 We'll call to order the meeting of the Winooski Liquor Control Board. Please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance, led by Deputy Mayor Hal Colston. Mayor, it seems like I was having some... This is the United States of America, and through the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thanks, Hal. Thanks, Bryn. Um, so with that, we just have one regular item on for tonight, and that's approval of a first and third class liquor license outside consumption permit, restaurant license, and sidewalk usage permit for, um, Grazers Winooski at 24 Main Street. Staff, any comments about this permit? No, no comments on this permit. And is there anyone here from the business? It looks like Carol... Carol, are you talking? You're on mute, Carol. Oh, I still can't hear you. No, sorry. I can see your mouth moving, but sorry. If there is someone here from Grazers, you could use the chat or the raised hand feature in Zoom to indicate if you want to speak. Are there any... Oh, yes. Okay. I see Sam and Pat are here. I think Paul will bring you over. Absolutely. All right. There we go. Can you guys hear me? Yes, I can. Welcome. Oh, I don't hear you anymore. We're having trouble with the video side, so... Oh, sure. That's okay. But welcome. If you want to introduce yourself and say anything about the business plans, we would love to hear. Yeah. Thanks for having us, guys. My name is Sam Handy. We're hoping to open Grazers in the former Tiny Child location. It'll be our third location plus a food truck. Grazers is a farm-the-table burger restaurant, ground beef, turkey lamb, a lot of vegetarian options. We're excited about it. We think we're going to fit in very well in the circle. I've been in the restaurant business as an owner for probably 10, 12 years at this point. I've been in the business overall. My entire life kind of grew up in it. Awesome. We're excited to see that space get filled rapidly. Council, any questions? Questions or comments? All right. Hearing no comments, would someone like to make a motion to approve the licenses and permit for Grazers-Munuski? That moved. Second. Motion by Jim, second by Brynn. All those in favor, please say aye. Hi. Motion carries. Thank you. Oh, I do have one question, Sam. Do you all have an anticipated opening date? You may not yet. And if you are responding, you're on mute. On mute? Okay. I'm here. We're shooting for early September, realistically with construction. We're probably looking at- All right. So this fall, residents could potentially look forward to Grazers opening in the old tiny time. Yes. All right. Well, thank you so much. Thanks for coming in tonight and have a good evening. Thank you. You too, guys. Stay cool. Thanks. All right. So that is the end of our agenda for the liquor control board. Do I have a motion to adjourn? This meeting is being recorded. Did I- I'm sorry. I didn't hear if somebody made a motion. So moved. Second. Motion by Bryn, second by Jim. Did we lose Hal? He has been coming in and out of the attendees. Okay. So I already forgot what order this happened in. I think Bryn made a motion. Jim seconded. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay. Motion carries. So that meeting is adjourned. Hal, do you know what's going on with your- Yeah, I'm on my second device already. So far it's working. Okay. I don't know. We'll proceed forward and hope that it keeps going. Yep. Thank you. Okay. And do Bryn, if he drops off again and you notice, please let me know. Thank you for the note. Thank you. So it is 6.05 on June 7th. We'll call to order this, the regular Wenuski City Council meeting. And I'm sorry, now I'm having a little bit of technology trouble. Okay. Can please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance, led by Deputy Mayor Hal Colston. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Thank you. So agenda review, are there any concerns, questions about the order of tonight's agenda? All right. We'll move on to public comment then. This is a chance for any member of the public in attendance who wishes to speak on any topic not included on the agenda. If you are here to speak on anything that's on the agenda, please wait for us to get to that item. So if there is any public comments, please use the chat or raise hand feature in Zoom to let us know. I see a hand raised. Hello, can you hear me? Hi Jen. Yes, welcome. Hi. I just wanted to kind of pose the question as to whether or not we could have pride flags put up around the rotary. You know, I know we have BLM flag and some other flags up there as well, but it would be nice to see that flag also represented. And I was in an event last Wednesday and just was kind of curious as to why it wasn't there. That's why I'm here. Thanks, Jen. Councillor Oakley mentioned this as well over the last week. The city doesn't have a pride flag and hasn't had one historically, but we could obtain one. John is here with us who would be able to take care of that. So that is something that we can do. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Were there any other public comments? Okay. So we will move to the consent agenda. So tonight's consent agenda includes our minutes from the May 17th meeting, the accounts payable warrant for June 3rd, and payroll warrant for May 2nd to 15th, May 16th to 29th, and subsequent to pay out warrant for March and April. There is also a TD Bank certificate of resolution and People's Bank certification of resolution. Those aren't typical in the consent agenda. So I was wondering if maybe, Angela, you could just give a brief summary of what those items are. Sure. The TD Bank resolution and the People's Bank resolution are the changes to our signatories at the two banks to remove Jesse Baker as a signatory. The other two banks that we use did not require certification to remove a name, but we will be likely bringing back another set of resolutions when a permanent city manager is put in place to add signatories to the bank account as well. Great. Thank you, Angela. And then we have the noise insulation resolution from our previous meeting. No changes since we last looked at this, so it's back in the consent agenda, as well as these financial policies on accounting systems also from our last meeting, and then a chicken permit for 59A West Street. So are there questions from Council about any of the items in the consent agenda? Any questions from the public? All right. So hearing no concerns, would someone like to make a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved. Second. Motion by Hal, second by Jim. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. So we have Council reports. Can I start with Hal? So the only thing I have to report is about our Charter Change Bill H-227. It was vetoed by the Governor, along with Montpelier's similar Charter Change for all resident voting. There's a serious effort underway in the House, as well as the Senate, to overturn the vetoes. And we'll be going back on June 23rd, 24th, for the veto session. So I hope that will be successful. Thank you. Thanks, Hal. Sure. It's nice to have someone in the State House right here. Bryn, would you like to go next? Sure. I don't have much to report. The Municipal Infrastructure Committee is meeting tomorrow night, which will be the first time since March. So we'll be kind of reviewing the priorities to date, as well as gauging the progress on the objectives in the master plan that will be brought forward to the Council for consideration for the retreat on the 26th. So that's coming up tomorrow night. So I'll have more to talk about the next meeting. Since I'm the chair of the Chin and Sal Waste District, our last full board meeting, we did authorize the executive director to enter into a joint development agreement with Vanguard to develop a de-packaging unit at their Green Mountain Compose. So it's a lease of a portion of that property. Which will place some redundancies in Chin and County and we'll offer some opportunity to divert additional foodways that might otherwise go to the landfill. So it's a really great opportunity for Chin and County and for the district. So happy to report on that. And I did attend the Winooski last Wednesday. It was fantastic. I'm so psyched we're doing that. There was great attendance. Props to Heather and downtown Winooski and everybody who's involved with that. And as I have mentioned to the mayor previously, had some comments that evening about it being Pride Month and why Winooski hadn't invested in a Pride Fag to raise in the circle previously or issuing any designation or resolution to recognize June as Pride Month. So happy to hear some community interests coming in on the council meeting tonight to move that forward as well. So that's it for me. Thanks, Brynn. Jim? The one thing I have to report is on the housing commission which did meet since our last meeting. They discussed the policies and priorities that are needed. They wanted to forward to council for consideration during our June session. This included topics up there forwarding to us include identifying funding streams for the housing trust fund and continuing to evaluate its effectiveness as it's rolled out. Looking more closely at housing quality specifically in health and safety terms in Winooski, improving renter protections and empowerment in Winooski for a couple of different mechanisms and considering re-initiating the conversation about a replacement ordinance which had been dropped several years ago. So that's going to be coming from Heather's memo to council and also the commission liaison report that will be coming out soon. There was some discussion on the commission about the latest round of federal and state funds for economic recovery that have substantial additional resources for housing and how best to quickly capture and mobilize those for residents and connect residents to programs that they can benefit from. I think there's a sense within the community at the larger Chittin County scale that we need to be advocating for those programs to roll out well for our residents and in a way that we can access them and also that we need to be making those direct connections between residents and the resources they might need. So I think that's something that I'm excited our housing commission partners are working on at a regional scale. And finally there was discussion about the recommendation to look at parking incentives as a way to help create or stimulate the development of larger count bedroom count units such as three or more bedrooms in the city. So that'll be going to the planning commission in the coming months for their consideration. So they did a lot of good work and a lot of things coming up for us to think about at our end of June meeting. Thank you Jim. So oh first off so I was unfortunately unable to attend the opening of the pool on Friday but I did hear very good things about that and I know staff worked really hard to have that facility up and running in time for the public opening so wanted to share some appreciation for that effort. Sounds like people are still very excited to finally have this facility open. Since our last meeting the city manager search committee met again and reviewed nine candidates. I think we had 20 applications somewhere around there and nine of which were qualified to forward to the committee. We are currently working to finalize the list of which ones we are going to interview. I think maybe by next week we'll start doing that. The planning commission continued review of form-based code. We spent their last meeting discussing siting and setback distance for buildings so the space from the sidewalk. And this is something that was talked about a lot pre-pandemic and they just revisited and that discussion will continue with their next meeting which is this Thursday at 6.30pm. That's something that's been of public interest so I wanted to put that out there. They also revisited their master plan progress in short-term priorities. We had the commissions do this last winter double checking on that ahead of our retreat on the 26th. They hadn't changed their priorities so working on the form-based code review historic preservation and a third thing that is slipping my mind right now. Oh land use and zoning for our parks and open spaces. So I think at our next meeting we'll have a memo to look at that we'll be putting together what each of the commission discussions outcome were. I also attended the airport commission meeting. They officially approved the FAA grants for noise monitoring and mitigation which they came and spoke to us about at our previous