 Have a seat again. This conference will now be recorded officially called to order this organizational meeting of the South Burlington City Council on Thursday, March 9th, 2023 at 6 31 p.m. I am Jesse Baker, city manager presiding until the council elects chair for the year. So we will start with the pledge of allegiance and I will have Helen lead that sounds okay. 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. So the next item on our agenda are instructions on exiting the building in case of emergency. Go out the doors back turn right or left is for folks participating online. If you would like to speak turn your camera on or indicate you'd like to speak in the chat and I will call on you. Thanks Sue. Agenda review. This is an opportunity to make any changes or deletions to the agenda or change the order of the agenda also an opportunity to pull things off the consent agenda. If people so choose, I would, this is awkward presiding, but I would respectfully request that the council add an agenda, a late agenda item tonight. I sent this to you in an email that agenda item is specifically to approve this middle of the FY 24. Thank you. Any supporting letters on behalf of the council and commit the related local matches and I suggest you have that as a new number 13. Do you do a motion for that? Yes, please. So I'll move what you just said. Second. Second by Megan. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Thank you. You are unanimous and then actually I should have clarified this beginning so a motion to approve the agenda overall with that addition. So moved. Second. Second by Megan. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. We have an agenda. The next item on our agenda is comments or questions from the public not related to an item on our agenda. Look here tonight. So we won't keep going. So the next item on our agenda under section 13303 of our municipal charter the council is to elect a city council chair vice chair and clerk. So I will open the table for discussions of those positions. Could I nominate a slate? I will nominate Helen really is chair Megan Emery's vice chair and Timothy Barrett as clerk repeating the same slate we had last year. Second. All right, motion by Tim second by Megan any discussion. Want to reject the nomination. All right. All in favor of the maintaining the current slate of officers. Please say hi. And I will step down as your presiding officer. It used to be clerk. They got to check all of the minutes. Just love Sue's minutes so much. Then the organization of the US House of Representatives will quickly. Thankfully. And so I just would start with just a few comments. Thank you very much. It's, it's an honor. I enjoyed presiding. I've done it for a while, certainly. And I certainly pledge to really continue what I think has been a manner in which I've tried to leave the council. And that is, you know, thoughtfully and respecting differences of opinions and allowing anyone and everyone who needs to speak have that opportunity. For Tyler, we the chair typically develops the agenda with the city manager, but all council members are welcome to request items for an agenda, you know, ahead of time. Or sometimes we do it. And we'll work on arranging that in a way where we have the right time and not over try to overload one meeting with everything. And you will note that there's a sort of a long range of gender planner that you can always look at and make recommendations that way too. So we try to be very engage everyone and include all the topics that counts as feel important. I mean, and even if a public member comes, I think you're really not bringing this up and sometimes they do. And we'll add them to advance calendar. So that's kind of my spiel. That's how I'll continue to try to lead and hopefully. I mean, given the votes on significant spending and bonds, how overwhelming this community has supported the work of the council as well as the school board. You know, it's really very gratifying. And I kind of feel like they really are supportive of the measures we've taken of Jesse's leadership and certainly the decisions that the council has made. So that was very encouraging. Item six, counselors of announcements and reports on committee assignments. Are there any did anyone have a meeting. No, but I just have an announcement. Okay, you may. So the UVM women's basketball play team is playing the championship for America East tomorrow at Patrick Jim starting at 5pm. I believe there are over 1000 general mission tickets still left. I believe they're $18 each if you want them either or them online tonight or go there tomorrow and stand in line. So I want to say go cats, go UVM. Other than that voting was very smooth the Chamberlain on Tuesday. No hiccups with the machines. I think I think I had to fix one hiccup maybe she can talk about that at her chance. And so I heard there were some other problems with batteries and some machines. Other than that, it went well. It was a slow, steady stream of voters all day long. And we wrapped up very quickly to the excellent tabulating skills of his emery and the paper fetching skills out of the bin by me. But I thank everybody for their help and for the volunteers and people that came and worked at the desk and worked back by the machine as well. Thanks. Great. Okay, Megan. Yeah, I'll second that it's nice when elections run smoothly. They always have and I, Tim is the election official. I worked under you twice and I think it's amazing how you you remember because these elections are spread far apart and you read them things that I have to go back and look in the, you know, in the book to remind myself. And even after, you know, a BCA meeting, I have to go back. So I just wanted to say that we did have a chart review committee last night. I was in and out. Unfortunately, I, my schedule changed. And so the meeting time didn't work as well with my schedule. I had commitments at work and then a family commitment that I had to get to and the bus was not an excellent way to follow the meeting. So I think that the committee arrived at a final list of pros and cons. You talked about outreach. And I believe that there's going to be a pretty wide outreach. They're going to, I think going to go before the school board. So in addition to that, we're going to go there. I'm just the lease on they're going to go before several associations in town. So there's the SBBA, the South Burlington Land Trust, the Rotary Club and help me Jesse, if there are any others. PTO, they wanted to visit with library trustees and outreach to the policy committees as well. And then there will also be Saturday morning meetings or meetings kind of on different for the public, the general public