 Welcome tonight to Montpelier Civic Forum. This is going to be an interesting year. We're on the March 2, town meeting day 2020. It's a very rare year because we have one district, District 3, where we don't have an incumbent running at all, where we have a one-year term because Ashley Hill resigned, and we have a two-year term because Glenn Hutchison chose not to run again. So on that, we have all the candidates, and they all have their own shows, and they're great shows, and they're well worth watching even if you're in District 2 or District 1 or even out of town. Now, we also have Bill Fraser coming in speaking about the city budget. We have Libby coming in on the school budget. We have all the candidates for the school board. And again, those are interesting shows as well, well worth watching. Tonight, we're doing something different. And for the incumbents who are running in District 2 and District 1, I decided to put them together so that they can not only speak to me, but speak to each other, and hopefully we can get something really good going tonight. In District 1, Donna Bate is returning for how many terms? This would be my fourth. So you and I have met before. Yes, yes, yes. And Connor, how are you? I'm still a bit green. This is round number two for me. It's a pleasure to be here with Councillor Bate. Nobody I'd rather share some air time with us. Other than Wednesday night. On Orca, you can watch that live or you can watch that on the Orca YouTube channel. Donna, I have a different question than I have for Connor. And I'm going to start with Connor. Okay. What was console, what is console like that you didn't think it was like when you and I spoke two years ago and you were a candidate? Yeah, I have to be honest, Richard, like what I didn't know when I was running last time, what I didn't know could fill a book. So it's been an awful learning experience for me, just pouring through the budget books, pouring through the plans. We have so many great committees who share information with us. So it's been a learning experience, but you know, as far as the campaign stuff goes, I've worked for candidates my entire career. I was a political operative. This is like the end of the, it's like the end of the Robert Redford movie, the candidate where he'll sit in the bathroom and he says, what do I do now? What I was going to say is I never hated working for a candidate more than myself, so. But in terms of sitting on console, did you have any idea of a serious time commitment? It's a very serious time commitment and I'm not sure when I first ran, I knew quite as much as it would be, but the content, the more you know, the more interesting it is and the more curious you are about things. And I think everybody has their subject matters that they're more focused on. I really, I feel like I found a good niche. I've been learning from people like Donna who have served longer than I have and it's just been phenomenal. I can't wait to do another round if elected. Which committees are you on? What boards do you sit on? Sure, I'm on Piliar Alive and the investment committee. I'm really trying to look at, we've already divested from fossil fuels, firearm and tobacco. I'd like to look at some corporations who might be bad actors as far as human rights, labor rights, so we'll have an investment committee next week to hopefully bring some of that stuff up. How often does the investment committee meet? Pretty infrequently, and that's a learning curve in itself as well, looking at all those pie charts. I think I was looking at the wrong one last time and they had to say, yeah. But it's good, we're very sorry to lose Todd as the staffer there, but Kelly's coming on and she'll be fantastic. Now Todd is, Todd was the director of finance and you're warned ahead, you'd follow up on these things and Kelly's our new one coming in. I'm spacing on her last name. I can't remember Todd's Cleveland, I don't know. Sorry Kelly, we will learn. We will indeed. It's been a big change in staff. We have a lot of new names and people to learn. A new assistant city manager, from the last time that we spoke. Yes, a new assistant to the city manager and a new city assistant. There's two positions there that are new. It gets very parked at recreations, that show with the different titles in city government. And we have new people in parks, heading parks, Jeff Retard and Tony announced retirement in July, so. And Tony being? Tony Fakus, thank you very much, please chief. So again, we have people who've been in place for 30, 35 years who are leaving and it's gonna take a transition time for the council to get familiar with them and they get familiar with everything. So I think we all need to be patient and supportive and help one another in this process. Donna, four terms. Oh, I didn't mention Tom McCartle, who I have to. Yes, exactly. That's a big loss, big loss. He's a big one and Donna Casey's coming in but again, we all need to be patient, community and the council and working with new staff. Donna Casey, is that any relation? Never met her before in my life. Now she's my sister-in-law. Yes. Donna, four terms. Yes. That's a lot of time on the board. That's a lot of Wednesday nights. That's a lot of, so which boards are you on? As Connor said though, there's so much the first year and once you get into it, and I love knowing all the backstory, all the information and it's reports that we get from committees, reports from staff and you put it all together and you see these projects you've committed to and started and keep wanting to let's complete this one and then I'll quit, let's complete this one and it's a real exciting time when the council because the council