 All right. Welcome Jim. And I see six o'clock on my my clock here. So I will it is Monday March 8th, 6 p.m. I will call to order this regular meeting of the Wendyski City Council. 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. Welcome. We will start with our consent agenda. We have several items on there. We have our liquor control and council minutes of February 16th, which clearly Brynne was not here for as our newest member of council. Some might separate those out along with the city manager annual review since she did not participate in that. The rest of this, though, is our regular accounts payable warrant and subsequent payout for January 21, as well as resolution and vendor authorization related to dump truck financing, which was part of our CIP and has been previously approved by this council. So are there any questions or concerns about the consent agenda? All right. So I would first take a motion to approve items B, C, and D. So moved. Second. Motion by Mike. Second by Jim. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. I think I should abstain since I wasn't here for the previous meeting. Oh, these are the items you can vote on. Okay. Thank you. Then I support them as well. All right. Motion carries. So I would look for a second motion for items A and E. All second. Motion by Mike. This one I actually think you need to do a roll call vote since brand will abstain. Okay. Thank you. Virtual environment. So I had a motion by Mike and a second by Jim. All those in favor, please say aye and state your name. Jim Duncan, aye. Mike Meyers, aye. Al Colston, aye. Those abstaining. Brynn Oakley, if abstains. Thank you. Motion carries. So next on our agenda is council reports. I will just start by thanking when you ski voters for turning out for town meeting day. And I will welcome our new member of council, Brynn Oakley. And I won't call on you first for this since it's your first meeting. So I'll start. I will share some of my updates for council and primarily heavily involved in an election over the past week or so. But also, I wanted to mention here that myself, Hal, Jesse, members of staff joined sort of a regional meeting related to gaps in support for mental health and addiction for folks struggling with those issues in our region, so it was organized by our town managers in our region had folks from medical profession, from police and public safety and also public officials. They are represented to discuss, you know, a path forward to providing better supports there. I don't I think it was a very good conversation about where those gaps are. No takeaways or next steps yet, but there should be more information coming. Sure. And Helen, Jesse, since you're both there, feel free to speak to that as well. I'm sure I'll add I will pass it right to you. Yeah, thank you. Since you stole my thunder from my report. I think the thing that really got me excited was hearing from Amelia from Vermont Resilient Resilient Program and how they are looking to resume the refugee and immigrant levels that we were at around four years ago because it's been a steady decline for the last four years. And so it sounds really optimistic that that will be part of who we are. So we'll be welcoming refugees and immigrants once again. How would you also like to share an update on H227? Oh, sure. H227 is the Winooski Charter Change Bill. It was introduced before the town meeting recess in the government operations committee that I serve on. So I introduced the bill. We had several witnesses come through to offer their support, including the mayor and our city manager and Liz Essel from the Charter Commission. And after some some discussion, with the committee, it was decided that Section 907, which deals with home rule, which would be would allow us or any other city or town to to incorporate any charter change that's been approved by the legislature if we were to consider it as something we wish to pursue, that we could also do the same without going through the entire process as we do now with, you know, getting out to the voters, getting to the legislature, getting the House, the Senate and so forth. We had felt that that part of the Charter Change needed a lot more conversation. We wanted to be able to hear from others in terms of witnesses. I think at its core, we're concerned, as it reads now, that it would it would undermine our role as legislators to make and amend laws because that's what we're charged to do with our Constitution. So we pulled that out so we could visit it another time as a separate bill and pursue it in that way. And then the other change that we wanted to see take place was to mimic the definition in the Montpelier Charter Change, which also deals with all resident voting. They know it is non-citizen voting. And we wanted to make sure that our definition was was pretty much mimicking their definition of legal residence. So we'll get before us tomorrow a revised bill from the Edge Council that will reflect those two changes. All the other proposed changes would be intact. And this is being done to expedite this this bill to get through the process. We're in crossover. This Friday is a deadline for any bills coming out of the House to go to the Senate. So we didn't really want to hold that up. And that's why we applied those changes at this time. Thanks, Hal. Sure. Council updates. OK, I will turn to Jim for your updates. So thank you, Mayor. I'll just share a quick update from the Housing Commission, as I don't believe we've