to attend. They haven't come to those dates yet, but finalizing the dates of some community engagement events. Yeah. So I just want to really recognize the work of those committee members, including our clerk who I don't know she'll continue on the chart review committee. But I thought that the group worked really well together. And we have, of course, a new, you know, a couple of new members or just one new member. And it was, I thought a really good working group that really did a nice job with distilling down. You know, what kind of presentation to make to to a public who, you know, might not see all of the immediate details of, you know, and we're talking about the makeup of the council, how many counselors, whether they represent the city at work or districts, and then talking about a city manager versus a mayor, and then there's another kind of mayor that so just going through the pros and cons and they got into really fine detail. It was a really good group but without getting, you know, to to esoteric so that the average person wouldn't be able to to gather, I think some some useful information in order to determine which, which form a government and school board they would like to see because they participated also. There was some participation. Yeah. Yeah. So it'd be interesting to see what they come up with. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm glad they're doing the outreach. That's great. Do you have any announcements? I do not have any announcements. I did. And I'm still drinking from the fire hose, so to speak. So, yeah. But I'm very excited. I'm honored and I'm incredibly enthusiastic to be here. So thank you. This will be the shortest meeting of the whole year. Exactly. I just want to acknowledge the incredible job that our city clerk did this election. She, you know, we did have a few hiccups are here. We, the, we call the battery wasn't working. So we had to try another one and that hadn't been charged. So it took a little while to get that charge and up to speed, but it was. We just had people put them in that slot in the back and then added them later. But she does just a marvelous job. And this will be one of the new duties that you get to have. I never knew when I ran that I'd be running elections. But it's fun. And it's, I think it's really comforting, you know, you have all this political stuff all over the country where, you know, there's all this terrible things going on with balloting. And, you know, once you participate and you recognize how many steps that we take in terms of making sure ballots are open properly and they're signed and they're sealed and they're, you know, people are checked off and it's like triple checked. It's really comforting to know that, you know, there really, there's potentially a couple of human errors that we catch and fix. You know, someone checks off the wrong name on the line and you have to white it out or make a note and say, No, I really meant this person, but it really is. I don't know. I think a lot is due to our wonderful training from Donna Kimball, and she'll be missed, but she will be helping the replacement, whoever that is. So I'm confident that we really won't miss a beat, but she's great to work with. I think she's left a legacy of organization that it followed, you know, in the future elections, then that template will serve whoever is very well. That and good humor. I'm very little sleep, good humor. I'm very little sleep. And thank you for the pizza instead of calzone at dinner. Thank you. I don't know if she's watching. All right. City managers report. Thank you. I do have a couple of updates for you tonight. One want to welcome counselor Barnes and counselor Chaldex will join us at our next meeting. On May 20, I will do orientation to the for the new counselors and happy to answer any questions on the 20th as well as the annual. March, March 20. Okay. Okay. You got to give him some time to come up with some questions. For the first two months. And then I was also thinking we would do liaison counsel liaison appointments in the first meeting in April, just because we do have a lot on the March 20 agenda right now. Okay. We also just do want to thank the voters as Helen alluded to, we had really significant support for the ballot items and budget that that the leadership team and the council put forward with, you know, 72 to 87% approval rate, which I take as a huge honor for our shared work together and please know that the leadership team is really excited to continue the work and build some stuff and get going on these projects. We also want the council to know that the state auditor is about halfway through his process of auditing our tax increment financing district. This is a requirement under the state statute. It's done every five years. So far, lots of good questions. There are areas where we're providing additional information, but all things that we think we can appropriately address thus far, we did get the estimated bill for the audit, which is $83,367 that we pay the state auditor to do this service for us. Oh, wow. What did you say? $83,367. Can we pay for that with tiff bond? We can't pay for it with tiff bond but we can pay for it with tiff increment. Okay. Good Lord. Well, supporting our state employees. I also want the council to know we are very actively moving forward on the Dorset Street shared use path that's been in planning for a while. The deeds have all the easement deeds that we need to complete that project have all been reviewed or drafted and reviewed by our grandfours. And we will start reaching out to neighbors in the next month to acquire to purchase and acquire the easements we need for that project. You as counselors may hear from those neighbors, so I wanted you to know that that was forthcoming. We're talking about charter committee to a couple of other quick heads up. The Myers court permit appeal, which is the ADU case. Your neighbor. Your neighbor where the ADU is built higher than permanent. We are going to trial on that case. We are not able to mediate it. So Colin and Amanda are working on preparing for that trial. That trial will be March 22nd and 23rd. We don't know how it will turn out. So. Yeah. Also to give the council a heads up that starting for your March 20th meeting, we are going to start phasing out your council box and move to a point for the documents that are currently shared in the box. That allows us to one, get rid of the cost of maintaining the box because we already pay for SharePoint allows the data to be stored on our server. And I think actually will be easier for you to. Good system to learn. We will run them in parallel for a couple of meetings. So we're sure everyone has access to everything. But