went ahead and made a real clear vision plan a few years ago and in retreats and we're sticking to it and we're looking, I feel really carefully as we make this decision, is it a step towards that vision or does it sidestep us and I think that's really important to just keep steady, steady state with our plan. Which committees are you on? Connors on Montpellier or Leibniz? I'm on a lot of committees but then I do better when I'm in a group and then it makes the reading much easier, it makes more sense. So I'm on the Parks Commission which has really been great and it's a lot of new park people there. I'm on the Montpellier Transportation Infrastructure Committee and I'm on the Regional Planning Commission, Transportation Advisory Group and I'm on the Winooski Basin Water Plan, Clean Water Plan. And on the seventh day you sleep. Yeah, but I tend to pop into committees. I like meeting, we have such a wonderful committed volunteer group. We have so many committees and wonderful people who give their time that it's always good to sit at least annually in as many committees as possible. So you really get an idea where they're coming from. Well, also the committee is mesh. Yes. As you said before. And the planning division right now is working very carefully to help them mesh with all the committees. And these are volunteers, mind you, working on inspiration, gold strategies that fold into the bigger city plan. And that's the first time, that's really unique. It gets us out of our silos. It's huge. Our new Social and Economic Justice Committee has really hit the ground running as well. Yes. And as Donna says, they mesh together. The charge of this committee is really to look at every piece of Montpelier City government and make sure everything we do is done with an eye of inclusivity and equity as well. It's, and they've really done a great job. Might inclusivity include term limits on commissions and boards so that more people can get onto commissions and boards? Well, I think this, and the change in the council in my three years already, is definitely, I see, we really have made an effort to shake things up and say, okay, you've really served a long time. There are new people here who are qualified, who are interested. So we have done a lot more shifting than I saw previously on commissions and committees. Some committees we have to beg for, and then usually we get people. The Transportation Committee can always use more people. The Complete Streets was about pedestrians and bikes, safety and outreach. They can always use more. So a lot of the committees, people should go online and look. I agree with that. I was on the late parking committee. Parking committee that did its job and had the sense to abandon shift when we felt that we had reached what we could reach. Right, but you said a lot of precedent and also started that whole demand management that Kevin Casey, another Casey, I had to make sure it's my name. Really was very much advocating for that we look at pricing our parking as well as getting credit card parking meters. That's all been very important and the parking committee helped do that. Excuse me, let's get to one more thing. If you're renting that the parking committee did, we got rid of the winter snow ban when it wasn't snowing. That's right. Well, I can't say that I'm 100% happy with that. If you're a renter on a night when there's no snow, you are. Yes, but then you listen to renters and listen to their complaints because the landlords are no longer responsible for any parking needs. The businesses are no longer responsible to come in for any parking needs. That was all changed in the zoning. And so then it puts it all in the city to make those parking needs. And then we find when we try to make those needs and do the parking garage that we have obstruction. So it's a catch 22. And the other thing about the parking ban, it demands a lot of staff time. And we still end up towing 17 to 25 cars a storm. Now, that tells me something's not working. That they want it. Again, I'm not going to want to take the viewers into the weeds of parking and down. Well, I would you brought it up. Except for, I won't grab on one. And that's some parking and the parking garage. You had mentioned it as obstruction. Other people had said that it was just a bridge too far for two sides to square. That the philosophy was too far apart to sit and bring them together. Connor, how do you feel on that? You know, certainly. I'll get to you in a minute. Yeah. I mean, no sugarcoating it. It was a very divisive issue when it was on the ballot last time around. And it's continued to be a bit of a bone of contention in the community. Personally, I don't think any city council is excited to build a parking garage, my god, to build this massive piece of concrete. But in this case, I think it's very necessary to continue growing our community here. You talk about renters. You know, what are renters doing in a lot of these cases when it snows and they don't have off-street parking? We need a place for them to go. We need a place for businesses like yourself to have people park there. Excuse me. I do not own a business. Oh, James. My wife, my wife. My apologies to Syndra. You seem like an extension. You're there on. Yeah, you're hanging out there a lot. So largely, the decision is out of our hands right now. And it is in the courts. But I think to be continued on this. Donna? Yes. I agree with Connor about not wanting to build a box. But I also want to get cars out of these flat lots. If I could take all the state parking and put them in one parking garage and open up that whole riverfront, I would do it. And to me, it's concentrating parking. It's