met since they last met. They reviewed some changes to the Housing Trust Fund. Those are pretty specific, but one detailed, allowing a higher level of liquid asset holding for an applicant before they're ineligible to the program so people can have more cash on hand. And the other change is to remove the requirement that the rent or mortgage be or the mortgage payment for a down payment assistance be 30 percent or less of the person's income. This was a change that was meant to help someone who may be in a highly cross burdened situation move into a situation where they could still be definitionally cost burden, but less so. So this and building equities that seem like a trade the Housing Commission bill is worth doing and one that the lender would also backstop in terms of not putting someone into a mortgage they can't afford. So those two changes that sounds like they're coming through. I'm sure Heather will have some more updates on those in the next month. The Housing Trust Fund moves forward, which is great. And the Commission discussed. The historic preservation findings of the historic resource inventory that we put together. So they provided some input on that and kind of raising questions or asking more about how constraints for historically historic preservation might increase costs for maintenance or cause maintenance not to happen as a result of something that we've talked about here too. So as the Commission weighed in on those as well and I know Heather's putting back together a memo to come back and counsel with that. So we'll be seeing more on that soon. And we ran out of time to get into family housing incentives. That'll be on the next meeting's agenda. Thank you, Jim. Mike, Council updates. Yes. The Municipal Infrastructure Commission is holding a meeting tomorrow. So stay tuned for an update on that. We're going to be discussing some of the sidewalks and adding to the study of, I think, Mansu and there's two streets that we're going to add to see if we can get a sidewalk added to those streets. We're going to start the conversation and stay tuned for an update from for me from the next meeting on that. I'd like to congratulate Jim for retaining his seat. And I also like to congratulate Brynn. Welcome, Brynn, to our City Council. It was nice to see some people out getting involved in campaigning and looking forward to working with you, Brynn. So welcome. Thanks, Mike. Happy to join you all. It's an honor. Yes. So this would be your turn, Brynn. So we rotate around. We do council updates of any activities or information that we should share and that we were doing in our capacity with each other. So I know you've just begun, but if there's anything you want to share here, feel free. Nothing to share specifically as the current board chair for Chinden Solid Waste District, taking on and looking at the new duties that I will have as a city councilor will evaluate my commitments to the district. We currently don't have an alternate and would ask that we look into recruiting an alternate for the district commissioners. And I'm happy to basically work serving that in the board chair role through the remainder of the fiscal year through the end of June. Happy to stay on the commission as well as as a time allows with my commitments to the council. And other than that, I'm also happy to work with an alternate to get them up to speed and potentially to take over if I need to step back from that role. Thank you. We will be in touch outside of this meeting about recruitment processes there. So thank you for that. That's good. All right. So we will move then to city updates. Jesse. Great. Thank you. So as I have now, almost for a year, I'll start with our COVID updates. So in the last or the last reporting week, so the week ending last Thursday, we've had 17 new COVID cases in Winooski that means we've had three weeks in a row of case counts in the teams. So just as a reminder to all get tested, VDH is really encouraging folks to get tested. That's available every day that I'll get into in a minute. Don't spend time with people outside of your immediate household, wear a mask when in the presence of others, socially distance and wash your hands and get vaccinated when it's your turn. So as you likely all know, daily testing is still happening in Winooski and we'll continue to do so for the foreseeable future that happens daily at the O'Brien Community Center. It's two to eight Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and then nine to three all other days including Saturday and Sunday. Though you can sign up on the VDH website for that testing, but you can also just walk into that testing site and there are of course translators and interpreters and translated materials they are available to you. Vaccines are now available for those 65 and older for school and childcare staff and for those who are 55 and older with a high risk condition and that list is on the VDH website. You cannot walk up to a vaccine site so you must register in advance and you can do that at healthfermont.gov backslash my vaccine or by calling 855-722-7878 and just a reminder that the Winooski vaccine clinics are Tuesdays at the Armory by Richard's Park. And then finally, as most of you have heard we have been partnering with the school and VDH and our community partners to host limited English proficiency vaccine clinics weekly in the city for about five to six weeks and that includes vaccinating whole households not just the qualifying individual. A similar