one, you didn't know that that change was coming. And then finally, there are two events happening on Saturday at the library related to veterans and veteran services. So there's a veterans journey panel there and back at 11am and then at 1pm event town hall. So folks are interested in that we encourage you all to come out. Okay. I am blown away with how much we have to pay the state to do an audit that they require. And our tax dollars support the audit auditor and his. Wow. Okay. Item seven the consent agenda we have three items the disbursements minutes from February 6 and February 21. And the award of a landscaping bid to Vermont stone and horticulture. I'll move that we approve the consent agenda. Again, are there any questions or comments or thoughts? Okay, all in favor say aye. All right, so that passes. Going on to item eight, approve the annual appointments of various city officials pursuant to the city. So we have a charter chapter 13 section 301 sub two and relevant municipal ordinances. So Jesse has a whole list. Oh, I have it sorry. And basically or run through them. Do we want to run for through them. Can I summarize. Yeah, is there any change from last year because personnel change that would just highlight. So there's as Helen mentioned, there's two sections of appointments. There's the ones that are in our charter and there's ones that are in our ordinances. The significant everyone currently on this list is currently employed by the city and doing this job. There have been a couple of personnel changes since last year's appointment that you've made interim in between your appointments. So Martha and char is now our city treasurer with Donna Kinville is our assistant city treasurer. All left is our zoning administrator and Marty Gillies was hired. So he is now filling the seats that Delilah was previously taking. So those are assistant zoning administrator and assistant telecommunications officer and assistant code enforcement officer. So these are positions treasurer city attorney who is on the screen now all in is here with us. The assistant zoning administrator and the assistant zoning administrators constables grandeur and city agent as well as our code enforcement officers telecommunication officers emergency management director building inspector and health officer. And they're all for one year terms. I'll move that we approve all of these. I guess incumbents to the annual appointments of various city officials pursuant to the city charter and relevant municipal ordinances. Would Mr. Barnes like to second that motion. I'll second that. Okay, any discussion. All in favor stem signify by saying aye. Moving on to the city council meeting schedule. So I attached in your agenda. Quick one page memo about the dates you are to set your meeting dates per the charter. There to be held at least twice a month. So right now we are currently meeting on the first and third Mondays of the month that seems to be working well. I've given you a schedule here of those dates. There are two specific meetings I wanted to call out just to check with you all. So one right now we have a meeting scheduled for June 19th Monday, June 19th, which is Juneteenth. So we could either keep the meeting continue as is. We could use the meeting have a have a meeting but do some kind of acknowledgement of Juneteenth at that meeting, or we could reschedule it. So that's one outstanding question. The second question is currently being scheduled for July 3rd, the evening of July 3rd. It seems like a challenging time to have a meeting. So I would recommend that we move that meeting date to Monday, July 10th. I reviewed that with our city assessor because that is the meeting where you will need to set the tax rate for fiscal year 24. And assuming that we can set it that evening tax bills could be printed by the end of that week and go out and meet the required notice to the taxpayers. So that is okay with her. So just wanted to call your attention to those two specifically. And if you are okay moving forward as is you can adopt as presented. I like the idea of meeting on Juneteenth and using it as a method of, you know, educating the public or reminding them. It is and it's significant. You could probably have, I don't know, a little presentation or something by someone just to acknowledge that rather than meet on another day and the public would just know that we're meeting on a Tuesday, not a Monday. And might not really appreciate why. As long as we, you know, do something to memorialize, you know, the meaning of that date. Yeah. I think it would be a good opportunity to do that. I agree. And particularly we are able to have someone who can help provide some additional context around it and a voice that is perhaps better representative of why it's important. I think that's great. That sounds okay. Jesse. Yeah, sounds great. I'm thinking is it. Is that a good time to do a partial reading of Frederick Douglass's speech to the Rochester Lady Club from 1859 or 54, whatever it was. Because that was for July 4 that was specific. Have you read that speech? Well, I probably have. Well, Bob, all she said, lead discussion with the library several years in a row. So, but it may not, it may not be totally relevant, but it's certainly it adds context. So, but yeah, just an idea. Who could we have lead that discussion? Do we have some candidates? I don't have some candidates off my head, but I will go out to some of our community partners and see what I can put together for that evening. And if people have ideas of organizations to outreach to or individuals. Oh, I know Lydia Diamond might be interesting. She's particularly given her the race that she just ran. And I know she sent an email out regarding Juneteenth as part of as during the campaign. It might be worth including her on the invite list. Okay, I think there is a statewide organization. So I think there are some people who have been working on this for a long time. And so would be probably thrilled to have portion of city council meeting taped, you know, maybe with an audience to, to explain the meeting and why it's important. And I like that. Not having a meeting on some night that people have fireworks on the community. We'll have a room on the 10th of possibly okay. You need a motion for that schedule. So I'll move that we accept the schedule that the city manager is put forth before us for future city council meetings. Second. Any further discussion. All in favor. Thank you. Number 10 designate official paper of record currently the other paper. I would encourage us to continue with the other paper. All right, so I will move as another idea. I move that we designate the official paper of record as the other paper. Okay, all