we are actively always looking for help in meals on wheels so there's meals on wheels and there's also like the community lunches and again that's volunteers that are preparing those lunches and i think what steve started to say um in the chaos of it all was perhaps the the idea might be we could purchase food from the restaurants and provide those lunches always so that people didn't have to come in to do the preparation i think that's worth talking about sure and i'd be willing to help with that provided that my business is still open and you know that's changeable daily so anyway thank you thank you um okay i have a few ideas that i wanted um oh yes stan sorry i had one one additional thought that i've i forgot to mention beef that i forgot to mention before and that's i just wonder um if there shouldn't be some type of encouragement for people to walk downtown um and this goes to i think the public safety issue which is with these businesses closed um and with fewer normal foot traffic you know it does create sort of opportunities whereas if people were encouraged to walk within safe social distancing can you hear better okay safe social distancing but i i think we should be encouraging people to to walk through our city to keep it to keep it populated so it doesn't become a ghost town full of opportunities cameron so something exciting that i touched on a little bit in the memo that we're doing is the rec center is coming up with a really fun we think program where we're going to do like a scavenger hunt that encourages folks to see a lot of our downtown and our other rec facilities like our paths and those the parks so we're hoping that we can get that information out soon um to sort of encourage that kind of behavior um we know it's not the answer the only answer but it's part of it so great thanks sorry no it's awesome um so suggestions except one um are really related to the city finances and so i'm very interested to see sort of where we stand and how much flexibility we have um i mean this is unprecedented and so i don't mind doing things that are unusual um and so keeping that in mind i um would like to know first of all to free up money on our end what is our flexibility to push off purchases particularly like from our equipment plan um or it or thinking about our um expenditures we have yet to to uh have happened in the f y 20 fiscal year regarding capital projects um if there's any flexibility there and then two considering the same for f y 21 um what are the essential sort of like must do projects and what can be um can be put off um i i think this is a an okay time to um to delay things knowing that we might have to make up for it later but i'm particularly picking on capital improvements or capital money as well as equipment and i know that's technically the same pot but um because those are more or less one-time expenditures and we could potentially shift our equipment plan back a year um knowing that at least this kind of crisis is going to be at least relatively short-lived um and the fiscal year sort of scale um so i would like to i would like to know how much we can free up um just generally um and then with that in mind um i have a couple of proposals for what to do with that one is um i so one is dealing with um residents who may not be eligible for um unemployment particularly self-employed folks um i would love to see if we can put together some kind of a like miniature like jobs program which is to say could we pay people even as slim as it is um some kind of temporary work to uh pick up litter or paint over graffiti or do trail work or clean out invasive species um there's all kinds of things that we could uh be exploring and i know that that wouldn't help everyone but it might be valuable to a few people um and and in the end we may decide to not do that and that's okay but i just want to put that out there as an idea um and then the second thing is regarding businesses um i know particularly the first floor uh retail and restaurants are nervous right now and understandably so um i would love to explore actually first of all i would like to know how much we collect in taxes from first floor uh retail and restaurants uh and then you know compare that with the money we freed up uh but looking at if it would be possible to create a program in which landlords could opt in to a program in which they reduce their rent or waive their rent uh either for one month or for the duration we can figure out what details make sense there to be basically matched um potentially by um i by what i would consider like a tax break but i know we we can't technically like this body doesn't have the authority to abate taxes i don't know if that extends to tax credits um i would have thought that that would come to us but i'm surrounded by smarter people so happy to or if there's other mechanisms we can use there to get money basically back to to landlords so that they can reduce rent or or waive rent particularly for first floor ground floor retail and restaurants um i know i'm going kind of fast um i have one more suggestion but it's a little weirder um so uh dan well i just i i mean i think that the whole idea of taxes because it may require some sort of legislative authority but that strikes me as one of those great ideas that would be best if the landlords themselves bought into it or felt that that would be productive as opposed to you know i think that's a great tool for jay to take with his as as an idea in his box so if this works let's let's refine and champion that kind of thing i've been on the phone today with four major landlords in town and they have all expressed interest in this great yeah now to be fair the money that we have available that we can free up may not compare to rent