meeting. The commissioners also decided to have a permanent standing item on their agenda around sound data and noise complaints. So that is something that each month that data will be in that public forum and will be discussed. That's it for me. So I think this is the full council. Yes. So I will pass it to John and Phoebe for city updates. Hi everyone. Okay. I have a number of COVID updates tonight. We will continue testing at the open community center probably through July and possibly after that but we are going to extend the space use for them through July for testing. Our vaccination rate in Winooski is between 81 and 90 percent. We will be having a vaccination clinic at the Juneteenth celebration on June 19th and most city buildings will be fully open to the public by July 6th and we did post an update last week with specific hours for each of our buildings and services. So more information and details are there on our website. We will continue council and commission meetings, continue holding those remotely until the fall and we're currently exploring technology that would allow us to do hybrid and remote in-person meetings. And we have some updates to masking requirements and other safety measures for public buildings. So for the following locations, we're asking unvaccinated city staff and members of the public to continue to wear masks but fully vaccinated city staff and members of the public can have masks optional and that covers City Hall, the police department, the fire department, the senior center and public works. And then for these three other locations and programs, we are still requiring masks and social distancing and that's mainly because children under the age of 12 are usually present in these buildings. So the library O'Brien Community Center admires Memorial Pool. So that is until further notice that we're still requiring masks for those and the pool has some more specific requirements. Obviously if people are in the pool, they do not need to wear a mask but check out our website for more info. We had a visit from Senator Sanders on Friday the 4th which was exciting and John Rauscher are my fellow co-interim city manager and I met with him to just talk about Winooski's needs. He was looking for information generally about our needs especially in the event that more federal funds become available for municipalities. So we talked about a number of things and it was including but not limited to what we need in terms of infrastructure, housing, community services programming, specifically recreational programs for the summer for kids as well as the needs and supports that are specific to Winooski's refugee and immigrant communities. So we're hoping to hear more from that visit and it was a sort of last minute but welcome visit from Senator Sanders to see what we need and what we have going on in Winooski. American Rescue Plan Act funding so we continue to get more info about what's available for us in Winooski and what we can use the funds for so we'll continue to update the council and various commissions about that as more info is forthcoming and the pool is open very exciting and happy Pride Month and that's all I have. Thanks Phoebe. Thanks everyone. Yeah all I want to just say is I just want to pile on some kudos to the community service team and public works team for the push to get the pool open. Behind the scenes there was there was a lot going on last week to get everything ready so they did an amazing job getting that facility open and really creating that facility use for the public and there's a lot of excited kids lined up Sunday morning to get in there so that was really great to see so yeah just want to thank that crew for all the hard work there but yeah other than that public works public safety planning economic development no updates on our end. All right thank you. So we will move on to our regular or sorry to our public hearing about zoning changes before opening the public hearing Eric would you be able to provide us a summary of the changes included here. Sure sure thing thank you very much tonight on your agenda is is an item for public hearing for a slate of zoning amendments that the Planning Commission has been working on over the past several months. These really are intended to provide some additional clarification and guidance for interpretation of the regulations and also to clean up some of the language that's there and better organize some of the documentation. So specifically what you're looking at tonight is going to impact articles one two three nine and ten and three specific sections including section four point nine five point one and six point six. The amendments also include some updates that are being driven by some some changes to state statute related to accessory dwelling units. So you'll see that reflected in section five point one. As I mentioned the Planning Commission did review all this all these documents. They held public hearings as well to take comments. The Planning Commission Chair Mike O'Brien is here tonight as well to provide any input from the Planning Commission side. You received an overview of all this information at your regular meeting on April 19th. And then again we discussed this at your regular meeting on May 3rd. So tonight is a public hearing for the to take public comments and then pretty well to consider to consider taking action on these amendments or schedule additional public hearings. Thank you Eric. Mike O'Brien is there anything you would like to add on. All right. So is open the public thing questions. And please raise hand for the tap. It looks to speak. We're losing your audio mayor. Can you hear me better now. Okay. So assuming nothing I said was heard it is 625 p.m. I would like to open the public hearing on these proposed zoning amendments. If there are members of the public who wish to make comment or ask questions please use the chat or raise hand feature. Seeing no comments I will close the hearing. As I or Eric or Mike correct me if I'm wrong I don't recall there being any public comment at the Planning Commission hearings either. Am I correct about that. Yes that's correct. Yeah and frankly from my participation in the Planning Commission meetings on these items there's nothing particularly controversial in here. You know those