in favor. Designate the official depositories currently the TD bank. And unless I hear otherwise from the manager, I would think we'd want to continue. It's been good to us recently with different kinds of payments. One question. Yeah. Do you know if they are keeping up with the increasing interest rates for deposit rates? Have they increased their deposit rates commensurately with the Fed? Yes. Okay. So you're satisfied with that because many local banks are way far behind and do not intend to increase. I mean, I saw the federal credit union bumped up an 18 month CD by like 0.4. But that's that's the nature of the beast. So anyway, so good. Just something to consider and I'm, I'm not recommending this for this current cycle. Nor I don't, I don't think it would be appropriate for me to vote on it because I do a lot of business with them. But so I would have to abstain, but something to consider for the future would be potentially exploring avenues to work with opportunities credit union. They, they're, they're a mission driven organization and they do a lot to help folks who otherwise been marginalized and who are excluded from the banking system. They do a great job, including them. And it would be wonderful to do if we could at some point in the future figure out a way to incorporate them and to show a sign of support for their business. But I just for future. What is the name opportunities credit union opportunities credit union. Yep, they have a branch in Winooski and they have a branch in North Avenue. Yeah. On that point, we did a fair amount of work with them in Winooski. They were they partnered. We partnered with them on a first time home buying loan. They have a lot of products where if a community is putting up some dollars, they will match it with other other programs they have so it's a bigger investment. So it may be something we want to think about as we think about implementing a climate action plan or doing more with affordable housing and loan programs and whatnot. They do offer some pretty unique things. I think that I think that's really their specialty as opposed to being the primary holder of our funds. Yeah, I don't know if I could in good conscience recommend using them exclusively, but they could be an interesting financing partner on certain projects for sure. Yeah, I think we often look a field for that kind of partnership and that would be great. And I think that's a good idea in terms of, you know, some of our affordable housing activity as well as the climate plan. You know motion on that. Yes, please. So I'll move that we designate TD Bank as the official depository bank for the city of South Burlington for the next year. Second, all in favor. Aye. Aye. That passes. That's approved. Appoint a council representative to the pension advisory committee. So Tim, are you willing to serve? I'm willing. Okay, I would like to nominate Tim Barrett as our council representative to the pension advisory committee. And I will second that. It's been a good job. Don't look at the stock market today, but don't look at it anyway. Keep looking at it every day and make decisions. Once a month. Okay. Is there any discussion? All in favor of appointing. Tim Barrett to the. Pension advisory committee. Aye. Aye. Other business. We have the congressional thing, right? Yeah. And I actually have one thing that I just would like a brief kind of conversation amongst us. That I think would be good to have. So the congressional. Directed spending. Thank you. Yeah. So Alana did a quick memo on this. The upside is, as folks probably remember with kind of the reinstitution of the earmark. Program in Congress. Each of our delegation have the opportunity to submit specific projects for consideration. If the deadlines happen very quickly. As the appropriation process kicks up in Washington. So we've met with each represents from each of our delegation offices and are recommending to you that we submit funding requests for several projects. Key things to note are these are all projects that you have already approved in some way in other settings. Several of the multiple times. This, it would be a way to be nimble. And find other funds to bring into projects. So to lower the potential amount of debt we have to incur to potentially not have to value engineer projects quite so much. Or address some funding gaps we do have in some of the projects. So the specific ones we're looking at are the East West, West crossing over 89. The Wilson Road streetscape project. The energy efficiency improvement project of Bartlett Bay that we submitted. Last year to Senator. To Senator Bernie, Bernie Sanders. And the new, the newest one, although that you've supported lots of stormwater projects in the past is a public private stormwater project at Farrell street to support some of the affordable housing development that there there's a stormwater project that's kind of failing that we need to revamp. So we thought that that would be a, we heard from one of the delegation offices that that would be a competitive partnership application with Cathedral Square and CHT. So that is the summary. I don't believe this is controversial. I think this is just approval of us going to try and get some more money. So to be clear, these are, are we, are we recommending the, the totality of these four? So we are recommending each of those four to different congressional offices. Okay. The bridge will likely recommend to two offices where we've tried to match what the individual representatives interests are. Just specific application understood. Okay. Thank you. Good question. So I'll move that we approve this request for congressional funding. Is that a correct term. To fund those tip projects. And that have been approved. Okay. And we have a motion and a second. Is there any other questions or comments? Just, and do we, if we've already, particularly say the bike bridge in particular, we've already voted on it. Do is there any, are we under any obligation to notify just as a point of order we to notify voters that we, let's say that this works out. Yeah. Or, or we, I just, I'm curious as to. Yeah. Well, we, there's a little, the voters have approved the bonding for that. And then there's a local match. And my understanding is we're $500,000 short. Right. I think that's my, so we have a gap. And so this is, and we've committed to the voters that we will try to find some money to fill that gap. So that typically is what these do. Okay. And if I could just add a sentence to that for all of our projects, we, when we bond a project that is an authorization for the council to borrow up to that amount. But if we can, we can always leverage additional funds, grant funds into a project to lower