vaccine clinic process will be set up for the BIPOC community in the coming weeks and we look forward to partnering with VDH and other partners on those as well. That's my COVID update, town meeting update. So to echo others on behalf of staff, welcome, Brynn. It's very exciting to have you as a counselor. I also want to thank all the other candidates who ran very energetic campaigns. It's from a staff perspective. It's really exciting to see so many people interested in serving Winooski and energized about what's going on here. Just a few statistics for you. The city budget that you all approved was approved with 73% of the vote. That's up from 64% approval last year. So a pretty significant increase. The retail cannabis item was approved with 74% of the vote and the F-35 resolution was approved with 67% of the vote. And just to follow up, obviously the commercial cannabis vote, there is a whole state process that now happens about standing at the cannabis commission and regulations. So nothing locally is gonna happen quickly on that. On the F-35 resolution with the, just so everyone is aware with these types of advisory resolutions, I will, on behalf of the council and the voter, send a communication to the governor and our state and federal delegation communicating the process that we went through, the language that was on the ballot and the election results. So that is the next step in that process. And I will be sure that that is shared on the website when it is sent out. And then finally, thanks to the over a thousand of our neighbors who came out to vote on town meeting day. And then a few, and on a few fun community services notes from Ray and his team, the library's Winooski Reads program is continuing on. This is a book club for adult readers, meets virtually on the last Tuesday of each month from 6.30 to eight. So the next one is Tuesday, March 23rd. And you can sign up by emailing our library director, Nate Eddy at N-Eddy, Nettie at WinooskiVT.gov. And this week's or this month's book is the guest room by Chris Bajolian, which by the way, I have read and is very good. Highly recommend it. The library is also doing the second installment of our cook the book virtual cooking series events. This is aimed, this program is aimed to encourage residents to come together again, virtually, learn some new cooking techniques and learn from our neighbors. So for this one, there will be a limited number of ingredients kits that will be provided on a first come, first serve basis and made possible by a generous donation by city market and the guest chefs. So this second session on March 18th, Thursday, March 18th will be from six to seven 30 and we'll focus on Jamaican cuisine with chef Jackie Thomas. Just a reminder that Myers Memorial Pool passes our own sale on the website as well as registration for many upcoming programs including youth soccer, Thrive summer camps and April vacation camps and other fun things. Lastly in your, you will receive information from the mayor on this tomorrow, but I just wanna plant the seed for you on March 25th, the evening of March 25th. You will be invited to a Zoom training with Dr. Mercedes Avila, who has been a critical partner in our COVID-19 response on structural racism and cultural humility. And that will be going out to elected and appointed leaders in the city. Staff took participate in that training a few weeks ago and found it incredibly helpful. Those are my updates. Thank you very much. Thank you. So we'll move on to our regular items. We just have one item on for discussion this evening and I wanted to do this as soon as possible, post-election to just get the conversation going, get this process in motion. So we know that unfortunately, Jessie Baker will be leaving her role as city manager come May 15th. And so we need to look at a process for hiring a new manager. I've included a memo here outlining a possible process. So some highlights, hopefully you had a chance to read this and sit with it for a moment ahead of this meeting, but for some highlights, I'm gonna come to you next meeting with a proposal for the interim, an internal versus an external process so we can think about how we wanna approach that. But mostly this memo centers on the actual recruitment and hiring process for the permanent city manager. And so the sort of the focus of the structure is to engage a diverse group of city leadership, staff, community members in this entire process through an appointed steering committee, some opportunities for staff engagement and some opportunities for public engagement. Along with the role that we play as council who as those charged with actually hiring for this position. So, you know, what I've outlined here is that Phoebe, our HR manager and myself will staff this process and support it. We will as a council appoint a steering committee of various stakeholders who will serve in the role between, you know, they'll take on the role before things get to council of helping craft, the job posting, the evaluation criteria and key competencies, the interview questions that will be used with all candidates. There'll also be an opportunity for staff to weigh in on that piece as we think about what are the key competencies that we want in this role. This group would also conduct the first round interviews and select finalists to then push on to us at city council. So, I'm looking tonight for questions and thoughts, maybe feedback on the composition of the committee or the rules, if there's something