discussions weren't there wasn't a lot of like disagreement and such. So I think that makes sense with the amount of engagement we're seeing. But do you want to take some time for counselors if you have questions on these amendments or want to make any comments. Mayor I do have. Certainly. Eric you'll have to forget me for not catching this earlier. But just some things for clarification for me. I noticed that language for like single family to family multifamily is being stricken. I'm curious if that's influenced by legislation or you know what what's bringing that about. Yeah sure and I you're referring to the change to basically the single unit to unit multi-unit from single family to family multifamily. Correct in the section 2.4 land use table. Right yes yeah so in so generally speaking the term family has has some some semblance of a relationship attached with it which is what makes up a family so in a lot of a lot of municipalities are starting to move away from that because it can be construed as being discriminatory because if you're if you're unrelated you're not necessarily a family and therefore the housing might not be intended for for unrelated folks. So that's part of the reason why we're we're moving away from from using the term family in in these cases. Okay yeah I know that there are a number of grants and loan programs available that do still utilize especially multifamily language. So I wasn't sure if that would prohibit us from having access to grant funding or or Yeah there there shouldn't be any reason why that would that would influence any any type of grant programs or funding. Okay. I was curious I know when we met last that there was a recommendation from I think Councilor Duncan for section 3.1 the language on the wetland delineation knowing how often these ordinances get updated I'm curious if there's benefit to just saying 2019 wetland delineation or more most current delineation just so that it can reference the whatever's most current. So I can I can speak to that I think I explicitly wanted to see that removed in the previous version because the goal as I see it for our downtown core is to maintain that area's green space but linking it to a wetland delineation which can move in and out over time would potentially lead to development in a space that then is going to go back to wetland or would go back to wetland we're not disturbed. So by setting a boundary certain it guarantees that that area is green space it can always be amended in future ordinance updates or planning updates but this would create a definite line at which development would be set back from and not allow that to move. So right now we see a contracting wetland in that area over the last several delineations but that doesn't mean that's going to persist over the long term. So that was the reasoning for removing that reference to the most current delineation. That's very helpful. Thank you. I was interested about section 3.7 f2. Let me get there on my computer and I may just not be interpreting this correctly so if you can whatever clarification you can provide I'm not understanding how the council would be serving as a co-applicant is this can you just walk me through that? Yeah sure so the because this section applies to the downtown core zoning district any project so basically all of the downtown core is permitted through an existing act 250 permit so anytime a new development is proposed or a change is proposed in the downtown core that that permit needs to be updated and amended because the city was a co-applicant on the original application they need to be signatory to any amendments as well so therefore council gets to review the designs and sign off on the designs before that application will be submitted to ensure consistency with the overall master plan goals and design guidelines. Awesome I knew you'd have a very eloquent way of clarifying that for me so thank you. Just a couple more to bear with me so section 4.9 B it adds the word pre-existing and that doesn't look like that's been add a definition has been added for that so I'm wondering what the purpose or intent was. To adding the word pre-existing in this case. So in in order for there to be so we can't create any new non-conforming lots so any any non-conforming lot would need to be pre-existing so it's just really more to clarify that this would apply to any pre-existing lot and that we are not creating new non-conformities. Okay so it's just a little bit of a redundancy but ensuring that that's perfect page. Yeah okay and then for section 5.1a would there ever be a case where accessory dwelling unit would be on a two-unit property? Um not under this definition okay this would only apply to a single unit dwelling. Do we and that would be captured under a different part of the ordinance? So we allow for a so in our residential C zoning district we allow for up to three units to be built on any one lot so that can include a two-unit dwelling and then a what we would call a detached cottage in this case. So it would still be technically an accessory dwelling unit but it would be classified as a detached cottage and need to go through a conditional use process. All right thanks for bearing with me those are my questions. Absolutely and actually as I was just looking through this I realized I believe I copied over the wrong language in section 3.4 related to Councillor Duncan's questions about the wetlands so the version that was included with the agenda has the language that we did strike at the last the last time this was reviewed so I will make that that change as well to make sure that that gets updated appropriately. Thanks Eric are there other questions from council? So I think some direction to staff do we want to pulse hold another public hearing on this in the future or do we want to bring this back for action? In the future. And actually Mayor if you wanted to you can take action on this tonight because it's it has been a duly warned hearing you have the ability to if you so choose to to vote on this tonight if you want or bring back for for future action. Thank you Eric. So I guess someone could make a motion to approve these amendments with the correction that Eric mentioned about the wetlands delineation or someone can make a motion to hold another hearing or no motions could be made and I will then just bring this back in the future. I'll move to adopt the ordinance language with the correction under section 3.1 is that right? Section 3.4 Under section 3.4 Second So motion by Bryn to adopt these amendments with the outline correction second by Hal all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you very much. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Now the planning commission has spent a lot of time with these changes so it would be nice to see some of these moving forward. Just as a point of reference with the adoption these will become effective 21 days from today. So they won't become effective immediately but in 21 days they will be effective. Thank you Eric. All right. So we will move on to our regular items. Item A is a resolution recognizing June 20th as World Refugee Day in Manuski. This is a resolution that we typically pass annually alongside co-promotion of US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants World Refugee event World Refugee Day event. Unfortunately much like last year there is no live event this year there isn't on some online celebrations but no actual in-person event as in years past. So we will be co-promoting that online but bringing forward this resolution as we have done previously. Are there any questions from Council? Any questions from members of the public? All right. Would someone like to move to approve the resolution recognizing June 20th as World Refugee Day in Manuski? So moved. Second. Motion by Jim. Second by Hal. All those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. Moving on to item B. This is the CHT development agreement that we saw at our last meeting. Heather any some updates for us? This will all be very familiar to you just for the public. This all the several agenda items all pertain to our work with CHT the Champlain Housing Trust on bringing 20 unit affordable home ownership opportunity to the front of the O'Brien community center lot through a transfer of property from the city to CHT. City Council has seen all of these documents in draft form at a previous meeting and we are requesting approval of first the development agreement and then that will be followed with some of the additional agreements that are exhibits to the development agreement. Happy to take any questions and I have Rob Luke's here from Champlain Housing Trust as well. Thanks Heather and thanks for joining again Rob. Any questions from council? Any questions from members of the public? Bryn. I have a quick question on the plan set. So is this will this qualify as a three story building? Yes it will. It's two stories in the middle and the wings are three stories. Yeah okay. And no substantial changes since we saw these drafts so would someone like to move to approve the CHT development agreement? No moved. Second. Motion by House second by Jim all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries thank you. So item C then is the CHT shared in this parking agreement? Any details to add on this? The only detail is in response to a question that was received today from Councillor Oakley and that was about we had talked last time about how we will be recouping the cost of maintenance and operations of those parking spaces that are being shared with CHT that is not in this agreement but will be done through an update to our fee ordinance about all city parking facilities so that will really maintain consistency and transparency across different contracts in the community. Thank you. Any questions from council on the parking agreement? Any questions from members of the public? Hearing no concerns would someone like to move to approve the CHT shared use parking agreement? So moved. Second. Motion by Jim second by Hal all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries this brings us to item D the CHT purchase and sale agreement. Once again very familiar to all of you the only thing is there will be one agenda item a couple items from this one which is specifically referenced in the purchase and sale agreement and that's municipal resolution authorizing our mayor to sign off on transfer of the property so this is the first piece of that. Thank you Heather. Questions from council? Questions from the public? So would someone like to move to approve the CHT purchase and sale agreement? So moved. Second. Motion by Hal second by Jim all those in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries item E CHT loan discharge so we saw something like this previously and as I recall in that instance and what I'm reading here there is no actual financial loss to the city. That's correct. So this is just one that we missed last time when we brought the package forward to you for the loan discharges so it's an existing $34,000 what is classified as a loan that was found on the mortgage deed which is not being carried as a performing loan on the city's books and was intended to was we made the loan in 1992 with an expectation of discharging it in 2022 it's a 30-year loan is what we believe and so we're just asking to discharge it a year earlier in order to refinance that project to maintain affordability. Amy do you want to add anything to that I don't know that I put that very clearly. You did a great summary I really I'll only say that our refinancing will allow us to continue the affordability and also to make some major renovations to the property. Thank you questions from council. Bryn? I'm guessing the answer but is the city's interpretation of affordability consistent with CHCs? I can I can let you know that our units these are going to be tax credit units and so the affordability it's affordable to households earning 65 percent of median income typically municipal ordinances allow affordability up to 80 percent of median income so we will be definitely be very affordable continue to be very affordable I should say. Wonderful to hear. Any other questions? Questions from the public? Again hearing no concerns with someone. Oh hold on this is only on for discussion. Is it could we bring it back in our next meetings consent agenda or is this does that throw off the timeline? We are looking to have a closing on June 21st no 23rd so it's cutting it a little close if you if you have to I think we could accommodate it it'll be ideal