that to lower the cost. So it's not saying we have to borrow this much. So we, if we can find a million dollars for Bartlett Bay plant, then the $33.4 million that was authorized would become 32 points. Okay. And the council in public session has to approve those bonding documents. So we will. That's kind of the official notification to the community of what debt we are incurring. Got it. Thank you. Okay. Good. So we do we need to vote on that? Or did we just leave a public question? Oh, seems. Yeah, Roseanne, Roseanne, do you have a question on this? Yeah, I am so sorry to bust into your meeting. But I didn't know how to communicate. I wanted to attend the comprehensive plan SCQ meeting, but the link is not working. And I don't know if you can communicate with whoever running that meeting that no one can get online so I didn't know how to communicate that but I thought you might be in session. So I'm sorry for disrupting your meeting. Okay. Thank you, Roseanne. Okay. Okay. I will text people up in that room and let them know. Right. Okay, so we did vote on that. So I just wanted to have a brief conversation, just to get a sense. Yeah, yeah. For both for Jesse and myself, kind of what are some of the, and we have the, you know, all these plans and a work plan and, you know, it's pretty organized in terms of what are some of the projects and goals and things that the city is working toward. But, you know, as you act as a commissioner or a council person, there's other things that you can bring to the table. And I wanted to get a sense of, I don't know, one or two kind of like burning issues, if you will, or things that you think are really important for the city to be aware of and maybe the next six months. And I'm happy to start. I have two things. And one is, I think we really need to be working very closely with the legislature to make sure that the housing bill and other associated bills for that topic. And really don't run roughshod over local control and all of the work that this community has done to make sure that the building, the development in our community is where we want it to be. We cannot let sort of a one-size-fits-all from the state's perspective really override and undermine I think some of the incredible work that this community has done in terms of affordable housing and our support for that and just housing in general. So I think that's very important for our, the council and the city to be very active in those conversations in Montpelier. I mean, it does can get right down to, is it local control or, I mean, why would we do anything if the legislature was going to decide for us and it didn't matter. And we didn't really need to reach out to the public. And then my second thing is, I think we need to really help and creatively think and actively engage in new ways, additional ways to really engage the public in our conversations about what we can do and should do and how we go about trying to meet some of our climate goals. I think that requires a lot of conversation. And we really need to listen to them. We need to ask them. And I think it's an important aspect of our work that, you know, we don't have every year that something that large and that kind of outreach. But I think it's, it's really critical for us to be aware of that and contribute and really talk about it and figure out, you know, what it is we might want to do. Tim, do you want to? Well, yeah, I was thinking about this earlier. And the thing that I'm focused on is we've already discussed it, and I've already talked about before, but before I say that the thing is, I want to comment that I think that the council and the city staff and we've already done a lot of great work over the last year, over the last three years, right, especially with through interim zoning and the LDRs that were formulated by the Planning Commission that they voted on 70 that we passed, right, that I think are in jeopardy now, because the State House has some idea that they think that their experience with LDRs is superior ours. So, so I agree with you that it really bothers me that that is that starting to roll through the State House. But we, we have a lot of other initiatives that we're moving forward on and we have a Climate Action Task Force to deliver report. It gives us a pathway. People just need to learn to understand how are the, what are the things that we can do over the next next number of years to stop burning fossil fuels. That's what it all boils down to. You got to stop burning stuff and making CO2. That means there are going to be some interesting difficult choices as, you know, capital turnover happens in homes when heating systems fail or need to be replaced and things like that. And new construction, we have already taken a giant step on new construction, right. We also have heavily subsidized a lot of affordable housing in this city, right, between our housing trust, right, and the permits that we've paid for for, you know, affordable housing on this street and the ARPA funds that we've directed towards the summit properties and they're already up on the third floor in construction on that, right. So I think that, I think that everything we're doing is moving in the right direction. And so I don't have any, I mean, we could be doing something faster or slower or whatever it is. But the fact, I don't have any big problems right now. But the one thing I would like to do, which really piggybacks on what Megan's been looking at, which is, you know, short term rentals, right. And, and, and how do we get our hands wrapped around that in an incremental way so people understand what's the first thing that we want to do. The first thing we want to do is make sure that if you are renting any part of your house, a single bedroom, or something to somebody or an apartment, it has to be safe from a fire perspective. It's got to have hardwired interconnected smoke detectors. And that's the number one thing I want to, I don't want anybody to suffer in a fire where they've rented and paid for something and they didn't have protection from proper smoke and carbon monoxide. That just would be a complete disaster. I mean, every home should have that. But if you're receiving renumeration, right, for rental, you better be able to tell that renter that they are at least protected for that. You know, we do that automatically, right, for all new construction. So I'd really like to see an emphasis on that, because that gets the visibility to all of those units that are out there. Right, that may be like running on Airbnb or Verbo or Craigslist or whatever it is, right, you know, and so that's, that's, if I had to isolate one thing that I wanted to move forward in, that's what it is. Yeah, well, I have