missing here, we won't be able to vote on this until our next meeting. So I'm hoping with any feedback from this discussion to come to you with a final proposal at our next meeting which I realize also is gonna mean the timeline in here probably needs to be adjusted. So, with that, I will open it up to conversation. Jim. Thank you for drafting this initial structure. I think it's really helpful. My question was around budget and if we do have available budget for recruitment and advertising and what role of any council plays in meeting to allocate or dedicate funds for that through this process. That's a good question. I believe, Phoebe, that we do have some funds available for advertisement and recruitment. We do have some funds available for advertisement and recruitment, but we may want to consider expanding that a little bit and we can provide more information at the next meeting on what's specifically available right now. We might need to request more, depending on how the recruitment plan plays out. Great, and I think the reason I'm asking that particular question is I'd love to see us resourcing this search committee with what it needs at the beginning and a quick process to secure more if it needs it so that we aren't delaying any sort of timeline, having the search committee come back to council for additional funds if needed. So I think just being able to have that conversation as part of this would be helpful. I'm just curious if there was any debriefing that ever happened with Jesse's hiring, honestly, and how that process went. Curious also for the review committee, if there was any implicit bias training that was incorporated into that as well. I know that UVM has a great training program for those that are on hiring committees. I'm not sure if we might be able to access something similar to that or to look at it just for consideration. Again, I'm not sure what the process was before so maybe that's something that's already incorporated. Yeah, I spoke with the former mayor about Jesse's hiring process. I don't know that any training came up or that that occurred, but it is something we could look into. I think some parts of this group will consist of council and staff who have been through and will be, as Jesse mentioned earlier later this month, attending some equity training. I think that's something we can think about if there's a explicit need for this specific group in this specific role. Hal, I see your hand. Sure. I just wanted to, thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to comment on what Bryn raised. I'm actually on the board of trustees at UVM Medical Center. And I introduced an idea of embedding in the search committee a non-voting member who would critique us on our process with regards to bias. I've also seen that done, having even staff that has the skills to step into that role, to monitor the process. So that's what that's about, if that's something that we wanna consider. So what I was wondering about is the competencies for this position. And I've been involved with other organizations that are going through transitions like this. And sometimes it's a great moment to kind of pause and then kind of reassess, what are we looking for in a leader? And even if it's possible to get input from community members who may have thoughts about what might be some of the important qualities that we should be seeking in a new leader. So that's a process that'll take time, but I don't know exactly where that would fit into the timeline, but it could be a useful exercise just to kind of give us a fresh start in terms of assessing and confirming who we're looking for. Thanks, Hal. You know, the thinking so far that Phoebe and I have discussed is she can pull together standard competencies. Staff would have a chance to weigh in on that. And then they actually, the steering committee would decide those competencies and make the final decisions they could add and remove. I think the idea of the composition of the committee is to have a small representation of different community members that could be making that input. It sounds like you are suggesting a broader doing a broader outreach of like residents being able to input on the competencies. Yeah, it could go either way. I mean, I think what you just offered just allows for at least other voices to be part of the process, which is the goal. I remember when we were looking for the superintendent in Burlington school district, gosh, six, seven years ago, it was a big community effort to get, you know, parents and teachers and students. And so it was a big production. But the whole point is how are we making sure it's not the usual suspects making decisions about, you know, who we should have as a future leader? I think that, so that's a really good point. And something that I've been thinking about is making this process very public. So I think anything that comes out of these steering committee meetings, like all of these materials, until we come up on like candidate information and stuff that needs to be sensitive because of human resources issues. But I think, for example, as the committee goes through this process, we can publicly share like here is the, here are the competencies we are looking at through our various channels and ask for feedback on that or when it comes to the interview questions or these different aspects of how we do this recruitment and just making sure that we share that publicly at the same time as the committee receives access so that there