for a month but even if we can do some portion that might may still be worth talking about um there are details that would obviously have to be set up for that but um we can i mean it's not going to happen right you know we're not going to necessarily decide that tonight also well any other comments on either of those ideas either um some kind of like a miniature jobs program or um rent relief um directed through landlords so at this point you're just saying collect all that information let's let's see let's see how big that pot of money is yes and then decide from there but conceptually going forward is it worth considering right right i guess that's and i would say both are worth considering but yeah okay so we see the details yeah because i don't know those numbers either i don't know that anyone does like right now so uh on those two things uh yes dana yeah thank you point well taken um lauren and uh yeah lauren go ahead i think i know where you were gonna go with it so you're suggesting that so you're suggesting that together with um with this suggestion we also look at potential uh money that may be coming from the feds or the state uh specifically for small business relief j anything to add to that jack anything to add um idea i had which really pertains to jack in this conversation mostly is because uh you know i'm thinking about the groups of people that are that might use some help you know i was thinking about businesses and residents um you know the underemployed right now but also uh just people just renters um and so jack i'm wondering if you can comment on the possibility of using housing trust fund money for anything regarding uh relief for renters at this point jack are you still on the phone what i just said then no worries um this suggestion mostly pertains to you as our rep on the housing trust fund so just considering financially vulnerable uh people during this time and one of those groups is renters um wondering the possibility of using any housing trust fund money uh to address uh well renters but really any housing related issues at this point go ahead jack or maybe not maybe i'll just let that one hang for now um and actually there's there's one other yeah no worries we'll do that um sorry about that um right we will have different technology next meeting great i promise maybe even better maybe it will be different uh okay so at this point this is all that we had regularly planned any other comments folks want to make at this point uh connor go ahead just bounce it off your last idea there just looking at other parts of money and you know it's out of our control at this point but is it worth reaching out to the um pillar development corporation or the community fund there we've given money to recently as this is sort of a core part of their mission to keep downtown alive here and everything but maybe rather than bringing you know new projects in at this point to focus behind keeping the lights on and some of the shops here so it might be worth the conversation with them since we've appropriate a hundred thousand dollars for the next fiscal year correct so the community fund of course has already committed the funds for our next year's budget those are the awards that go to nonprofits um we have been in contact with mdc and i think my period of life is as well about ways that they can assist them could we ask them to come to our next meeting and tell us their plans sure um particularly because uh i i think it's important that they hear from us that i mean i know we are not they're bored i understand but but that you know we expect that they will be uh creatively helping to maintain and and that uh you know if they need to assign a person to be in charge of overseeing that and then fair but redirect the rest of the money to to keeping downtown alive and and i guess i'd add we have businesses in the community that are not downtown that are also vital partners yes yes fair fair okay and i and this is jessie i'm just gonna toss in one thing here and i it's you know there's always got to be the one bureaucrat in the room right so that's me um i appreciate the ideas where we have already begun the process of trying to identify funds budget funds as as the mayor recommended i would remind you that we've got to balance that against potential lost revenues so you know we free up two or three hundred thousand dollars in projects and we're going to lose two or three hundred dollars in local options tax we're still no we're still not ahead so just keep that in mind that it's it's a two-way street so we're trying to do that analysis we obviously would love to be able to provide the assistance that we need and we'll be looking to do that but just it's not we've got to look at both sides of the equation uh connor go ahead yeah just just along those lines both bill and cameron if anything approaching i i think layoffs finds its way into like a rescission plan or anything if we could just get a lot of notice on that because i know personally uh i don't want to be in the business of putting more people on the unemployment line and i think our staff is same as it is we need all hands on deck here so there would be a last case resort am i mounted yeah agree with you i agree as well um okay uh dan you know i guess one thing that maybe is a final thought is that you know on the call today with the homelessness task force you know there was an undercurrent um that people are starting to have anxiety about what's going on um and i don't think it would be a bad idea it's a double negative i think it would be a good idea if we as the city you know the the mayor the council the manager the clerk you know the staff send a letter to the public you know reassuring them of a lot of what we've talked about