to say that I am frustrated that mandates come down from the state, and it's not always thought through and I understand the really positive spirit behind these projects. But, you know, devil's in the details and so looking at not only the housing bill, but also it was brought up on Monday night after the City Councilor candidate spoke, the school board was asked to respond to a bill that would require all public schools to educate four year olds. And we're dealing with severe space concerns in two of our three elementary schools. And it's these kinds of mandates, which again the housing bill is a similar mandate, because if you bring in more residents, you need schools, you need schools for their children, you need emergency services. You need to, you know, provide services that make life, you know, more than tolerable but actually, you know, thriving should occur, ideally right so just injecting, you know, one mandate without considering all the attendant pieces puts a real strain on our taxpayers and coming, you know, from a big city, you know, myself. Taxes are high in big cities. And so I really think that educating and talking with people in the legislature has to continue not only about how our natural infrastructure provides for our citizens and their well-being and our ecosystems and the lake and all the things that we've, you know, put into a, I thought a very thoughtful plan where we would have just as much emphasis put on housing. But I also think talking about the real cost of living here in South Wellington. We are very fortunate that our voters approved both budgets and the bonds. And it's something that will not be sustainable if we have unlimited control over this injection of new residents and what they will require in order to have a good life here. And I believe and I express this to people, to legislators in a letter that they may in fact not be serving the people that they want to serve. I mean, big cities are often places that people leave because they are expensive and the services just then the quality goes down. And so people who can afford to leave do leave. And I think that the spirit of these housing and four-year-olds in our public schools, I totally am on board with that spirit, but they cannot just assume that big cities will take care of themselves. Because we have example upon example upon example throughout this country, where it's just not sustainable for a lot of people, you know, we abandon public schools, we go into charter schools, I mean, all kinds of, all kinds of things. And I think that moving to, you know, predominantly rental properties is a real concern. You know, when we hear six, I don't know if that's true because I can't remember the number, but 16%, if that's truly the number that voted on our town meeting day, I can't expect that number to increase at all when we have predominantly, you know, rental properties here. They just don't feel invested in this community the way that property owners do. And what does that mean for our schools? What does that mean for our services? What does that mean for a community that we hope will be thriving in 2030, 40 years? So really, how can they provide incentives for people to be homeowners? And how can we provide incentives as a state for housing that is developed to be home or home or owner occupied housing? And I think that comes down to short term rentals as well. You know, the, the legislature in the House Ways and Means Committee, they watched Joe Minnecazi, several of us watched his similar presentation a couple of years ago. And he at the very end addressed Airbnb's and he said they need to be taxed as commercial properties. They cannot be taxed as residential properties because they're not. They're hotels. And they are taking, they are taking housing off of our, off of our, you know, roles here and out of the market. And I, I really, I'm very frustrated with our legislature right now. I find that there's a lot of good sentiment, but there aren't true, true solutions that they are proposing to, to make sure that we grow in a way that makes sure that all of our residents throughout the state have the services that they need, live in a, in a community that is affordable. I mean, we're going to price people out of their homes if we continue at this pace. And so those are, it's a anyway. Yeah, no, well, it's obviously a lot. It's a lot. Yeah. Things are all interconnected. Yeah. Tyler, some thoughts on how you thought about this because you recently ran. I have. Well, I think that the most pressing thing for me and what I, what I heard and what I learned in my campaign. I am increasingly concerned about public safety and our, our ability to, to staff and provide the services that folks expect from both our fire first responder and police force. I convert, I've had great conversations with both chiefs and a tremendous amount of respect for them. And, and folks, particularly within the firehouse, I'm good personal friends with them. And I think historically, and this is, this is just my gut impression. Historically, they have done an exceptional job tempering their asks for what they really need to. Be effective in, in their roles in keeping us safe, both fire and police. And I commend them for that. I think it's, you know, pretty sure responsibility is very important. However, I can't help but wonder if perhaps we are the margins are perhaps a bit too thin. And particularly with regional dispatch, not materializing as we'd hoped. And with the increasing crime that we've seen that we're continuing to see within Chittenden County as a whole and within our community. I'm concerned that if, if we don't address that, and if we don't really do a deep dive, not to not by any means to suggest that they haven't done their homework, but perhaps maybe getting a sense from them is, look, is this a, are these proposals that are these budgets that you're putting forth? Are these what you need to survive? Or, or, and, or do these account for, these account for challenges that we might face in the future? I just like, I'd like some additional visibility into that. And I'd like to make sure that we are proactive and that we provide them with the support that they need to make sure that we're able as a community to provide citizens with the, the public safety measures that they need and that they deserve and that they expect. So that's, then some of that is an education thing for me. So, but that's something that I've, that I'm concerned about. And that, that I would like to address and I, I planned it to dive into and educate myself on. And Helen and Megan, to your points about the state legislature. Yes, I share concerns from a 60,000 foot view, 80,000 foot view anytime that the