getting more cars off the street. I want to have more real estate on the street for walkers and bikers. And we can't do that. We can't just have these wonderful visions of slowing down Montpellier and making it more bikeable, more walkable, if we don't have a place to offer people to go with their cars. Let me stay in that neighborhood. I'm not going to get to the hotel, which is contingent on the parking garage, but the transit center that opened. Oh, isn't that beautiful? It would be nice if Greyhound would actually stop there on a snowy day. Well, it will, but it needs time. You see, they weren't sure when they were going to open. They couldn't change their schedules. And so being a public entity, it has to. You're in the transportation company, so you're not. It has to. But anybody, just think about it. You have all these bulletins and everything out there. We're going to be here at a certain time at this place. And now they know, OK, the transit center is open. Now they can start. They're planning to change their schedule, to change their location, et cetera. When do we think that the Greyhound bus will be stopping there? I haven't heard any clear date. We're hoping as soon as possible. Green Mountain Transit. Now I'm going to take people into the weeds on transportation because that's Donna's specialty. I'll take Connor into economic development, and we'll keep on doing it live. Donna, in terms of Green Mountain Transit's schedule changes, what were they roughly? Well, some of their schedule changes is because of the location going to the transit center instead. But did they cut back, or did they read the structure of the organization? They cut back a little bit, but they're also waiting to see what happens with the microtransit grant, and whether that starts this summer or not. See, now that's a beautiful point. What is the microtransit grant? Well, that would be good to talk about because Donna and I both serve on these state microtransit committees. See, that's committee we didn't even think to mention. We didn't even mention it. There are so many committees. It's just unfabricated. Would you guys speak about it? Speak to them. Sure, sure. I mean, just the Cliff's Notes, I think, and it's Sustainable Montpelier is an organization in town that I think has really been thinking outside the box, coming up with some creative proposals. Are those the people involved in Net Zero? Yes. Yes. Absolutely. They did that for a contest. So what they were looking at was the current bus routes we have in the city, sort of the circulator, some of the other routes. And looking at the ridership numbers, the cost per ride. And they said, hey, would it be possible if we looked at, and they hate when you call it this model, but sort of look at a sort of city-run Uber that for a similar price, a comparable price, it could be door-to-door service with electric vans that they're looking at. So if somebody needs to get up to the hospital for an appointment, are they stuck missing that appointment, missing their ride home, or could they have either through an interface on their phone or a standard call-in line, a van pick them up? Is this being actually done anywhere, the same model? Yes. Yes, all over the United States in the cities. The issue is, even when you have a wonderful train coming in or a bus, you still have what they call the last mile to your destination. And maybe it's not a mile. Maybe it's six blocks. But oftentimes, it could be as long as a mile. Six blocks feels like two miles on a very snowy day. Super hot, super snowy, icy, like today. But it's also in people's mindsets. We're so much Americans in our car. Even if you have to fight and hunt for a parking space, you still'd rather do that than look at a bus schedule and time yourself better. So this is a way to address those needs, to pick up the person in their home, get them to maybe another transportation system, or maybe to their destination. Would there be a copay involved? Yep, they would look at the pricing. But some of the data we were looking at, the average American spends about $8,000 a year just owning a car through fuel, insurance. It's closer to 10, she's saying, yeah. Yeah, but anyway. If you have an old car, it's closer to 18. But if you could get these two car families in Montpelier just to switch to a one car family and use the service, again, freeze up the park in downtown. It helps some low income families who need to get the work through a service like this. And it takes together Hospital Hill, Capitol Shuttle, and the circulator. Takes those three routes, resources, staff, and puts it into one place with an app so you can call on your phone, text. Will it service three penny and Charlie O's at two in the morning? That all depends. The initial project does have expanded hours, but I don't think it goes till two in the morning. Then you're going to have to have a taxi. That's a public safety issue. In terms of this, when was the proposal? Who did the proposal go to? Has it been funded? Has it been accepted? What is the status of that proposal right now? I mean, the grant, there was a grant system that we put in and we haven't heard back, so we don't know. But we do know. The one thing the grant would do would allow us to do a really excellent outreach, a marketing program, so that people could really see this different than public transit. People have an image in their mind about public transportation. And we want them to see that this is different because it is different. It's going to be a smaller vehicle. It's going to look different. It's going to have more personal response. So the money in the grant allows us to do a lot more of the marketing, whereas if