tonight um letting them know that but also defining what we're here to do which is is not to provide some of these social services um but we're here to make sure that the core services are here and that we the water will be clean the sewer will be treated um you know we will continue to provide public safety and fire safety you know this these functions will continue and that we you know continue to have these underpinnings which you know are not the most glamorous thing but the difference between clean water coming out of your faucet and not is between civilization and not in a lot of ways and so i think maybe sending a letter telling telling the people and citizens of Montpelier you know what we're doing and that we have their back on these core issues i think is really really important i agree um i well so bill and i have been talking about uh having more frequent communication with the public as well but i i like this idea of having like a kind of like a comprehensive um letter about just what you're describing right and also um maybe having some direction about um you know if you're elderly here are uh you know some resources if you have kids who need to be fed here are resources um and something maybe that we could just mail to every resident um potentially yeah i mean i think in some ways that's a that's a great that's a great idea and i i applaud your and and bill's work uh like friday with the the press conference i mean they you know the public availability because i think those are important ballmarks because especially as we become more socially isolated um throughout this you know unlike other crises where we can all come together and burn the bright lights brightly in the pubs and such you know this is forcing us to be alone and so more communication like this that you can do and that we can do i think is important yeah that was great that live stream yeah it was okay cool okay well i appreciate everyone's willingness can i ask one last thing sure um as we think ahead i heard lauren mentioned you know maybe more frequent meetings to regardless of the technology uh to deal with these things and maybe we could talk about this next week but i'm wondering we had a few things like continued ordinance review and some of that stuff is this stuff we should just be not focused on so we can keep our focus on this or do you want to keep going business as usual so maybe something to think about um and you know you and i could talk about that obviously we may have some key issues but even then if we have to do presentations that might be a little tricky but we you know someone might maybe we can figure out how to do them remotely on the screen or something but so i think if there is a i imagine there will be essential business that we have to get done for example we need to probably sign right oh yeah documents so um or if there are other items like like that that we have to do fair enough what are other people's thoughts on the sort of the well particularly about like let's say next week's meeting i i'm also open to meeting um more frequently if there is substance to talk about um like i don't know how long it will take staff to come up with some answers for some of the things we raised tonight um if you think it will take a week then maybe it's not logical to meet sooner but otherwise um well we had next week scheduled anyway of course yeah what are what are your thoughts do you want to meet sooner and or do you what how do you feel about moving on with like things you know our norms or you know other stuff yeah go ahead dan i'll i'll i'll speak first only keep looking at um yeah that's okay we're sitting but what i would say is something like the norms i i don't feel that they are as critical at a juncture like this i mean maybe we can have them if we have time because they do sort of form some of the underpinning of us but i don't feel a need to meet before next week i think next week we do have to think about you know sort of where we sit and whether it makes sense you know bill and and Cameron can do a lot because they have the executive function so it isn't like we're not like a select board where we have to meet otherwise the town doesn't but then but then i i think the other thing is um you know this type of meeting is really important to get some essential business done but it's also the public forum where people can express concern okay i will everyone to put your phone on mute when you're not speaking thank you is it i'll i'll try and do it with a like okay i'll i'll move the mic a little bit how's this i the point i was making just a quick recap maybe is i don't think we need to meet before next week because i think um we've already discussed a lot of this and the second point i was making was that you know the the meeting isn't necessarily critical because we have these two full-time executives in in the city manager and assistant city manager who can do the business of the day-to-day of the city so unlike a select board that might have to meet just simply to do some of the business some of that is off our plate but i do think that these meetings are important as public dissemination opportunities for the public to express any concerns or issues that they have as well as for us to communicate to the public and to say hey this is what we're doing and for you know these kind of robust discussions that i think ultimately make people feel better because it shows that this isn't just haphazard and that there's some thinking and planning and process and good minds and hard hard shoulders at work here and so that would be my sense is that you know i think we can probably strike a balance somewhere between we may have to meet more than twice a month but i don't feel like it's as necessary