 call this meeting to order. So first thing is really to review and approve the agenda. But actually, before we do that, I'm going to take a little bit of Mayor's privilege here and just have a quick statement that I want to make. Yeah, I know, I think I speak for the council when I say that we were all disheartened and deeply saddened by the shooting deaths of Asian Americans on March 16th in Atlanta, Georgia. So to our Asian American and Pacific Islander community in Montpelier, we want you to know that we see you, we're grieving with you, and we condemn the acts of violence toward the AAPI community. And we're committed to making Montpelier a safe place for you. So while some members of the council were actually working on drafting up a resolution condemning AAPI hate, there was actually another shooting in Boulder, Colorado, which taken together I believe demonstrates a broader problem of or a broad problem of gun violence. I find it personally incredibly disheartening that a return to normal includes a return to regular mass shootings and would urge us to have hard and honest conversations about the role of guns in America with the people in our lives, our family and friends and our neighbors. What does responsible gun legislation look like? And also, I'd like to just point out that there's a bill in the Vermont legislature right now as 30, which would prohibit the possession of firearms in hospitals. That's not obviously the whole solution, but it's a reasonable, albeit small step toward gun safety. And I think we may end up hearing some more about that resolution a little later, but I wanted to make sure that I started with that. So having said that, the first thing is to review and approve the agenda. Is there changes to the agenda? Are there changes to the agenda? Donna? I would like to make one that we insert, looking at a letter to support a grant that the Sustainable Montpellier Coalition is applying to support their can activity. How are other is okay with that? Okay, so we'll do that after, actually, let me just look at this. Yeah, so we'll do that. I think if it's okay with you, if we could do that after the homelessness task force presentation, is that all right? So it's that slightly later than I had suggested. Do you think that's okay, Donna? Yes, that's fine. Thank you. Yep. Any other changes to the agenda? Oh, yes, go ahead, Lauren. I did draft a resolution as the mayor referred to condemning the violence against our Asian American and Pacific Islander neighbors. And so if people are interested, I could share that. I apologize that the week got away for me. So I could email it around if people wanted to consider that later. I could read it out. It's very consistent with previous resolutions that we have offered, just condemning that violence and reaffirming our commitment to be an inclusive, welcoming community here in Montpellier. So if people are interested, I'm happy to offer that or we could do it next time if people would prefer. Other thoughts on that? Yeah, Jack. I would suggest we do it tonight when it's timely. And if, Lauren, if you send it around now and we could take it up under other business and then that would be sure that we would all have a chance to read it during the break before we get to it. I'm sure I agree with everything you say in it, but read. Okay. All right. If it's okay with you, Lauren. Oh yeah. So as Jack suggested during other business, is that okay with you? All right. So we'll make those changes. Any other changes? Okay. So I'm not seeing any. We'll consider the agenda approved for those changes without objection. So the next thing is general business and appearances. This is an opportunity for any member of the public to address the council on any topic that is otherwise not on our agenda. And if you would say your name, where you're from, and then try to keep your comments to two minutes or less, that would be fantastic. This is from District 3. Okay. And I'm rising this evening to really say that we are very fortunate to have a well trained police department in this city. The police department responded to our crisis bed in the city and dealt with a serious crisis that I was supervising. And I got to see for the first time the actual work that goes on with the police officers when they negotiate with somebody. And we are top rate, I believe. I just want to thank the police department and the officers of that night as well as Chief Pete. And I'm encouraged by Chief Pete's meeting coming up. Thank you. Oops. Thank you, Zach. Bill Kaplan. And then we'll go to Bill Frazier. I was going to recommend Bill Kaplan. Okay. Go ahead, Bill. Okay. Hi. So I am, we're not on the agenda, but I am reporting back on a quick note about NBC. I want to thank each of you for all your work. Every time I tune in, I'm just really grateful for the work you do and feel like everyone should see these meetings. And you know, when we tune in, we see the public service that you all do. So thank you for that. So last time MDC was before the city council, we were asking for the commitment and it was during budget time. And, you know, we had a good conversation and did a kind of a recap and where we were at. And we had a proposal that we put before people there. And so I thought that it would be good to recap the accomplishments of the last five years of MDC and then kind of go and talk about where, what MDC is kind of coming back with as a path forward. And so I think that just, I'll just run down a quick tick list. And I'll try and stay within the two minutes here. We had eight employers that attracted and retained over the five years. 74 businesses received over $200,000 from the MDC men fund as COVID persistence funding. We had the creation of the taxing criminal financing district, the TIFS district in Montpelier. All these, we played a role in supporting and helping happen. The bond was approved by the voters for the parking garage. Caledonia spirits was selecting, opening and now is growing in Montpelier all during this time with a new downtown hotel committed and planned opening this 80 room hotel in a downtown, you know, chose Montpelier downtown versus the national norm of going out by the interstate for an off ramp site where they have proven track records. But I think Montpelier was put in a light by the whole process to be a great downtown for the people to come to 30,000 additional visitors annually now come to Montpelier. There are 100 plus new jobs provided funding for the COVID business navigator through Montpelier alive. We've since provided another program through Montpelier alive for post COVID business growth and attraction. And I think that's pretty quick summary. As we approach the end of the five year commitment that MDC that Montpelier gave to MDC and that the end of what we consider our charter, we are, can you see me? Yep. Okay, because I can't, I can't see anyone here from what happened. Anyway, we're now looking at what, oh, there's what we're where we can go and what we can do. We currently have $122,600 in the bank. We're thinking about what we can do. We have met with Bill about possible structures and pieces of how to move forward. And I think that what the board unanimously decided was to wrap up the five year charter with one large business and economic development program where we would have lasting impact similar to what we've done here, but bringing people in and putting Montpelier in the light of of a place to grow and bring your business or organization. We're going to be focusing on businesses that are women or BIPOC owned will be giving substantial grants will people qualifying for this money will be basing their operations here, not just a single outlet, but really the idea being that one of the recipients or all will contribute to the idea of when you get up when you go visit someone in another place, and you say you're from Montpelier, they'll say, oh, that's where X is from, or that's where this is. And I think that the idea is to create just a lasting economic impact with our with our final kind of program here. We'll be coming out with a press release and a program and application requirements piece, but it will be, you know, we've talked about it. It's not the application will be very accessible to all all people and all all types of businesses and organizations with the idea that we'll have a a programmatic way of waiting. But the idea is when you when you bring one of these places to here, they've committed to be here long term by either signing a long term lease or buying property. And then we look forward to seeing what that happens over the next 20 years after that happens. With that, I guess I will I can answer any questions if that's appropriate here, or I could sign off whatever works. Well, first of all, thank you, Bill. And please pass along our gratitude to the whole board. You know, I think the the this this plan you have for the remaining money I think makes sense and and yeah, it's been I think it's it's been a really good thing for Montpelier. So any other questions, comments? Yes, Dan, go ahead. I'll just add on, you know, I want to thank you, Bill and the MDC for, you know, the work you've you've done. I know that there have been challenges and setbacks to the MDC. But I think the work that you do is important. And I certainly hope that in addition to the grants, we can continue to tap into the knowledge that you've gained in running this corporation for the past few years, as we think about economic development and Montpelier in the next phase. So certainly it will be helpful to us as a city. Sure. And I'd like to say, you know, that was when Bill and I spoke about this, Bill did ask me to ask the board, you know, the level of interest of others to continue and serving or or being apart. And I think that everyone to a T agreed that if there's an issue or something that hits on any one of the board members, you know, as we ran this not for profit corporation, everyone volunteered in their skill set. And we had a deep, deep knowledge base that everyone wants to continue to use to enhance and assist Montpelier going forward. So. Yeah. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay. Yeah. All right. I have my hand up. You can Morgan. Yes. No, I'm sorry. I meant, I meant anyone, the council want to speak on this particular issue. Was there anyone else from the council? Okay. Morgan. Oh, thank you again, Bill. Yeah, go ahead, Morgan. Morgan Brown, District three resident. I just want to request that people not use acronyms because it shouldn't be a film that everybody knows, you know, what an acronym acronym might mean. And unlike the city council, maybe in the mayor, we don't have acronym handbooks, maybe, you know, and maybe that's what we need, you know, create an acronym handbook and be impassitious. But please, you know, use acronyms and then I'm trying to figure out half the time what the thing is. And then I'm not listening, you know, because I'm preoccupied, you know, what's that mean? And it would just be helpful to use plain English. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you, Morgan. That is an excellent reminder. A very good call. Other Peter. Yes, go ahead, Peter. Yeah, I'm going to get to my in a second. I totally agree with Morgan. Is it drives me crazy. And it's not just acronyms. It's bill. Let's identify who we're talking about. Let's not feel like we're a club. Okay. And I saw this when I was on on other on committees. New people come into this city all the time. This is not a way of making people feel welcome. It's a way of making people feel excluded. Okay, I want to say something nice about the city services. Um, I just have to say that the Development Review Board I'm sorry, Peter, Peter Kalman District 3. The Development Review Board and the Department of Planning and Development, I think, are really doing a great job of implementing the desire of the City Council and of all of us to increase housing in Montpelier. I had this personally a great experience with them really helping to push something through to facilitate it to get it to be done in an appropriate way that will hopefully lead to some more housing. And it's a very good sign, I think, that your intent is trickling down into the operations of in an area which in past years I felt it has not been the case. So thank you to them. I want you to know that they're doing great, John. Thanks. Great. Thank you, Peter. I appreciate that. Bill, yes, go ahead. Well, I hate to add on to general business when we don't have none. We have such a distinguished guest waiting for us that I don't like to do this, but we had received an inquiry from folks who run all species day and we did not get their application in in time for this meeting. The next meeting would be April 14th. And I've sent you all out information about this, so I won't repeat it all. And I think for their planning purposes, that's running it pretty tight to a May 2nd event, ARC GNS will leave it now. And so I think they're looking for some kind of signal from the Council whether you will consider this or not. I mean, obviously, you could say let's see what the circumstances are in April 14 and decide then and they have to decide whether that's enough time. I'm not trying to sway you one way or another. You received our recommendation, which is under the current guidance and current state of emergency. We don't really feel this is allowed and we shouldn't be doing it. But as Dan Grober pointed out, that could change in the future. So I again, I'm not suggesting you hold a full hearing on this. And I know there's other agenda items, but I do think I'd occur to see to them either now or later in the meeting if we can give them some guidance. That'd be great. Thanks, Bill. I just, yeah, I for one, I'm really looking forward to all species day, but I don't feel, I'll just speak for myself and say that I don't feel necessarily good about having an event for it yet. And if, yeah, if we could just take the temperature really quick, that'd be great. Donna then Lauren. Well, I would just suggest putting it off. Yeah, I know it's attached to a day, but trying it later in the summer, when we're more at the open and have less restrictions. Well, Lauren. Yeah, I guess my question, I think for Janice is, you know, is there, you'd kind of cited a couple other city events that still happen. They were done differently this year because of, you know, not wanting big gatherings of people all at the same time. So I think the only other way I think I would feel comfortable is if it's being reimagined in a way that doesn't create that big, big draw of people all at once, if there was like a, you know, people show up and there's some, you know, some of the amazing puppetry or something on the state house lawn that people could come look at, or if there's some different iteration of it that would fit within the state guidelines to keep everyone safe from COVID. So I guess that would be my question or consideration. Anyone else from the council? If not, that's okay. Yep, go ahead, Connor. No, I just, I probably agree with Donna. I think it's a really special event that people look forward to. And we're moving in the right direction. We got a third of us vaccinated now. So if we could put it off later in the summer, I think it would be a great opportunity for folks to come out and enjoy it. And really celebratory like it's never been before. So I think just maybe give that some consideration and would be happy to work on it. So I'm hoping that that is, or was anyone else from the council want to weigh in? I'll just note that again we'll be open. What's that? July 4th weekend's available. Well, I hope that's helpful feedback for now, Janice. And we, you know, we want to, we look forward to it. We want to be supportive, you know, for when it is safe. So, or a vision of it that doesn't necessarily involve crowds all gathering at the same time in the same place. So, but thank you. And so, and I, yeah, I hope that you, yeah, well, is it possible that we could have the permit on the, well, April 14th, I actually have a playing field DRB member meeting. So it'd be hard for me to attend the April meeting to have a deeper conversation, but I'm hearing that possibly another time or when the rules change on a state level, we can have this discussion. That's what I'm hearing. So maybe not April 14th, because I can't attend that one, but maybe the, the one later in April, we'll have different, we'll have guidelines by then. Sure. Yeah, that seems that work. Jack, go ahead. Yep. Yeah, it would be able 28th, it would just be tough to pull off from May 2nd. If you're... Go ahead, Jack. Yeah, I think that certainly the council is open to hear from people. I think the message you're getting from those of us who've spoken and from me who I haven't spoken yet is that it's not likely to be, to be met with approval if you come to us in April, either, but we're supportive of trying to make it happen sometime, even if it's, we're looking at, at September instead of May, you know, depending of course on what conditions are at the time. And we're all hoping they'll be much better. All right. We'll get back to you when I, when new guidelines come out. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Thank you for your time. For sure. Anyone else for general business and appearances? Yeah, Steve Whitaker. Go ahead, Steven. I want to, I've asked that this be brought into an agenda item, but I think it didn't make it in time, or Donna was preoccupied with other emergencies. But the, the fiber bill that consolidated is conducting across all of Montpelier and neighboring towns is creating huge disruption that flaggers are not trained well. They're not paying attention. They're not even watching traffic. A lot of some of the fiber is being installed illegally close to the electric lines. They are just blocking sidewalks at both in both Elm and State Street at the same intersection in both directions. It's really reckless and we currently don't have an ordinance that requires them to notify city hall and get permission for that type of construction. And another dimension of it is our negligence in withdrawing from EC fiber on the consent agenda, despite my protest stations earlier. So now we're going to have a second monopoly provider across town, but we're suffering all the consequences of traffic disruption and hazardous conditions. They had all of a whole school street blocked both lanes. They, the school pickup happened at the same time as they had a truck out in the traffic lane outside of the park cars, stringing fiber. And the guy had to sit for half an hour to get out of the funeral because of that gridlock. It was a dangerous situation if a police or fire vehicle had been necessary. But again, apparently we have no, and the reason I'm bringing it up is because consolidated testified in the energy and tech committee that they were having conversations with every town and letting them know when they would be where and getting them fully cooperative and informed about what was going to go on. And I did a public records request and found out that none of that was true here in Montpelier. So I provided some draft ordinance language to Donna that from, you know, a model code that had been adopted by a city in New Hampshire. But I think you all need to act on this sooner than later. They're heading to Barry. I've given them the heads up and they were very appreciative. But it's not okay to have also that code allows the committee in in the city, a committee like the public works director and the planning director, etc. to go in and force them to clean up things that have been hazards, removing double poles, look out at the the wires hanging outside of the right of way, all right away in front of the guesthouse on school street down near the school, you'll begin to notice this stuff. And once you do, it'll bother you as much as it bothers me, I hope. Secondly, the, again, the cruel and callous disregard for public restaurants. I while I appreciate the intent of, you know, consoling the Asian American community, we've got people here who cannot use the restroom, old people, people with children, etc. And there are no public restrooms and y'all are, you know, negligent at dealing with it for over a year and a half. The vacuum cleaners, don't forget the vacuum cleaners that can be purchased with the money that's coming our way. I think Congressman Welch is going to tell you about. We need to get the dust up out of the sidewalks and the streets and the crosswalks because people are eating it and it's toxic. And we should conduct a public process, not just city council's discretion with the bit, you know, the mayor and the city manager in a back room with cigars. We need a public process for how to spend this money that's coming to the city. And secondly, we need an inventory of all the public works, backlog of projects, a photo inventory that allows the public to scan it on the web and help rank it and prioritize what gets repaired when because it's going to take 10 years to dig out as full. So that's enough for now. Thanks. Thank you, Stephen. Jack. Thank you. I was, I'm interested in the idea of ordinance relating to the cable installation. I can imagine that there may be some federal or state preemption issues because it's interstate commerce, but it does sound like something that we should be looking into. And so I would encourage us to explore that. Okay. Thank you. All right. Anyone else for general business and appearances? Okay. All right. So we are going to move on to our consent agenda. Is there a motion regarding the consent agenda? Jack, go ahead. I move the consent agenda second. Motion and a second. Any further discussion? Okay. All in favor, please say aye. And opposed. Okay. So the consent agenda passes. And so we are up to welcoming our congressman, Congressman Peter Welch. Thank you so much for being here. And yeah, we're looking forward to hearing from you. Well, I want to say what a pleasure it was to participate in the citizen comment. You know, there's nothing more real than local politics and local government. And I so enjoyed hearing everybody's comments. Steve talking about what's going on with broadband and on the sidewalks. You know, the frustration about acronyms. I got to tell you I share that. I just kind of, you know, when I got on a new committee, the intelligence committee, it was just one