is more space for folks who wanna provide feedback. There's also a step in here about the third interview with the, you know, final two to three candidates doing a presentation in a public forum, inviting community members to attend that, get to know these candidates and then taking feedback from the public for a period of time after that. Hal, I am curious what you mentioned earlier about embedding a non-voting member to take on that role of sort of looking for bias. Have that been, like have you done that in practice yet and seen some outcomes there? Yes, that was done with Dr. Steven Leffler who was hired as the president CEO of UVM Medical Center. So that process was in place for that. Kathy Johnson from CQ Associates was hired to do that work and provide reports and feedback and so forth. But, you know, that's at a much larger scale so you can adjust it accordingly but it was really valuable and even the board chair, Pat Donhower, who was a little reticent at the thought of that kind of a process was totally sold afterwards and was to embed it in all their future hiring of positions at that level. So I think it works well when it's done with intention. And when it does it provides real live feedback as we all have our blind spots around our biases and so it just produces a healthy process. When I was at Champlain College years ago when I first introduced this, they had one of their professors who was very skilled in conflict resolution, those kinds of things. He served in that role and did a fabulous job. So that's why I wonder, is there someone on staff who has that skill set? But I don't know. I'm thinking it's worth looking into, you know, there's clearly some concern here about bias in the committee and addressing that if we have this skill set available to us among staff or potentially from folks who participated in our previous equity dialogue series or, you know, seeing if there's like that available or if we can find some implicit bias training to ask committee members to engage in. I think we could come back to our next meeting with one of those, one or both of those options outlined and make a determination on what feels the most useful. I see Heather has her hand up. Oh, thank you, I missed that, Heather. I just wanted to recommend that there is some possibility that we could have resources for that through the working communities challenge grant. So we do have technical assistance through that grant that may offer us a direct path to having some kind of resource available. And I think it's something that they would be very interested in. So just want to put that on the table. Excellent, Heather. I'll be following up with you. Brynne. I'm curious if the director for diversity, equity and inclusion is anticipated to be hired and placed by them. I'm not sure what the timeline is there. Okay. So we are, I can provide an update on that. We are finishing the second round of interviews next week. So I think it will probably be, yeah, I think they will, the equity director should be on board by the beginning of May. So I think they will very likely be able to provide some expertise and some input on the process and could potentially fill the role of being embedded and or bias training. How do folks feel about the suggested committee composition here? So this includes nine members, a mayor and a counselor, the HR manager and an department head, member of staff that's not a department head, somebody from our downtown business association, somebody from the school, potentially a commission member, somebody from one of our close partner community organizations or even just a resident at large is what is proposed here. It's nine people total. I would imagine that all nine would not attend every single interview or, you know, we wouldn't be quite able to schedule everyone there, but we'd have some robust voices there. Jim? Yeah, I think the composition does cover a lot of the bases and I think would address some of the representational concerns that are being discussed. My one, and I don't know if I'm a little bit colored by COVID in terms of my thinking on this, but I think the partner organization in particular feels like an important role to have because it serves a function of understanding that networking and sitting in place in the community fabric that's outside Winnieski. And so I wouldn't want to add another line. I think to nine people is already a lot and I hope that as many people can attend interviews as possible, so there's consistent evaluation. But I wonder about moving the resident at large potential seat to a commission or former counselor role and dedicating one spot that has to be filled by a community partner. That was something I was using on. I went back and forth on that myself, Jim. Do other folks have strong opinions there? I would be open to switching that and making sure that a partner organization is represented. Mike? Would we ask any former city managers to attend this process? Is it that we have two that still live in the city of Winnieski? Bertha? I have already been in contact with one who has offered to provide a memo with some information of their experience or what they were looking for. I would be hesitant to, I think we could consider one of those folks if they fill one of these roles, but I wouldn't, I don't wanna staff this committee in like a very backward facing way. So a lot of things have changed since any of those folks worked in this role. I think their input is definitely welcome, but I didn't