as you know it's not like we have to now meet every week because we have to deal with these crises because i think the executives can and so you know i think we can have that mixture of essential business moderate business and then sort of crisis business one last question and this is well actually before anyone else want to weigh in on the question of meeting more frequently and then there was one other part sort of going on with the ordinance reviews and things like that right not essential things uh connor yeah i i i think i pretty much agree with Dan there um you know i don't i don't think the public's too interested in us pouring through uh ancient ordinances at this point um and even something like the council retreat which i hope we can do if we have time but i think that should play second to uh making sure we keep everybody afloat here during this difficult time so um you know i think most of us would be willing to meet as frequently as we need to uh we also don't want these meetings to take up a lot of bill and cameron's time when they need to be doing other other things as well so yep that's right uh donna any thoughts on this thanks um uh lauren um uh jack i'm you know i'm open you know it's occurring to me too that it feels really pressing right now and there are things to be decided um but sooner or later like we're going to figure out those things and and then it might actually be nice to talk about anything else um and and actually for that you know as long as we are dealing with what needs to be done if there is space and time for our right with our regular meetings it might actually be nice to talk about something that feels low pressure um we can we can talk about this later but um you know and i'm thinking about like ordinance review i mean um but in a case um happy to take anybody's input on that as we go on um sounds like we're in general agreement and that that's that's pretty good bill you had another question i just had a this is really a logistical question and and there's no right answer but it's good for us to know to help prepare at last week's meeting we talked about these meetings going forward and at that point the general sentiment was we were going to try to hold these meetings in person um and then our but a lot's changed in the world since then as well um and then tonight it seemed like most people wanted to call in and if if the if the idea is we're these are going to be primarily call in remote meetings then we will really try to figure you know we'll try to configure tech one way if it's going to be generally the intent is people will be here and there might be one call in person and then that's a different thing so i would just be helpful to know what what the collective intent is uh and then we can take it from there so i'll speak for us here i would prefer remote um people can come if they want but as long as school is closed i would rather not be here but that's that's you know me my risk aversion um other thoughts uh i'm just going to go in that same order uh dan yeah i i understand the risk averseness i i just think that these are certain meetings that are best conducted in person and you know uh i understand we can probably get better technology but it's it's always just hard when you can't read the facial expressions of the person to understand if you're connecting with them or if you're just droning on um which i maybe do would video conferencing help i you know i'll obviously i think this is an issue where if the if the council decides one way i'm comfortable with it it's just if you ask me what my preference is i i i think that this is important business and i'm willing to make that that risk but not judging in any way to perform anybody else's all good uh codder i think i have to say i don't i don't want to push people outside their comfort zones or anything if they don't feel comfortable coming in um i uh yeah i don't do well on the telephone meetings there so my preferences to come in in person but don't totally understand it okay uh donna it might be thank you yeah fair enough uh i i think if we do meet in person um i'm just gonna say i don't know that the distances are enough i'm glad we're all spaced out here um and i think if we were if more of us were in attendance we would just need to figure out that configuration um so oh i'm open to that um yeah so right we need to uh definitely have some better technology um as well okay any any other final thoughts what i just to say is like well i just want to thank the staff for their effort and it's not their fault we're just not there yet so appreciation for setting this up for what we do have yes agreed connor agree yeah along those lines i don't think people can necessarily see at home but we have every department head in the audience right now socially distancing themselves but um i think if there's any question that the the city is open for business you know just looking at the dedication of our staff here i got the clerk and billy camera have been working off the hook so i really appreciate all their efforts yeah um well and i also just wanted um thank any of the public who took the time to watch or listen uh to this meeting and just uh you know stay grounded and uh encourage people to reach out if they need anything um there are lots of people who want to help and uh we have great we have great nets for people you know if you need help so um and i i think your suggestion dan is great will be in touch uh more frequently um especially as you know we're a little a little more separated from each other these days so um okay any other comments from uh department heads okay all right well thank you everyone and uh he hopefully can get to bed on time um so we'll uh consider the meeting adjourned uh 847