the grant doesn't happen, then it's just the money we now have for Hospital Hill Circulator in the shuttle. So this is not an overlay of Green Mountain Transit. This is a replacement for the current Green Mountain Transit. Green Mountain Transit could very well be the ones running this. Right now, they're scheduled to run it because the one thing that showed up nationally is all the successful microtransit ended up being integrated into the local public transit system. That's the way it works the best. So the model of the bus that goes down State Street up Liberty and the like, and then ends up at the transit center, would change. Yes. You're dead on? Yeah. But the link wouldn't. The link would still be a big bus that goes to Burlington. That's right. Or all the other buses that go to the transit center, whatever goes there. Whatever goes to the transit center you could connect with. But meanwhile, you also, instead of Hospital Hill, you would use the microtransit to go to the Hospital Hill and the mall up in the hill, et cetera. When might this happen? We'd hope summer. We'd hope July, but we don't know. So stay tuned. And just to give you an indication, we're putting the money where our mouths are and the $40,000 we usually appropriate to GMT, would still go to GMT, but for the very specific purpose of running microtransit? Yeah. Now, microtransit spread to Barrie, spread to, you know? Absolutely. It could. If there's success in Montpelier. Well, one of the issues is always in Vermont is density. I mean, cities who have a lot of people have trouble getting their numbers up on their services for public transportation. So we really have to be clever, include human services, really get commuters to buy in. So we're using it peak times all throughout the day for different needs. You have over 200 state employees driving into town and back every day. So this thing would go up to national life? It could go anywhere. Is it like a mile radius? Right, right. So it's similar, in a sense, to our circulator. But it's on demand. Yes, taking the circulator route, not just the route in the hospital hill route and the capital shuttle route. Now, I was sideways to these discussions, just watching them. I was not a participant. Let's get that straight. That's why this thing is well planned. If it's successful, is this a way to bring students to Montpelier High School? I would hope so. I mean, I would go a step further. I've always advocated way back in the 90s when I was with wheels. That time it was called Central Vermont Transportation Association. We worked very hard to get adults on school buses because they go by all these houses out there picking up kids. And I would like to see every vehicle that gets a dollar, whether it's schools or cities or towns, for transportation to be totally inclusive to pick up everybody along the road that needs a ride. Now, you guys are in a state committee on this. Are there other municipalities that are playing around with this notion? Yes, actually, Veep. And now I'm going to have to back up. You may have to help me. What is Veep? Vermont Energy Something Program. Right. Efficiency, Vermont Energy Efficiency Program. Something like that, V-E-E-P. If you Google it, you'll find it. And they're taking this on, and they're looking at it, and they're hoping to have some pilot projects with electric vans. And likewise, people who are willing to do that, Ludlow did it for a while. They took and integrated their school transportation with public transportation. And cities do it. They put kids on public transportation to go to school. So it's just a mindset. It's totally, totally doable. But it does have the blessing of the state. I think it is referenced in the transportation budget at the state house, and we'll have some committee hearings over the course of this session. I'm going to stay in that neighborhood before I get to the train to Barry, because that's another issue. I'm going to stay on transportation for a second, because I've got people to care about it. I hope you're watching the timer. We're going to ask for a second session. The sign at the corner on the Gulf, the former Gulf sign on the corner next to the transit center. There's no city regulation, zoning regulation at bars that. Is it time for the council to consider derelict signs like that so that there is not an incentive but a requirement to take down signs? Easy answer. Absolutely. We should look at that. I just got a call on that yesterday. Yeah, absolutely. And we're going through our zoning now and a lot of ordinances. And so we'll just make sure we pull that one up. It's quite a process. And I give a shout out to Jack McCullough, my seatmate in district two, who comes in with a stack of ordinance rewrites every meeting there. And we've gone through them in great detail one by one. He's wonderful in the language, just really good. Will it be regulating blacksmith shops or? I do hasten to say he is a lawyer. He is a lawyer. But he's a brief wordsmith when it comes to the ordinance. So he's my kind of lawyer. Are we going to see a train to bury ever? Should we see a train to bury? Or is that something that might not even generate enough passenger interest? You know, I think there's a lot of questions on it. How often does it run? It could really, just given the number of state employees who shuffle back and forth between burry, that alone could make it worth it. But again, the last mile is a consideration, as Donna referenced before. The amount you would need to fix up the tracks. The number I heard recently was about 20, 30 million, which seemed a bit overblown, like when I heard about it. We're now paying over a million dollars, like a quarter