state imposes mandates on it on a on individual communities. I think that's something that's serious. And I think it's something we need to look at. But in this case, I'm excited to a certain degree to, to engage with them. I can't, I don't feel like, and maybe I'm wrong and maybe I'm naive as a new counselor. I'm, I'm very green. I get it. And I accept that and I own that. But I don't, knowing what I know about state legislature, I don't, I can't help but wonder is if they wouldn't be doing, they wouldn't be taking such measures if perhaps there were things that they also were equally concerned about. It's a big step for them to, to consider intruding. And I'm, I'm excited to, and to engage and to hear what they have to say. And perhaps there's a win-win for everybody. So I'm excited to learn a lot more about that. And again, good alone, better together. Perhaps perhaps there's some middle ground somewhere along the line that could help meet the state's aims, particularly with regard to housing and that could help us further refine our policies in a way that'll make the community that much richer. Well, I think that was, I think all of our frustrations and points is that the, the goals for the legislature for housing, we definitely share the frustration is we've been working on it for quite a few years and we built a lot of housing and we have rules and regulations in place that reflect this community's values and where we are and where we believe the best housing is. I think the, I know the legislature is looking statewide and there's lots of towns that through their zoning exclude affordable housing or dense housing. And by design, it's two acre, five acre, 10 acre, 20 acre tracks. And that's, and that it works well for them, but it doesn't help to mutually or collaboratively address housing. And so my concern is that they will undo some of the things that we have already really talked a lot about, worked on, discussed, have played out. We've built a lot of housing. And just look down Market Street. And, and, but we're also in a place where we have some challenges with finding and building the schools and the services. Policely, fire, everything, library, rec, parks, all that, all those things, roads. If we are told, well, it doesn't matter what you've done, these are the new rules and, and they override. So I guess I agree with you, we need to work with them. And my plea is we just really need to because typically the city hasn't been like real hard-nosed about going to the legislature. Occasionally we have, but we haven't really interacted as much. But to me, this is like, hey, wait a minute, you were three, you might throw the baby out with the bathwater because you want to help East Hardwick build more housing. And then you're going to really undermine what this community has really committed to dollars and regulations. So I have a question. Yeah, go ahead. I listened to the Vermont edition this week and Senator Rompinsdale, she said that both you and Paul had sat down with her and agreed on the language, the current language of the bill. Is that what your understanding of that discussion was? So I have not listened to the Vermont edition. I have not met with Senator Rompinsdale on the housing bill, Paul and Helen have been doing that. Helen did bring this up to me at the polls on Tuesday. And honestly, I haven't had a moment to cycle back to her, but Paul has done a. I can walk you through that if you want to afterwards. Paul has provided lots of testimony with Helen and in writing that you've all seen and also signed. As he mentioned last time, he was here a letter with the playing directors of Burlington, when you was talking about active 50 delegation. But other than that, to my knowledge, he said no other conversations with her directly. I think the conversations were clearly that the city presented support for the overall concepts. I'm concerned about language in several places. And that we could support the bill if they supported our minutes. Because that would fix the problems for self Burlington. And that really was the conversation. And that's what was said. I never did we say we support the bill as you have presented. It was the concepts. We've done a lot. We've shared with them the kinds of things we've tried and done for the only city in the state that uses TDRs to, you know, focus density. And that's what we were requesting. So Paul. So she misspoke. Okay, so Paul did not return after. No, he's written a couple two letters one with. And then the other one that we got a little while ago, but none of those amendments were included in the house of the general affairs and housing committee. And this the second letter he sent following your last council meeting with the red bullets. After the bill had gone from Senate economic to natural resources. So he said that bill to natural. He said that communication to natural resources. So it was after it moved out of that committee. Okay. And the Vermont League of cities and towns have they. I mean, I'm just curious why she used your name. Maybe it was just misspeaking, but was there something that the Vermont League of cities and towns, you know, approved or came down on this bill in some way. Because she also claimed that Vermont League of cities and towns was, was approving. And that's what led to some environmental groups not to approve a bit anymore. I don't know. So I did meet with both representative bond guards and Senator Rob Hinsdale as part of the VLCT board in December before there was before there was the session was convened. That's the last time I had any conversation with them through the league. The league is, I think, providing active testimony. Their position and you can read this and Tom Brady did a, no, Ted Brady. Long week. Ted Brady did an op ed. You can it's on the LCT website. You can read it. The issue that VLCT is trying to walk and I mentioned this when we had our first council meeting about this is the league is trying very hard not to be a voice of no is trying to be that voice of we want to be a state partner in meeting both the workforce and housing. Demands crisis that our state faces but also, you know, protect local control and protect the voices of municipalities. So they have not come out and said, I mean, absolutely not. What they have tried to talk about is the active 50 this, if you're going to address local permitting you have to address state permitting inefficiencies as well. And that's pretty much and and the just fixing, fixing local permitting isn't going to actually solve the problem. It's a much more nuanced crisis statewide. So I don't, I can't talk to what the two lobbyists who are for the league have said offline, but it has not been with