blizzard of acronyms after another. So I like that idea of an acronym dictionary. I think that's great. But Mayor Watson, thank you. And to members of the City Council, thank you so much for allowing me to be with you briefly this evening. And I just want to make a brief report about the American Recovery Act and be available for questions and also to let you know that we're here to help you with the implementation of that in your city. But as you know, you know, it's really quite amazing about what's happened in our country with this pandemic. It's a once in a hundred year event. And none of us are ready for it. How in the world do we prepare for something that hasn't happened in a hundred years? And it was a year ago, literally just about a year ago when I remember going out to the airport in Washington for the 10 p.m. flight home. And I got a call from American Airlines. And the question was, Congresswoman Welch, are you still planning on going to Vermont? And I said, well, yes. And I was curious why they asked me. And they said, well, as soon as you get here, we're ready to leave. And the reason was that a plane that was normally totally packed was totally empty, except for me. I was the only passenger. And what it symbolized was how sudden and abrupt it was that we went from a fully engaged economy where fully engaged interactions in person meetings at the City Council in Montpelier and everywhere else to social distancing apprehension about the virus brightly. So in a shutdown, like in Montpelier, your restaurants and your small businesses and your schools, it was just stunning. And it's a year, a little over a year that we've been doing this. Now, the good news is that we have vaccines. The good news is that shots are going in the arms of Vermonters and Americans. And we can see that the end is in sight, but we have to do two things. One, we have to maintain precautions, the mask, the social distancing. We've got to get vaccinated in order for us to get to the other side. And the second is we've got to hang in there with economic assistance to our families, to our small businesses, and what I'm going to talk about tonight is to our local governments. But the recovery act that we passed, just signed by the President a while ago, about a week ago, number one vaccines they're paid for. That's going to be a federal responsibility, not a state or a local responsibility. And we're doing over two and a half million vaccinations a day. So we're on track. I think Governor Scott said in Vermont to have a semi-normal July 4th. That's really good news. Second, there's real assistance to individuals. We all know that the impact of this virus has been variable. Some folks in some businesses have done well. They have been able to continue operations with their internet. Some of our big companies have done really well. But a lot of small businesses have really struggled because they can't open, or our arts and nonprofits really can't open until people are really safe and fully vaccinated. So this rescue package has eight to individuals, you know, $1,400 checks. A family of four in Montpelier would get $5,600. And also, one of the things that's so significant in this legislation, and something that's long been a champion of, and I know many Vermonters have, is the child care tax credit. We have a scandalous amount of child poverty in this country. And the child tax credit is going to mean that families with a child who is six or under will receive a $300 a month check to help with those expenses. And a child who's up to age 17, that family will get a check of $250. So you have a lot of citizens in Montpelier who will, when get the check, $1,400. And number two, we'll get that child care tax credit. And by the way, on the child care tax credit, it's refundable. So that if a really low income family doesn't pay taxes, they actually can get the benefit of that check in the form of a direct check from the Treasury. So that'll help. But the other thing that's really relevant obviously to you as the elected representatives of the citizens of Montpelier is the aid that goes to our state of Vermont, but particularly to our cities and towns. And before I get into the specifics of that, we had a big debate on a lot of things in Washington, including about state and local aid. And I was disappointed that at the end of the day, we didn't get a bipartisan vote on this. I always think that if we can work together and buy in together, ultimately it's better. But I got to say a lot of my Republican colleagues were very supportive of including local aid. And the reason is that you and Montpelier and in all our communities around the state have had to deal with a lot of the impacts of COVID on your businesses, on your families, on your schools. And in the legislation, Vermont, the state is going to get $1.2 billion, the state of Vermont all together, and about $200 million is going to go directly to our cities and towns and to our schools. And Bernie, Patrick, and I were all strongly, strongly in favor of that. And the other thing we were very in favor of was giving our local communities, our elected officials, maximum flexibility to best decide what is the best use of that for the citizens that you are representing. So Montpelier is going to get a total of $2.15 million. And there's some arcane formulaic provisions that you don't need to get into, but there's been some confusion about this, that money goes, $729,000 is the direct amount that goes to Montpelier. And then an additional amount, $1.429 million is the so-called county allocation. In the reason that it's a little confusing is that in most states in the country outside of the Northeast, there's significant responsibilities for county government. That's not the case for Vermont. It's not the case for many of our New England states. So bottom line, Montpelier is going to be receiving $2.158 million. Your school district is also going to receive funds. And the Montpelier district with Roxbury is going to receive $2.257 million. Now, when are you going to get it? The first check, half of it, half the amount you're going to get is to be sent in 60 days. The balance, the second 50%, is to be distributed in a year. Now, the next question is how can you use it? And as I mentioned at the beginning, Bernie Patrick and I argued for maximum flexibility for local officials. And the reason I think we argued for that is, as you know, served in Montpelier, I served as a state senator. But I always had a sense that when it gets down to the micro decisions about what's the best way to do things, the closer the decision maker is to where the money is going to be spent, and the closer that decision maker is to the people in whose behalf the money is going to be spent, that person has better insight and more accountability on how that money is used. So I am a big proponent of giving that local responsibility to you. And by the way, it's a huge responsibility because the decisions you make are going to really impact the well-being of the citizens of Montpelier for years to come. So that is a huge responsibility that you have as locally affected officials in this pandemic. But the money has to be for COVID related purposes, but that's pretty broadly defined. So it can be everything from assistance to households or local businesses that have particularly impacted to nonprofits, to impacted industries. It also can be used for premium pay for frontline workers. It also can be used for lost revenue that is to the city. It's related to COVID. It can also be used for infrastructure projects like water sewer and broadband. And that's a huge challenge for many of our communities. You can also use it to partner with nonprofits. In some cases, some communities are partnering with nonprofits to do food distribution. So it's a significant amount of money. There's significant responsibility and significant flexibility in the use of that. And I want to say thank you to you for serving all of you, Mayor Wetzin and all the members of the board, for taking on that responsibility. Because if we're going to restore confidence in government and people are losing confidence, it really is going to depend on how effectively we execute on the delivery of help in a meaningful way to the citizens we represent. And in many ways, I regard your job as far more challenging than my job. It's a real mess down there. A lot of partisan division and it's not pleasant. We had January 6 and I was in the middle of it. But my job is simple in the sense that is to try to get resources back to Vermont and to Vermont cities and towns. Your job is to then make those micro decisions. How best can we use it? How can we make this effective? How do we decide among the competing interests that are seeking access to this? And that's hard and challenging. And it's the work of democracy. So I just want to end by saying thank you for the work that you do and to conclude by saying that there will be regulations that are being written and there will be some frustrations as this is rolled out and what you can do and what you can't do. And we saw that with the payroll protection plan where in some cases the regulations that the governmental agencies that were responsible for promulgating them did so in ways that were in conflict with what many of us in Congress intended. We're here and Rebecca Ellis, my state director, is on the call with us. We're here to help you through that. And I expected if my peer does face a problem because to some regulations you're not going to be unique. Roxbury will have that problem. Randolph will have that problem. And we want to make sure that you reach out to us to move everything we can, Mayor Watson, to assist you so that you can make the most effective decisions in the use of this money as possible for the citizens you represent. Thanks so much. Great. Thank you, Peter. I have a couple of follow-up questions, but I'm sure other folks do as well. I may jump in here with one. You mentioned money that the money could be spent for infrastructure and specifically mentioned water, sewer, and broadband. How does traffic related infrastructure fit into that or does it? I'm not sure how it does. The regulations are going to have to be written and they're not written yet. So I don't know the traffic. It's got to be somewhat COVID related. So I think when you're looking at this, try to make the connection to COVID. Like I knew the bright light example of what a state or a community couldn't use it for. You can't use it for pension fund shortages. Okay. A lot of communities, a lot of states have pension shortfalls. Those are real issues that have to be resolved, but they're not related to COVID. So that's not an allowed expenditure. Now, if you can make some case about why traffic related is somehow related to COVID, and you've got some creative people here, you may be able to do that. Well, just for example, we did have substantial loss of revenue, and so there were a number of projects that didn't happen because of COVID. Revenue loss, you can do. If you can fill in the holes, but if it's a COVID related revenue loss, you could use this money to fill in that gap. Okay. Okay. Yeah, Bill, go ahead and then Dan. So just on