of a mile for a new road. I mean, we pay incredible money year after year. Is that a class four road? No, that's an interstate level road. And back in the 90s, when I was on the governor's rail council, we wanted to have a train between Barry and Montpelier. And the stats only prove that we ought to do it. And we have to. We have unfortunately let our rail go. We've neglected it. And we need to re-institute it. Because that is more sustainable than our highways. You see, there were discussion also of freezing and the bumps and the potholes and so on. Wasn't there also a discussion of moving so that you could also ride north towards Burlington? Oh, sure, sure. I think I'm. Yes, oh yes. All Earth Rail, the group that's pushing this, the group that's purchased the Budcars, the vision is eventually have this go to Burlington, but have it start with the Barry and Montpelier line. I've been reading a lot about trolleys. Trolleys that went between Barry and Montpelier back in the day there. And for a while, this was something that was a reality every day, you would take the trolley back and forth. Yeah, however, the sister city, the weaker of the sister cities was Montpelier. Barry at that time was the bigger brother. So the trolley used to go up Sibley Street until all the other kids in town found that they could put butter on the rails. And it was a very sad sight that the trolley would go up Sibley and just slide right back down. So we'll learn from the lessons of our forefathers there. And the economic development commission. We were talking about Montpelier alive. We've lost our third chair of our economic. What is the name of it, the formal name of it? I believe it's executive director? Of what agent, of what group? MDC, the Montpelier Development Corporation. Right, the Montpelier Development. And all three left for different reasons that were at the fault of the position. It's a shame because you have eight people who serve on this board, who are completely dedicated, who have had their hands in so much of the good work that's been done over the last few years, whether it be bringing Caledonia spirits to town, some of the parking garages to be determined. But yeah, they will be moving to a new model of rather than having an executive director sort of break it up into small projects and hire project managers for each of those cases. Do you believe that there'd be sufficient accountability under that model where you had the buck stopping on that director's desk and you could call that director in. And in some cases, possibly this consultant wouldn't even live in Montpelier. I think it's a great plan. I think it's very ingenious actually and probably could be something others should consider. But particularly the development core is around specific project. And so many of these projects have such a distinct personality of that business need that to be able to hire different people to come in with different skill sets to me could be very advantageous. Yes, it makes the board's gotta be strong and you have to have a strong chair there. But I think it's a very innovative approach. And as far as the transparency, Councillor Hurl, when we appropriated the $100,000 to MDC last meeting did put the condition that all the books would be open there. And I think that's a good practice to have for any organization that receives the bulk of their money. Montpelier alive included? Included, and they do show all their books. And the library. Absolutely. And they have reported activity. We just haven't seen clear financial reports, so. In terms of savings pasture, that's one of those projects that's sitting there. And we'll go from savings pastures in the nickname the pit. My son was in elementary school. When savings, when we put up, I think it was how much $70,000 or $700,000 to purchase savings pasture. It was well over a decade. It was when we first wanted to do the car lot, in fact. And my son's in graduate school, he's in graduate school now. Donna, are we going to see houses in savings pasture? It's just, it's like timing. I mean, I got the first, the seed money for Taylor Street and the transit center was a grant we got. I got in 1993. And we ultimately translated it, or transferred it into a, what do you call, a marked earmark in the council. So it wouldn't be date driven. But when we started in the 90s, we were thinking parking garage, transit center, and it kept moving around and the city and the state, partnership, not partnership. And now we have something that's really great. I'm sorry it took so long to get there, but I'm glad we got what we wanted. So to me, savings pastures is like that. We keep working on it. We keep working on it. And hopefully the idea is mature and have a reflection of the time and will be something we'll all love to live with. But it's all the things coming together. And several times it's almost as fell apart. So currently there's something that's working and we'll hope it bubbles up. Now I'm going to go into the weeds here for a fact that many people don't know what these two do. Distillery Lane, is that the name? Jin Lane. Jin Lane. Jin Lane. See, I didn't even know it. Jin Lane is placed in such a way that it will directly go into Savin's pasture at some point in time, that it was set up in such a way that it could continue straight across the street. So there is forward planning. Yes, yes. And likewise with the shared use path that we have out there now. The railroad may mess it up a bit if they decide to come across the road, but even that we can still put multi housing on the lower portion, dense house, multi dense housing on the lower portion and keep the upper open. So I still think that's possible.