me. So, Helen, are you suggesting that we return to Montpelier and how would that conversation pardon crossovers next week or March 17. Yeah, well, we definitely I well I think Paul has reached out to the natural resources and energy committee and that's the next step stump along the way. And I think I'd like to think that some of our concerns would fall on receptive ears there. Because their thing isn't just I want to do housing. I mean, they get that we need housing. But they also I suspect want to maintain natural sensitive areas. They are very supportive of the climate change and how every community needs to step up to that we've adopted a climate plan as well. I think I would like to think that that it would be they would be receptive to some of our concerns to not undermine or undo what we as a community have identified as critical environmental places. But you had suggested that we actually go to Montpelier. How would that happen? We could. Paul could go or you can get on the zoom and be part of the conversation that way. So, I think the direction you provided at the last meeting was within those, those four areas in those red bullets that Paul had within that guidance had direct had the ability to go and testify on our behalf to maintain those value statements. And that is what he has reached out. So he has sent a written communication on that to the committee and has said he would like to come in and speak with the Okay, they're not in session this week. So none of that work is happening yet. But I imagine my hope is that they would take up on that offer to provide testimony. And then I think it's, to me, the next step from there is seeing what, what, if anything gets out of that committee through crossover, and then at award meeting about this issue, once it hits the house, if there's a different strategy the council wants to take, we could do that. But that's the guidance we're working in with working under right now. And it may not have to hit crossover because it has to go to appropriations because within the bill there's, that's true. I don't know $10 million here and 15 there and it has a lot of money. And so that will go to appropriations and they'll have to figure that out. And they thought depends on the bill. I mean, they could take it right up. But by committing all these tens of millions of dollars that are in it, that impacts their decisions on the overall budget. You know, all this sort of ARPA money and stuff. There's only so much of it. And once you spend it, it's gone. And they may have other ideas of how to better spend it. So that's the other piece. So there's a little more time, I think, and then it goes to the house. So there's quite a few bites. And if it doesn't make crossover, what does that mean? Well, then it's not guaranteed to be acted upon. You can still send bills over to the other body after crossover, but that's a process that gives the other body ample time to take to deal with those issues and not get slammed in the last two weeks. You've got to legislate and you've got really intricate, incredible bills that everyone wants that you don't have time to research and understand. So that's what crossover is. But on really important bills that have funding, there's some leeway. It's like we need wording inserted into that legislation that's similar to what we did for UVM with our LDRs. Yeah. Okay. Any other thoughts? I mean, I do have another conversation at our joint leadership meeting with the school board. And Chris probably isn't chair any longer. But at that meeting, we discussed and I said I would work on it. So I'm going to ask you all. I thought it might be helpful to have a, like a dinner with the five school board members and the five of us. And then the superintendent and the city manager really just to kind of get to know each other. And, you know, maybe talk a little bit about maybe our concerns about education, maybe their concerns about the environment. I don't know. I mean, but they're just, it seems like we should work with them a lot more closely than we do. And that's certainly another goal. I guess I put it should have put that down too as I think really important for us to engage with them in a thoughtful way. So that means all one taxpayer, we have our area that we look at and they have theirs, but the two really need to work together. And, you know, particularly if we're building very dense housing right and left, which brings in lots more children has an impact on the schools they reacted on Monday nights. Yeah. Yeah. So those conversations I think would be helpful and I thought it might be smart to start with the dinner has to be before 630 because that's when violet has to put her baby to bed and I want to see the baby. Oh, baby goes to that 630. Well, I think that's what she said before I said, what did you bring your baby to the meeting. And is that her first maybe. So common roots was willing to have us go there, they have a dining room and they could serve some some food. So I'm looking for a date. So you don't need to tell me Andrew isn't even here. So, but if you can think about that, I will work with I guess some Alex is the new chair. Oh, I was told. Okay, sorry. Alex McHenry was and see if he's also compatible with that idea and then we'll find a place or date. So, does that sound, are you a manable to sort of reaching out that way. Initially. Well, you know, I was hoping they'd be really soon. But I think, you know, you look at your calendars for next week. You know, I don't know. I'm gone the week after work. I think it's going to be really hard to pull off for next week because it has to be a publicly worn meeting. Oh, okay. And so we have to know we'd have to finalize it today to warn tomorrow. Well, if people would send me if they know they're going to be out of state for like on a vacation or just on business, if you let me know. Then I can work with Alex and find out from the school board maybe we can find. I mean, maybe it won't be till May, I don't know, but I just think it would be a good way to save some new members and we do and and we all care about the community. So it would be nice to really have some good conversations going forward about where we go with all of our big bonding. Well, I mean, our side of the street is, you know, people are talking about they want a rec center. So you don't want to go for a rec center and a new school the same year, right, or whatever. And maybe they can work together and it can be. Okay, so if you'll let me know those dates, I'll try to set something up and and that would be good and then we can get to know each other too. All right. So any other business. Okay, entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. All in favor. Thank you.