that point, I just want to make sure I'm clear about that. If we had to reduce our budget because of COVID related revenue sources, and we put those funds back, and as the Mayor mentioned, we cut certain projects or equipment, and I'm not talking about like staffing or anything like that, but just specific projects, we can replace the moves. We can replace that revenue and use the money for those projects that we'd had to delay. Right. Under what we pass, I think the way we work is this, if you have revenue loss that's specifically related to COVID, you can use the money to replace that revenue. So then you now have the revenue that you lost, and you're entitled to use that revenue for municipal purposes. Great. Okay. Thank you. That's very helpful. Appreciate it, Congressman. Dan, go ahead. Sure. I had a quick question. When you talk about the county pass-through of the money, how was that exactly allocated? Was it divided evenly amongst the communities within Washington County, or was it, is there any money staying at the county level? Because I think your point is exactly correct, because we have such a weak county government in New England as opposed to Western states. Yeah. I don't believe money stayed at the county level. I mean, we basically had to do a workaround, not just for Vermont, but for the New England states that traditionally have not had a significant county government. But in a lot of the rest of the country, as you know, the county does have significant responsibilities. So we couldn't have a tail wagging the dog situation in terms of the distribution. The vast number of states do have county government, so there's a county distribution, but that was in lieu of the local distribution. Okay. Then the county had to work with the towns. So I'm actually quite happy with how it worked out for us in Vermont, because we have that check point directly to you, even if there's a reference to this formula that acknowledges the county structure that exists in the majority of the states in the country. So I think you get the direct check on that. So it's almost better not to talk about the county because it just creates confusion for us in Vermont. You're going to get your money. Well, thank you. Lauren and then Bill. Thanks. Yeah. First of all, thank you, Congressman Welch. I know you downplayed how hard a job you have, but we really appreciate all that you've been doing for us all. And it's an incredibly important and hard job, and we're really grateful that you're representing us, speaking for myself. I really appreciate all you've done and some great work here and really exciting for the opportunities. One quick question on the date. I know some of the state dollars you have until like 2024 to spend. So any clarity on kind of timeline for spending? And then a quick question on, we also got an email today about a small number of community projects. And just curious if you could give a little guidance. I know it's only kind of a handful you can put forward, but kind of what you'll be looking for are those kind of shovel ready kind of projects from communities? Or is there a wider latitude? Just any guidance about would be great. Yeah. Well, thank you. Two things. One is there's two separate issues that you're talking about there. One is what you are going to get with capital spending authority under the relief act. And I described that. And there's also money that goes to the state for capital projects over 112 million. And actually you can apply for that, but the state will be the decider about whether the application you have for your project is the one that gets funded. All right. So that's going to be in effect a competitive process, but the state has a pot of money that is available to be distributed to municipalities for these projects. That's number one. Number two, separate from the recovery act, Congress has decided with Republican and Democratic agreement that we're going to allow for congressionally directed spending, you know, formerly known as the earmarks. And those were abolished for the past 12 years or so. But those projects are ones that can only be spending for nonprofits, municipal projects. And you can you can you actually can make your case for that to Patrick, Bernie and me. And we will be trying to coordinate as best we can to maximize the benefit. There's real limits on how much is going to be available to the House and to the Senate and to each congressional district. So I don't want to get your hopes up like everything you have can suddenly be transferred to me for getting the money. But take a shot at it. Let's let's try. So that's this. So you've got a couple of avenues here. Three really one, the money you're getting directly, where you have a lot of maximum control. The money the state's getting where you have a shot at competing to get some of that money to help you in your efforts. And then third, talking to the congressional offices about whether we can find a way to get an appropriation to assist you in your work on behalf of the citizens of Montpelier. Thank you. Really helpful. Go ahead, Bill. I had that same question Congressman. Thank you that comes from her last week. Do you have I realize you can't you don't know for sure, but do you have a sense of size and scale of those types of things that we have? We have projects that could conceivably be eligible for that kind of earmark thing that you know are as high as seven or 10 million to others that are one million to others that are I think I think that's high. I think the sense of the sort of calories arrange. We're getting we're getting the guidelines. You know, I just want to be clear here. We've got all these towns, you know, 254 and Vermont and everyone's got a big project and the realities, the needs are great. I mean, you're, you know, contending with incredible infrastructure challenges in Montpelier. And all the communities are going to be interested in getting whatever money they can to assist them in their projects. So I think it's something where it's worth pursuing, but I wouldn't bank on it. And then the amount of money that would be available, I think is relatively small and it might be something that would help make the numbers work, but it wouldn't be something you could count on to pay the full tab. Now, the other issue that's now going to be a primary concern to the Biden administration is certainly something that's been of concern to your congressional delegation is an infrastructure package. Okay, so we've talked about what has passed and what is available to the American, you know, the rescue, the rescue recovery package, the money that goes to the state, and then the earmark or directed spending that will be available to your congressional delegation. But we're talking now by the administration about that long discussed much supported, but very elusive infrastructure package, which would include spending on local water and sewer. Because the situation Montpelier faces the situation that so many of our communities across Vermont faces there is real deferred maintenance and a real inability to realistically ask the taxpayers to pay the full cost of that to property taxpayers. So my hope is that we're going to be successful in passing an infrastructure package. Thank you. Any other questions for the congressman? Go ahead, Connor. Sure. So welcome to Montpelier congressman. We're so happy to have you. Hey, Connor. I was at Fair Pond Books yesterday. We had a nice press conference with Claire Benjamin on the incredible charges from Visa Mastercard on swipe fees. So I was in Montpelier. So good to be back. Basically in Montpelier. I was physically there. Well, great. And no, just thanks so much for the work you're doing. I think with one representative we really punch above our weight and it shows down in D.C. Just want that switch topics really briefly if I could, because I did see you were a co-sponsor on the Justice and Policing Act, which John Lewis, you're in good company, John Lewis, I think was one of the lead sponsors on us. And we're doing a lot of work in Montpelier right now trying to keep up with best practices. Chief Pete, who's come in, who I hope you've met, really brings a wealth of knowledge. We've talked. We've talked. But I was hoping you might just give the top lines of what the Justice and Policing Act looks like and how it might affect some of the conversations we're having with our Police Review Commission. Well, one of the things that's really relevant to you is that there's actually more money that is available for communities that are taken on the challenge of reforming our policing practices. So far from taking money away from police, it's actually saying, hey, we understand that if we want to change policing and focus on community policing and engaging, that involves training and involves money and we want to help financially with communities that want to take on that responsibility. So I would see that given what Montpelier is doing and the leadership that's providing on policing practices, the Justice and Policing Act is very supportive of the efforts that you're making in Montpelier, including worth the potential for financial support for the expenses associated with really good training and also encouraging communities to have inappropriate oversight. You work for the people, the police work for the people, the electric part works for the people. Ultimately, we're all accountable to the people and I think Justice and Policing understands that. So Connor, you guys are doing great work and we've passed that bill in the House. It's pending in the Senate and that's where will they take it up or won't they? That's the whole filibuster question. Thanks so much, Congressman. Thanks, Connor. Any other questions? Jack, go ahead. Not a question, just a comment. I really appreciate your being here and all the work that you're doing for us when I talk to people about why Vermont has the best congressional delegation in the country. It's you, Peter and Patrick and Bernie and I really appreciate everything you did. Chapter is so kind of you to say. You know, I'd be glad to come back anytime to hear you say that. That's awful nice. Thank you, but thank you for your work too. It's a pleasure. Any other comments or questions for the Congressman? Yeah, Dan, go ahead. Sorry, one more crack. When you consider the infrastructure, I guess I would encourage you know, we're struggling with unifying public safety authority and particularly dispatch throughout the region and so any funds that could be made available through infrastructure and I know you're already probably thinking broadly about it, but certainly that type of radio antenna network that we're still trying to make sure that we coordinate and fully serve in this region is certainly going to be helpful. We're aware of that. I'm on the Energy and Commerce Committee. We're talking a lot about that and the problem you're describing is shared in many communities across the country and the fact is we've got to have a reliable system that doesn't stop at the town line, right? Absolutely. We're all in this together and I'll just echo the other counselors and thank you very much for your work because we really do have an amazing congressional delegation. When I went down for ABA Day, it was always the easiest. We had the easiest job of all 50 states delegation, so thank you. Well, we're all pretty proud of our state, aren't we? Thank you. Yes. Yeah, anyone else? All right. Well, I just want to add my voice to the gratitude. Thank you so much, Congressman. We're so grateful for everything that you're doing for us down in Washington and we're particularly appreciative that you came to us, to this council meeting, to give us this news that directly affects us. I'm glad to be with you and Mayor, I'll see you out riding your bike pretty soon. We're getting the weather where you can do that. Exactly. Yes. Hopefully soon. Anyway, thank you for being here. Bye-bye. Okay. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thanks. Okay. All right. So we are up to the home energy labeling ordinance for the first readings. The first thing I'm going to do is open the public hearing, but just so that everyone knows the order of how this will go, there's a presentation that the group that was working on putting this together has got for us. I and Councillor Hurl are both a part of that. Then there will be an opportunity for the council specifically to ask clarifying questions. So that's a time to maybe not opine yet, but to just to get more information or clarify things. Then we'll hear from the public after that. And then after we hear from the public, then we will go back into discussing this as a council. So that is, that's the procedure. That's how we're going to move this forward. And so just to get us kicked off here, I think Cameron will be sharing the slides with us. And I think Donna is starting us off. So I guess I will turn it over to Donna. All right. Can everybody hear me? Yes. Okay, great. So for everybody's benefit, good evening. My name is Donna Barlow Casey, and I am Montpelier's Public Works Director. But I'm here tonight as the city staff member appointed to the Montpelier Energy Advisory Committee. And I'm going to just take you through a little bit of the overview. And then there are other members of this organization or entity that will take turns explaining the different aspects of this. So in 2018, this little bit of history, the city council made a significant and what some might say was a bold environmental commitment. They decided that it wasn't the best interest of residents and the city to engage in actions that would result in diminishing and eventually leading to the elimination of fossil fuel use in the city by 2050. Now that's a long time seems like a long time in front of us, but this is work that takes a while to be realized. And so the work that has been ongoing has achieved some milestones, which you can see here on the energy goals slide. And there are more to come, including what we're talking about tonight. So while the adoption of the ordinance that's before everyone tonight is not the only effort that the city has helped, I'm sorry, that the city has considered in regards to net zero, it's a critical component in achieving what the commitment is for the city. So tonight is the first of two required meetings and that's important for everybody who's here thinking about this and learning about it for the first time. And the second one will be at the next council meeting. And there are a number of consultants and community members who are very adept at explaining not only this ordinance, but the benefits that are going to be provided to the community as a result of this. They'll be answering questions, referencing data, explaining the process and benefits that can be expected when the ordinance comes to fruition. But there's been a pretty important misunderstanding that we've been hearing about at least I've been hearing about it in public works and through social media and I want to address that at the front end of this conversation. The home energy information ordinance does not require homeowners to invest in making energy improvements to their residences. Now that's not to say that we don't want that to happen, but it is not a basic requirement in order to adhere to the ordinance. It does require owners to fill out what's called the Vermont Energy Profile and you'll see and hear a little bit more about that as we go through slides. But the VHAP as it's called for short is important in that and I want to put this in context for you. While it can be a selling point to some buyers, it's not the only selling point and while it's really important in the long run and it may be a very big incentive to a number of folks it is one of many points that potential buyers will look at and so we've heard an awful lot that this is an unfair situation for some homeowners and I really want to reflect for a few minutes here on the fact that when any home goes on the market there are a lot of situations that result in people buying a particular home, the size of it, the location, how many bedrooms it has, its condition, does it have a yard, does it have a driveway, there are so many things and the number of homes that are available at any given time when people are looking to purchase this may be limited or they may be a very broad range and so the home energy ordinance is one of those many decision points that buyers will consider in their effort to fulfill what they are looking for which is a new home and so if I accomplish two things, one is to hopefully hold that line of upset that we've been seeing as I mentioned being discussed at a point where people can really look at the ordinance itself for its benefits and for its benefits in the short run and its benefits in the long run to our community and beyond that as a model and so at this point, I think that we're turning this conversation over to the next presenter to move through the particulars of the ordinance and I will let that happen. I think maybe we should just have everybody who is a part of this presentation just do a quick introduction of themselves if that's all right. So just for example, Kate, would you introduce yourself? Okay, I'm Kate Stevenson. I'm one of the members of the Montpelier Energy Advisory Committee. Okay and Emmy, I know you're here. Hi, I'm Emmy Luck and I am with Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships and the Energy and Climate Associate who will be explaining that about the ordinance to you today. Any other members of the Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnership or or Varinique, would you like to introduce yourself? Go ahead, Carolyn. Oh, thanks, Mayeron. This is Carolyn Sarno-Gothwaite and I'm also with Neep and we've been providing technical support to the city. So Varinique, pass it to you. Hi, I'm Varinique Buñuel with Clearly Energy and we have been the technical partner on this project. I think that is, I don't think Lauren, I don't think you need to introduce yourself. And I don't think I'm missing anyone, am I? Okay. All right, so I think we're up to Kate. Okay, great. Well I just want to pick things off a little bit with a little bit of context around, you know, where this came from. This is a project we've been working on for a while but it's part of the city's larger net zero goal. So I just wanted to remind us all that back in 2018, well starting in 2014, the city council adopted a net zero goal and that was refined a few years ago in 2018 by setting a goal that by 2050 fossil fuel use will be eliminated entirely and 100% of the energy needs of the city will be met renewably. And so, you know, this ordinance is a small piece of the puzzle but it really helps us start to work towards the goal of kind of the larger community and how we're going to help all Montpelier residents and businesses eventually move towards net zero. So, you know, I just wanted to say we have made a lot of progress in this area, you know, over the last 10 years. We specifically focusing on municipal operations, you know, we've been able to reduce energy use by 19% over that time and replace a large percentage of our energy with renewable sources. So I'll be coming back to you the council soon to tell you more about kind of the municipal side of things. But this is really about how do we continue that work in residences. And so some of the other things that the council has done is adopt this tax stabilization policy, supported the buy ride for alternatives to single occupancy vehicles. Next slide, Cameron. And the bigger context is, you know, overall, we have this commitment to the Paris climate agreement. And we all have to play a part in that. This is just a slide from the energy action network that talks about, you know, what's what's Vermont's piece of that climate goal? And what are the different ways that we could reach it? You know, and so this is just an example of it's going to be a combination of a lot of things, EVs, key pumps, advanced wood and renewable electricity. And so, you know, this really gets at retrofitting. How do we encourage residents to retrofit their homes in different ways? Next slide. And, you know, if you think of Vermont as a total, molecular is about 1% of the population. So if you're like, if you took all of the things that we need to do and, you know, kind of condense that down to what's our share, you know, we need to install 900 heat pump systems, for example, or 250 wood heating systems, we need to do 900 additional retrofits to me to do our part to reach that Paris climate goal. So just want to throw that out there as the larger context. And then I will hand it back to you. Okay. So yeah, go ahead with the next slide there. So this particular ordinance has histories running back at least until 2018. Actually, prior to 2018, there was some movement on this at the state level. But in 2018, the City of Montpelier passed a charter amendment that gave authority for the city to do quite a few things. And this particular aspect of regulating the home energy labeling was just actually the only part of that that passed in that next spring during that legislative session. After that, we had some meetings with real estate professionals as well as a public hearing. And this was to get feedback and refine what we were doing based on that feedback. Once we had a draft that we felt the group that was working on this draft that we felt worked, then we had that reviewed by the city's attorney so that that was done last August. And so this specifically is the language that passed the legislature that gave us the authority to do this. Because that is, yeah, took a particular charter amendment to be allowed to have this happen. So that's that part of it. One of the things that I found compelling about why we should be doing this is thinking about gas mileage for a car. That is a critical piece of information that I think a lot of us look for when we go to buy a car. And it is I think it's really interesting that the equivalent for a house has otherwise not existed. And so this is a way to actually to generate a standardized apples to apples kind of comparison for homes, like a gas mileage rating would be. And with that, I'm going to turn it over I think to Emmy to talk about some of the specifics. Yes, thank you, Mayor Watson. And thank you to the city council members for having us here