wanna call that out as like a criteria that we're trying to figure. The other question I had, we've had, Jesse, how long have you been in the city of Winnieski, seven years? Four. Four, oh geez. So we've had several city managers in the last 10 years, I believe, and one hire wasn't a really good fit. So are we gonna go back and try to learn from lessons from the past on this process too? I already had a lengthy conversation with Mayor Michael Bryan about that. So he was serving at the time that the previous city manager who did not work out in the role was hired and he shared some advice with me there that I will bring to the committee work as well. Okay. So it sounds like you tuned into everyone, I think the process that you, the memo you have is pretty much tuned into all of our, I think you stepped into our psyche a little bit and I think it's a good fit for everything. Thanks, Mike. And a lot of our former staff, elected officials, et cetera have reached out to me to offer supporting guidance. And so I have been trying to take some of that and bring some of those learnings to our current process. So anything else that's standing out for folks about this? Any questions or comments from our members of the public in attendance? Is there a reminder you can use the chat, the raise hand? I'll pivot to how though and give members of the public time if they wish to raise their hand. Thanks, Mayor. I just wonder, have you given any thought to what the time commitment might be for the search committee? Yes, Phoebe and I discussed that and we think it's probably 10 to 12 hours over the course of several. So there's probably like at least two meetings at the beginning, a little bit of homework and then conducting those first round interviews. Over the period of a couple of weeks. Great, thank you. And we are lucky to have some expertise on our staff in Phoebe and being able to make these projections and what this process can look like. Any members of the public wish to speak? All right, I'll turn back in Jim. Thank you. Let's raise my hand at the exact wrong time. I'm not sure quite how to rate. Well, so I'm interested in a strong showing on a commitment, diversity, equity, inclusion and justice for this candidate. And I know that'll come through those key skills matrices and there's equal employment criteria that we have to follow and Phoebe will be looking for guardrails. But when I look through the memo, it looks like the process as a search committee will develop the competencies and finalize those and go forth with the job posting. I just am curious at what points council and thus the larger public will be commenting on those. I know we kind of touched on some public opportunity for feedback, but at this point is the way this process is envisioned that we would have to vote as council on those or is that going to be kind of delegated to the search committee? And sorry, if we already covered this, I just missed it. So the way it's outlined is that the search committee owns that, not council, we would not vote, but my thinking is that we have the opportunity to share our thoughts with the search committee as members of council. Thank you. And I think that can be achieved through trying to commit to this public process of like, this is what the search committee is about to discuss as the competencies and making that available here, making that available to the public. If you wish to weigh in, here are ways to provide feedback. So what I'm hearing is that I need to come back with this at our next meeting with an updated timeline and with some options for how we're going to address bias in the committee. And I'm gonna make a change in the composition to isolate a partner organization, community organization member to ensure we have that representation. I will also attempt to add more clarity to what the public input looks like throughout the process and where we can engage. Brynn? And I just think there's value also in having Jesse contribute some perspective on the competencies that she believes would be valuable given her experience over the last four years and just the change in structures that have been faced as well as the fact that we will still be looking to successfully come out of a pandemic and the economic implications of that will be important too. Certainly want to learn from Jesse having served in this role. And I think our staff leadership team has, I think there's already been some conversation about this, but I've tried to make it clear that we want and value that input on these competencies. Like these are our staff or the folks who are gonna be working with this person and they know what is really critical right now. Maybe what Jesse brought to the position that they found to be really valuable compared to previous managers, et cetera. So I think for staff as well as us at council like weighing in on what are the competencies that we want to see in this role and making sure those align to the vision of where we're trying to move forward to. I'm diligently taking notes for these next steps. Any other thoughts on this topic? All right. So I will aim to come back to our next meeting with a final and slightly more detailed outline of process that we can approve and start moving forward with. Hopefully at our next meeting. So this brings us to the end of our agenda tonight. Do I have a motion to adjourn? I'll move. Second. Motion by Mike, second by Hal. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you everyone and have a good evening.