if you could make take action tonight but I understand it depends on what you're able to do. Yeah typically we don't if it's not put on there for approval but I would look to staff if anyone would interpret open meeting law differently. Yeah I think when this would originally put on it was it was sort of a new item but you know I think it it should have been on this discussion and approval unfortunately but you know I think ideally we would following procedure put it on for the 21st just in the consent and it sounds like that still works for rear closing so I think we could make that work especially given that I'm not hearing a lot of objections or any concerns so I know obviously the decision will be made on the 21st I understand things could change but it doesn't sound like there's a lot of concern or question. Yeah so I think that would be the recommendation just put it on as the consent agenda for the 21st just another wire yep sorry for the that's okay but yes we will we will make it work so on to item F this is the resolution for the transfer of lot two three two mouths Bay Avenue to CHT that Heather mentioned earlier do you want to add any more detail Heather? No I think that about covers it we've been talking about this for a while okay any questions from council questions from the public all right do I have a motion to approve the resolution to transfer a lot to 32 mouths Bay Avenue to the Champlain Housing Trust so moved second motion by Bryn second by Jim all those in favor please say aye aye aye motion carries thank you Amy and Rob and Heather thank you all right we will move on to item G this is a working communities challenge grant work update with our equity director Yas Gordon welcome hi everybody good evening how we're doing yes so I just thought that I would come up and kind of update folks on where we're at with some of the work that we've been doing with the WCC grants and a couple of other things that I've been couple of other projects that I think are pretty important that I'm working on in regards to the grants just a few things the RFP has been developed and sent out in search for consultants to come in in contract with the city for the equity audit so that was one of the biggest pieces that needed to take place by July 1st so right now we are just awaiting those proposals waiting on folks to come in and help us get that under underway for the city second we are working on restructuring the leadership team to include more members of the community for example you know someone who is a new American or a member of the immigrant community one of the school liaisons someone who is representative of the community of differently abled folks so that is a plan a working plan that we are creating at our next meeting to work on outreach to recruit those new members of the group to widen the and diversify the folks who are going to be on the decision making team for the grant which is awesome it was a big piece as well that was a part of the work plan we are also spending time to hone in a bit more on what exactly the outcomes and the goals are for this group and for the for the the grant itself so kind of a what is our North Star what is our guiding principle what are the things that we are going to be truly focused on so that when we do begin work with the folks whatever firm it's going to be for the audit we are able to give them very specific details on what it is that we need from them and how we're going to use it that's extremely important for this work moving forward we are also I'm also working with Phoebe our director of HR to possibly use some of the money for the grant from the grant to create two new city positions that's kind of something that we just started talking about coming down the line developing something to hire on our own liaisons and also like a community engagement strategists that is also going to assist in community outreach and working on bringing more folks to the table on that would be their main priority so those are the things it's been it's been pretty busy with the grant work even though we've only had two meetings which I think is really awesome our next meeting is scheduled for the end of the month so we can have more updates coming in July hopefully and then the other two pieces that I want to update I thought that the council would like to hear the Juneteenth celebration that's going to be happening on June 19th hope to see you all there I'm going to be opening with the speech and we also have organized that there's going to be a COVID clinic that the state is going to put on that's there as well so we're going to be putting out some advertisement about that because that's pretty important and the second piece is that I'm working with our librarian Nate Eddy I think that's his name so many new people I can't remember Nate Eddy and we're going to be meeting with a group of students next week to talk about developing more student and adult co-led student youth programming for the community the O'Brien Community Center throughout the summer so that's another really big task that's going to be really helpful we think thank you yes yeah no problem it's a lot the one month you've been here I always said that I was going to hit the ground running that was a promise and I'm hoping that I'm delivering I did I wanted to ask her a little clarity on the equity audit so you're talking about the the grant leadership team thinking about like the North Star to lead that audit I'm understanding that so like after those discussions then you would know what where the audit would focus as far as like what kinds of city policies and stuff yes exactly what is it that we're looking to gain from the information that they're going to get from that we're going to get to not how are we going to use it for what purpose right now you know I think there's there's a generalized school you know there are a few things and there's some ideas that are up in the air but it's not concrete yet and so for in order for those people to come in and really be able to focus on what they are you know what they're looking for in the stretch in the in the audit it would be nice to be able to say to them you know we'd really like to work on you know we'd really like to see what this this and this is going to be in the audit you know