tonight. So just to reduce the use of acronyms, I'll explain who we are a little bit again. So we are the Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships or NEAP. And we work with communities and states across the Northeast to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions from the building sector in order to create healthier, more affordable and sustainable places for people to live, work and play. And we're here tonight because we've assisted with the creation of similar policies. And I've been working with Mayor Watson and Montpelier's Energy Efficiency Working Group on this effort for the last few years. So residential energy disclosure policies are picking up momentum across the country because of their proven ability to provide emissions reductions, occupant empowerment, and economic stimulation. As you can see, there are a variety of approaches to this, ranging from simple utility data disclosure to home energy labels. Portland, Oregon, Berkeley, Austin and Minneapolis currently operate mandatory residential energy labeling policies like the one at the center of today's conversation. Next slide, please. So compared with voluntary programs, mandatory programs offer much more equitable data accessibility and transparency, as well as significantly more impacts in terms of consumer action and resulting bill and emission savings. By mandating standard energy data disclosure, communities can better enable affordable energy resources and solutions for all residents. Providing relevant information increases clarity and transparency in the processes of financial and operational planning and purchasing for a home. It can also be instrumental in achieving a community's climate goals, as Kate mentioned earlier. Montpelier has already established that tackling climate change is in the best interest of its residents, businesses and public service entities. As residential energy use is a leading contributor to Montpelier's greenhouse gas profile, engaging and empowering residents is an essential component of achieving Montpelier's net zero goal. Studies show that homes disclosing energy information sell on average faster and for more money than homes that don't disclose energy information at all, regardless of home performance. Multiple studies also show that voluntary programs just don't achieve the intended goals in terms of cost or carbon savings. Mandatory programs that drive significant resident action stimulate the local economy by creating a more energy savvy population, strengthening home appraisals and valuations, supporting real estate transactions, and increasing the utilization of utility programs, product rebates and contractor services. Next slide please. So the Vermont home energy profile, or VHEP, was developed as a more affordable and flexible alternative to traditional home energy audits. While there's absolutely a need and a place for in-person audits, many homeowners would benefit from an option that could provide custom recommendations without the time or cost burden of an onsite audit. With the statewide energy labeling working group and the Montpelier team, we evaluated the applicability of other program approaches used in other communities and assessed the needs of Vermont residents. In addition to this policy analysis, we listened to and incorporated feedback from residents and other impacted stakeholder groups including real estate professionals and worked to address concerns and to build consensus around our approach. After completing this extensive assessment a few years ago, the team opted for the custom VHEP tool for a few reasons. Onsite audits were already difficult due to a small local certified auditor workforce and in-person visits have become even more complicated since the onset of the pandemic. Traditional offerings are also more costly and more time-intensive for all involved. This tool streamlines the first few steps of understanding a home's energy performance and reduces the burden on both residents and city and state staff. VHEP is not intended to replace but rather to complement in-home audits. VHEP can serve as a first step for a resident embarking on their energy journey or can be used to inform deep retrofit projects until an in-depth audit can be performed. And finally, thanks to Efficiency of Vermont, the tool is currently free to use for all Montpelier residents. Next slide please. Thank you. The Vermont Home Energy Profile was designed specifically for Vermont residents. We solicited an incorporated public feedback throughout the process and tested the tool with a group of stakeholders ranging from ages 18 to 80. I actually created one with my parents for their house in Westover and we all found the tool to be easy and helpful. The VHEP uses publicly available information pulled from NEAP's Helix platform along with an automated home energy modeling software by our partner Clearly Energy. After using these components to generate an estimate, you can further refine your profile by adding information on things like appliance features and utility bills. I'll explain a bit more about how to create your profile later on. Next slide please. While utility bill disclosures offer an idea of the home's energy needs, labels like VHEP offer custom recommendations based on the physical assets of a home which are more helpful data points for potential new homeowners who may operate the house very differently than current homeowners. The VHEP provides tailored recommendations for improvement and encourages customers to utilize resources provided by organizations such as Efficiency Vermont. For this reason, labels are more often more effective for consumer engagement and empowerment than simple utility data disclosure. Now, Counselor Hurl will speak a bit more about the labeling benefits. Thank you, Emmy. So I'm just going to walk through some of the potential benefits of this type of policy and this is really looking at research and experience from other places who have already implemented similar policies. So for one, the research shows that between 12 and 37% of those who buy homes with energy labels make energy improvements to their homes that they were otherwise not planning to make. This is in contrast to the business's usual home energy improvement rate, which is around 1%. So we see this compelling evidence that having this type of information spurs investments in the kinds of energy improvements that we want to see in our community to meet our net zero target and which are also the types of investments that we know can save people money on their monthly energy bills and make homes healthier and more comfortable over the long term. Next slide. There's also a consumer protection component to this ordinance. This information can help people make better informed choices and better understand what they're getting into when they're buying a home. The tool provides an apples to apples comparison for homeowners so they can have a clear understanding of potential energy costs for a new home they're considering. In particular, we know that low income households can have high energy burdens, which is the percentage of income a family spends on energy bills. And this energy burden can be three times higher for low income households. So knowing potential energy costs upfront can be particularly important for lower income families so they can compare potential homes and plan for these expenses. I know I've heard from several constituents about how after they bought a home here in Montpelier, they had much higher than expected energy costs, which were challenging to deal with. And if they'd known they could have planned better and it would have taken away some of that stress of these big unknown expenses popping up during their time of new home ownership. Next slide, please. Providing this information at the time a home is listed for sale also allows the buyer to include this information as part of their negotiation with a bank or other mortgage provider and potentially including energy improvements in the cost of the mortgage or as a tool to receive a better rate. And we know we have an old housing stock in Montpelier so knowing what you're getting into and having information about improvements that are available that could be then rolled into your mortgage could be really helpful to home buyers. I heard from some constituents who said they wished they had known this information because they later made home improvements that would have been easier and better to deal with as part of the purchase and mortgage negotiation process. Also just noting that right now there are numerous incentives and with federal stimulus programs like we were hearing about earlier tonight we anticipate even more opportunities for home buyers to get good deals on energy improvement projects. So knowing that information when you're in the process of buying a home and being able to to look for and identify those opportunities could be really helpful to people. Next slide, please. This ordinance would allow the city to see where there might be a need for financial support for homeowners to make energy improvements to their homes. I know I'm really interested in thinking about what programs we might provide as a city to help people make energy improvements which again can help our community meet our net zero climate pollution goal while also helping all families access programs that will help them have cleaner more efficient and more affordable homes. And having the kind of information we'll get with this through this ordinance will help the city and residents better understand which types of programs are most needed. Next slide. This ordinance would provide the city with information about how we can best achieve our net zero energy goals with respect to thermal energy use in buildings. We know home heating is a major driver of climate pollution in Vermont. So you know as we've been hearing about if we're serious about meeting our commitment to our net zero goal and taking the steps needed to address the climate emergency that we all declared in the last year or so, this kind of information and policy will be a really valuable tool in helping us get there. According to the Energy Action Network which is a kind of think tank based here in Montpelier, since Vermont imports 100% of the fossil fuels we use the vast majority of that money up to 80 cents of every dollar we spend on fossil fuels leaves the state and in contrast efficient and renewable energy alternatives keep a much higher share of our energy dollars recirculating helping employ our neighbors and improving our local economy. And for Vermonters who make investments in efficiency and renewable energy there are numerous analyses showing that people save money over the long run. I will now pass it back over to Emmy. Thank you counselor. As I mentioned earlier this whole process entails five easy steps and takes about 10 to 20 minutes depending on how much you'd like to edit. Once you visit this website and create a login you can claim your home by checking a box to confirm that you are the property owner or an authorized professional working on behalf of the owner. At this step you can also lock your home to disallow edits from any other parties. Next you'll review the estimated profile where you can further refine your results by adding additional information on your home's energy features. Then you are ready to generate a profile. If you make any significant energy upgrades later on you can always create a new profile to see how those changes impact your home's energy performance. Next slide please. The home energy guide which will be available to all residents gives step-by-step instructions for creating a profile with details on what each step means screenshots of the tool and process and tips for filling it out. It also includes some frequently asked questions and answers some of which we'll cover on the next two slides. And can we bring up all of the questions please? Thank you. So to recap your data will only be shared with the state and city agencies and partners as authorized for the purposes of maintaining this program. Your data will never be sold. And as I said earlier homes with energy labels typically sell for slightly higher and slightly faster than non-labeled homes. If you don't have access to a computer someone from the city can assist you in creating a label. This ordinance will apply to all homes for sale in Montpelier including those for sale by owner. If a buyer finds that the information on the label was misrepresented they may take legal action against the seller. And there are a few more questions to review on the next slide. Can we bring those up? Thank you. Currently thanks to Efficiency Vermont generating a VHEP profile is free although there may be a minor administrative cross to use it in a listing. Depending on how much information you decide to add creating a profile takes about 10 to 20 minutes using publicly available property information and the data that you enter along with an algorithm. Finally the estimated cost on your profile might not reflect your actual energy costs because the VHEP algorithm normalizes these costs based on variations in occupancy and weather. There are more frequently asked questions and answers in the home energy guide and we always welcome any additional questions and feedback. Now I will pass it to Donna to talk about compliance. Thank you all again for your careful consideration of this important topic. Alright so enforcement has these three parts to it. We'll be regularly checking published listings to make sure that they are correct and adhered to. We are expecting that we receive some complaints that always happens. I'm hopeful that with some additional planned awareness generation once the ordinance is adopted that will reduce those potential complaints that are coming from misunderstandings. Then the signature on the document testifying that the seller provided the VHEP to the buyer is filed with the city clerk and those records are available for inspection at any given time and there'll be a check on whether or not that has happened. We'll follow that through the end of that filing. So it's pretty simple but easily implementable and able to be validated and resolved at any step in those three different areas. I was going to jump in here just to mention with that third option filing with the city clerk costs $15 per page. So if we were to require the profile which is double-sided plus a document testifying to that this document was provided to the buyer that that would be a third page. So it could be $45 but I think we as an energy efficiency working group we're going to recommend if we leave that option in as a council that we simply go with just the not including the profile but just including that verification that it was provided to the seller. So just $50 there. And I think it's back to you Donna with next steps. Okay. So our potential next steps are identified here. We're going to communicate information. We'll send that information through water and sewer bills that go out on a regular schedule. We'll also be doing a fair amount of social media as I mentioned before. We'll answer calls. We're going to see if and this is just under discussion right now but we're going to see if we can create a portion of public works page to sort of archive question and answers so that we don't get so that people can look at that site and maybe get the answer before they responded another way. The web the webcasts will be created where as you can see informational sessions will be provided and we're hopeful that if all of this works out for the next conversation that the ordinance will take effect at the turn of the fiscal year for the city and just to close this out here. So it does affect different groups within the city of potential home buyers sellers and current home homeowners. So for potential buyers we're hoping that it leads to an increased energy investments in their homes for sellers particularly for those who have made energy improvements. It's a way to honor those improvements that they have made that might otherwise be invisible to potential buyer and for current homeowners it's a way to see what they might do to increase the energy efficiency of their home and find cost savings. So I think this is going to be a useful tool for Montpelier for all these different groups. So at this point any further comments from the presenters anything that we missed anything you want to fill in? I would just jump in here and say that it's it's very interesting to me that after the long time it took for the work to be pulled together and for us to feel comfortable with this presentation and the recommendations that we are within two weeks of earth day and this upcoming earth day starts this it is the 51st celebration of earth day and it went from a very very small suggestion to a global celebration of taking care of the earth and so coincidence I don't know if you believe in coincidences but I think they always have meaning and so I am pretty happy and excited for the city that this work has culminated in this time period and hopefully the work that we've done on this particular ordinance will last at least as long as earth day has lasted to date. Great thank you and I think Cameron you can probably stop sharing your screen there. Okay any other of the presenters anything they want to say or fill in? Okay all right so this is a time for the council to ask clarifying questions. What logistics or specifics can we can be clarified for you? Go ahead Dan. Thanks I have a focus really on some of the questions that I have and I'll just throw them out there and understanding that with the multi presenter format there may be one or more of you who are best suited to answer these questions. Starting in there both I think broader questions as well as more picayune questions of the details. So the first question is the data that is collected I think Emmy indicated that it was going to be available only what wouldn't be sold but would be available to state or city agencies is that correct? Which? Yeah I can provide a high level answer on that and then if Carolyn or Vareneek want to jump in and feel free but the data that will be reported through the tool will be stored in NEAP's helix platform which the city and the state will use to manage their compliance of the program and beyond that it should not go outside of helix but Carolyn correct me if I am wrong. Hi thanks for the question Emmy you got that right so it's the tool that was created is being used here from Montpelier but then also voluntarily on a statewide basis so that's just the differentiator why Emmy said statewide efficiency Vermont and Burlington Electric is supporting a statewide voluntary tool as part of the statewide plan but specifically for Montpelier the data is just really for the mayor the team for all of you to be able to manage the compliance period and who has uploaded their VHMP so it's that data is just for Montpelier. Well but I guess the question I have as a follow-up is is there anything that exempts this from public records request? I would defer that back to Mayor Watson but it should not in that this is for homeowners disclosing their energy usage but do you mean in terms of disclosing like all the public data that's in there? Well I mean if we if the city has access to it and it's available to the city as well as the state that becomes at least in my understanding of public records law becomes a public document and potentially is something that if a public records request is filed that data could would have to be disclosed unless there is an exemption to it or unless some misunderstanding whether it's not a public record. So we can check with this with our lawyer however I would say that if we don't generate the document like if we don't if we don't have the document then that's not something that we that I think would be discoverable but I'm not a lawyer so we should we should look into that. I mean it's just even if we don't generate the record if we have access to it or we access it and have a copy it now is a public record. You know this happens all the time with private entities you know where they have to disclose their records or you know the state has access to them and and they become a public record and I guess my concern is just understanding you know whether you know one of the things that's being touted about this is that these records aren't available to private entities to harvest but if there's a workaround with the public records law that would certainly be good to know. Second question what happens if you're locked out of your profile so you go to create it and somebody else has claimed it? I feel like that's a very neat question. Where's Carolyn? I was gonna say I can answer very neat. Did you want to jump in? Sure hi this is very neat with clearly energy. There is on each profile page a contact form with our contact information. With what you're saying with this in mind we'll put kind of that contact form earlier on in the process in the event that somebody needs to reach out to us to unlock a specific profile. If the request came in we would obviously kind of circle up with the you know the person that that currently holds the profile to make sure that we're not you know that we're that we're doing the right thing but behind the scenes there is a process to to unlock a record that that has been claimed. Okay I mean you know my concern would be sort of threefold I mean obviously if a prior owner claims an account and then the property is sold within a relatively short period of time that old claim may be still there or if the couple parties that own it are in a dispute whether they're married or just happen to be co-owners that no longer get along and talk to each other and one side claims that or three you know you can see the the malicious actor who comes in and claims that and you know given that this ordinance is making is going to become a critical part of how property is transferred and it and the fact that the owner may be subjected to liability if they can't do the disclosure and I'd like to sort of fully understand how that would sort of be rectified or fixed. Let me pass on to the third question because I've got a bunch. How much testing has been done of this form in taking either you know actual properties and plugging in sort of the generic non-owner verified information and