whether it's where are the holes in our policy what is you know what are the gaps within our community outreach programs what are you know things like that okay thank you I have another question but I want to open it up to the rest of council first sure of course Brynn staying on the RFP I'm curious whether or not that's fixed fee or cost plus like what's our budget for that work the budget that we set aside for it is $25,000 but we are in the RFP you know we did say that in the in people's proposals that they can determine whether or not the scope of the work that we have listed really fits that price tag so we're really leaving it kind of open and also knowing that we're you know we're within certain constraints in the budget awesome and is that modeled after another municipal example or do we do we have any thing that we're referencing to develop to develop that um actually yeah Heather Heather and I were the ones who developed it and she had given me some examples of a couple of others that had gone out in the last three years for somewhat similar work one was more of a phased plan that had to do more with structural things for the city and then the other one was more of a broad plan so we were able to kind of gauge from those two and kind of meet in the middle knowing that a lot of the work of the audit is going to be both technical and adaptive so we were trying to kind of bridge those two things together and Heather I saw your hand yeah I just wanted to clarify for Bryn's question this equity audit is funded through a separate source then the working communities challenge so it's part of the municipal planning grant and what we have there is $25,000 so that's where the fixed fee came from that is that's the grant funding for the project got it thank you thanks Heather other folks have questions Jim thank you and thank you guys for the update and the work already done in a month it's great I'm curious if you could just if there's any more you could share on kind of the thinking or the priorities you have around those new hires you're considering under the grant with the you mentioned would be two two new community liaisons and community engagement strategies so three total and what's kind of the what's driving at it or just kind of where that's how that's evolving and what you're hoping to do with those decisions absolutely yeah it really is evolving in my discussions in our discussions as a city with the current school liaisons that we rely heavily on for family engagement family involvement I mean even things as you know like signing up for recreation department programs and working with Kirsten Polgard and the liaisons they gave us kind of an outline of all of the work that they do and what lies kind of within the city realm and what lies within the school you know the school work realm and there's quite a significant amount of the work that they're doing that that is really work that the city could be kind of taking off of their shoulders they're currently six I believe six liaisons and they're they're hiring more to to spread the wealth a little bit more but at the same time we know that the liaisons that are currently working are working you know 60 plus hours a week outside of their school hours on weekends evenings you know everything like that and so the city is really trying to partner with them to take on some of that work and also recognize that we're going to have to work to like partner together in order to completely support the families but so that's kind of where the conversation initiated was really getting feedback from the liaisons and what they felt like they need from the city and then I actually was kind of brought up the position of the community engagement strategists because having the liaisons is wonderful because they're working one-on-one with families they're working individually at the same time however that's not necessarily addressing the system and the reason why they have to work so hard to support the families individually is because the families are not accessing supports through our system so we really need someone to come in to hone that in and find out what we can do to to better support the new American immigrant community within within the city and because that's ever changing that's a job that is always going to be needed great thank you yes how much have have USCRI staff been involved in that discussion they so I have spoken with both of gosh no I'm not I'm so sorry about names Amila I think is one of them and so there are a few representatives from USCRI and AALV that are on the WCC grant team and so they have been a part of those conversations all along oh great I know there are concerns that I've heard in meetings with new American residents that really could be tied back to that organization and staff being gutted over the last several years and so you know I know that they're looking to sort of rebuild their team there so the USCRI did put out a few new positions Amila gave us an update on that a few weeks ago they are hiring I think they said four new case managers something like that however we you know part of what we use them for for the most is translation services as well so we rely heavily on their translators as well as their case managers as well as the school liaison so I think it's all things like the creation of these positions are all just going to complement each other so that we're not necessarily relying on a specific entity for something specific that we aren't able to provide for families I think it's always going to be something that we are you know that we're working with people on but I think it's kind of a basic a basic need and a basic thing that we can fill in the interim in the meantime while we are still you know waiting for the equity audit to to be done I think that communication is going to be a big piece of how the reason why we have such a challenging time with community engagement yeah Hal I see your hand Oh thanks so I just have a comment to make I serve on the WCC steering committee and also served on the jury that made the selections but I know the thread through all of our conversations was about systems change and it's great to hear you looking into that direction because I think that's the the essence of this kind of grant support and hopefully allow us to be able to sustain what we end up changing so thank you for your work thank you Hal I did want to ask about the those new positions so my last understanding was that the full WCC grant funding actually were short for even what we're trying to do right now and so I would like to hear what has been discussed around financing for new roles well Phoebe might want to chime in here too because we you know there's definitely money that is coming in we had a visit from one of our senators the other day who came in to talk with both Phoebe and John about specifically the WCC grant I wasn't a part of the bulk of the meeting I kind of joined at the very at the tail end so I'm not sure Phoebe if you wanted to chime in about what Mr. Sanders had to say about you know bringing money in that is being I think it's part of the COVID relief funding that's coming from the from the the nation is Phoebe there yes oh okay so I did yeah so the senator senator's team was actually sent an email ahead of time and they're very interested in the grant work and so I did have that conversation with John and I had that conversation with him when we met to just um really you know share kind of what resources we need and that and and he asked specifically if we felt that you know our new American refugee immigrant communities were you know had the resources they need and my answer was that I think more so than in a lot of other places I think when you ski has amazing supports existing but we always need more and we just heard at our last grant meeting from ALV that just actual resources like tangible resources are still needed so I've you know talked that up with with the senator because he specifically was interested in that that experience and so I did mention that we would be looking for additional funding and that we would potentially be hoping to hire new staff and he mentioned that there are possibly earmarks coming down down the road and additional funding so hopefully that will result in some some more funding for these positions specifically I mean that's really exciting because I I certainly think that there's some federal obligation here to be helping fund programs that support new residents so I was sorry to miss being able to participate in that meeting and if there's any continuing advocacy I can do obviously will be happy to do that if I think we can always write letters right I think there's always continuing advocacy I now have you know cards and contacts for that office so I will definitely be reaching out to them alongside Phoebe and John to see what we can get you know kind of the ball rolling in the next couple of months for sure that's awesome are there other questions from council I don't think we have any more public attendees oh I did I do just want to say so we get um in our strategic areas so like housing municipal infrastructure we have been getting like a quarterly update and report out for some time and I'm hoping to roll like equity the work that you're leading yes with staff into that sort of update schedule so we can continue to touch base on these topics sure yeah that sounds great I like schedules so that sounds good thank you all right so this is a a discussion item not hearing any other questions anything else you want to add all right so we will move on then thank you so much for keeping us and the public informed of ongoing work we will move to item H this is on for approval so at our last meeting we appointed an alternate for the Chin and Solid Waste District Board of Commissioners and I neglected to put Bryn's reappointment to that board so adding that on here to keep her to extend her term of service are there any questions from council or Bryn anything you would like to say um I I've been working in the solid waste sector for a number of years and have transitioned out from working at the state level which has enabled me to you know take on the board commissioner role with CSWD starting in 2017 and I've expanded my engagement with that into the finance committee and now into the board chair position and while I am pulling back from the chair so that I can dedicate more time and focus to the council I am still very interested in continuing to participate in that role should the rest of the council support me in that in that position yes thanks for the work that you have been doing there and the willingness to continue any questions or concerns from council all right does someone want to make a motion to approve Bryn's appointment so move second motion by Jim second by Hal I think maybe Bryn shouldn't vote on this so all those in favor please say aye aye aye those abstaining Bryn who is not on screen all right so the motion carries we will move on to item aye this is on for approval this is the fraternal order of police contract we also have an executive session warned so Phoebe is there any introduction you want to give during the public meeting I just wanted to thank Angela and Chief Rick Hubert for being on the negotiation team and also thank the FOP we conducted these negotiations remotely which was a new process but it worked out and we you know reached tentative agreement in just a couple of sessions so just to the negotiation team on both sides and I look forward to hearing any questions that the council may have during the executive session thanks Phoebe so pursuant to Vermont state statute section 3131B labor relations agreements with employees being conducted in public will put the city at a disadvantage which is why we have worn this for an executive session can I have a motion from a member of council to find that for that state statute we should move into executive session so moved second motion by Bryn second by Hal all those in favor please say I hi hi motion carries so I am looking for a motion to enter into executive session inviting co-interim manager Phoebe Townsend chief of police Rick Hubert and finance director Angela Aldiari and I think that's it all right so moved second second motion by Jim second by Bryn all those in favor please say I hi hi hi motion carries so we will move into another zoom line to conduct the executive session on the FOP agreement we will discuss no other business and we'll return to this line solely to adjourn is that line in our email I was just gonna ask the same thing