then comparing it with the actual usage is this what's the sort of level of testing? Maybe I'll start just on the technical testing and then we'll let the the NEAP and Montpelier folks talk about kind of the testing within the Montpelier population. The process started with Efficiency Vermont and Vermont Energy Investment Corporation taking all of the information which they had from in-person audits and comparing them from results with generated with this tool so they produced kind of as comprehensive an analysis of the the estimates generated by the tool relative to relative to kind of the in-depth you know the in-depth audit as well as with about 25 so they had about 100 homes. You're asking good questions. With with in-person audits and about 25 homes with utility bill data so from sort of an analysis standpoint that was the first step in the process and so I'll pass it on to someone from NEAP or Montpelier to talk about that the local testing. Yeah I'll I'll start thanks Marenique for that part is that so what we have done is worked within the committee and also worked with other project partners like VPARC to do some different testing and outreach to local residents and that's the stat that Emmy had provided that we did do an email to residents about eight months or so ago is through the part of the development process where we had 12 Vermont residents age ranging in age from 18 to 75 80 that we basically did a focus group we sat with them timed them asked questions while they could actually go through the tool in addition other members of the committee have also stings of the tool to make sure that does it work does it resonate and even up until this week we were getting some feedback from stakeholders that we were making some slight tweaks to and adding to the FAQ so it's it's gone through about two years of different iterations and stakeholder feedback and I don't know if Mayor Watson and our others of the committee want to chime in on their experience with it another outreach um no I think that's that's a good summary so uh the next question I have and and I'm sorry going through the questions of and reserve observing any comment or feedback off of this I don't I don't know if it's necessarily I don't want to dominate um although I do have a lot of questions um the algorithm that the information gets put through is that a proprietary algorithm uh or is there any way for somebody to find out you know sort of open up the black box of it um that is very uh clearly energy is proprietary tool the algorithm that was created okay um and is that as you indicated before that's an algorithm that you will continue to tweak and change over time as you get feedback yes both um so the the the tool itself if you want is benchmarked against a national data set of um of home energy consumption that is publicly available it shares a number of features with um an algorithm that would be used with an in-person audit um it makes some simplifications in in some areas um and yes um you know it's it's always open to feedback I think my favorite part of the feedback from the first round of testing is that we absolutely needed to add a a beverage refrigerator to um to to the list of home features um and so you know they're right now we sort of have um you know we compile fee we compile requests for for improvements and modifications and then run them through the Vermont wide labeling group for prioritization and kind of what you know what is kind of seems to be the the things that that need um that that need tweaking okay so um how much over time has that algorithm changed in these two years I mean have you is it is it putting out uh significantly different numbers than what it was at the beginning of the two-year period or so it um it uses utility rates um so the number that you will get you know that you got maybe a year ago is not necessarily the same number that you will get this year because the um the electric utility rates evolve the natural gas utility rates evolve as do the underlying fuels so there's never there's no expectations of a steady state across time um the big changes that were made to the algorithm or the ability for people to put in their utility bills and to essentially rescale whatever the algorithm had initially generated to match those those utility bills now the utility bills themselves as Emmy mentioned are adjusted to reflect a home understanding conditions which means that um they're adjusted for the weather conditions for the period of the utility bills they're adjusted for occupancy if you have five people in a home we're assuming that you're for example consuming more water than a home would at standard occupancy of three people in standard occupancy it depends on the size of the home um and they're also adjusted for the thermostat settings in the home meaning that if you like to keep your home at 82 degrees in the winter standard thermostat settings are that's probably pretty high but say you know 75 degrees in the winter standard thermostat settings um from the national from federal documents is I forget if it's 70 or 68 um so everything is kind of brought back those adjustments are typically not huge um they're generally 10 to 20 percent or less but so the the big kind of adjustment to the algorithm that was done um from feedback with stakeholders um particularly stakeholders from the real estate community was that we needed this ability to sort of take real world utility bill data and adjust things accordingly I also just want to note too that some of the other stakeholder feedback we got was just on the ease and use of the tool so the language that we use so there's a piece of it that's the technical side of the algorithm and the other was just placement of buttons questions we asked so that was some of the other general updates that we made through several iterations and feedback that we had including from the real estate industry multiple um uh heating systems within the home the the beverage fridge that erinique mentioned so there were a lot of there were other additional questions and some smaller modifications that we had also made so my follow-up question to that is and I'm trying to understand I've gone through these documents if um if you go to the the energy profile and you plug in your actual data how does that change the standard output that you get from this uh this process so if you are a if your home is occupied by the reference number of people and your thermostat settings are standardized thermostat settings um and your weather period is pretty normal then your utility bill um will be the total number um reflected on the profile um but because of the three categories of adjustments that we made that we make the utility bills the number that you see on the profile relative to the utility bill can change by 10 to 20 percent or so but the utility bills trump the original kind of estimate that's generated from public information okay so and I understand on the on the printout you get it does have that sort of utility bill so if I if I plug in and I say I spent 2000 on on electricity and 3000 on oil that's what's going to say on my output but um does that change any of the other standardization or any any of the other data that gets put into that document so like for example it talks about like the mm btu at the top or puts me along that uh that little wedge uh of uh of green to redness um does that is that affected by entering that individual data with the bills yes so what happens if a resident or an owner puts in this information kicks out and they think it's wrong um what what's the the sort of remedy or appeal process if the buyer thinks it's wrong or if the person the seller the seller gets this this disclosure and and and says this this doesn't look accurate for for whatever reason if maybe um you know they listed as less efficient for some reason or they seek to challenge any of the data because it's obviously all it's not just what they've inputted it's then tweaked through your algorithm um and for some reason they think it's it's inaccurate so I I'll I'll just answer kind of the there there should be a simple way for them to you know reach out and and state their disagreement I think I'll refer them back to the city as to how the city would want to resolve this this this situation in general um if utility bills are entered the adjustments that are made are not you know are not substantial they're like I said in the 10 to 20 percent range um but I'll defer to the city as to how is the sort of what is the process for challenging the estimate and um you know and if there's a process for actually listing directly the utility sort of the unadjusted utility bills I think that is that's certainly already um an available option to uh to homeowners right but I'm just thinking um so and I think you've answered the question which is you know basically there isn't you know they can provide more information to the buyer but there there wouldn't be a a way for them to contact you for example of whoever's administering this and saying I don't know what algorithm you're using but I think this is inaccurate even after I've entered my data um this I don't agree with this what's put out from from this report um there absolutely is a way to contact to contact us there there's a there's a contact box on you know on on the pay on the the data entry page um and people are are welcome to to to use it um I'll just use an analogy um because it's it's similar you know you you take those DNA tests and um they have algorithms to determine your your uh ethnic origins based on the DNA and they used to be wildly divergent and so I'm thinking if if you know just based on algorithms um if you plug in some of this data um and and you come to believe that you know for whatever reason um this is this algorithm maybe is making a generalization about your particular house that isn't doesn't hold as far as fuel efficiency maybe it portrays it as more efficient than it actually is um you know and I'm thinking of old houses in Vermont where you may have done some weatherization to part of it but not another part of it and so you want to correct it to make sure that it doesn't overstate your case um I'm just trying to understand how that would necessarily be um done I think it's I think it's also important to recognize that uh that this is not uh providing an exact estimate of uh it's not a prediction of what homeowners bills will be the next year it's a standardized uh way to look at home so it's just providing an apples to apples uh kind of comparison and if uh you know after we've explained um what the uh the like what the algorithm takes into account and how how that is generally generated I mean that if there is still a discrepancy that might turn into a suggestion for a for a tweak you know if there's a reason um beyond uh what has been imagined uh then then uh you know as clearly energy as vernik has said uh they're still open to to that feedback um but uh but for now I think it's just it's important that people understand what uh the the purpose of it is and where it comes from anything to to remember is that uh the this algorithm has been tested against national uh data for uh actual uh energy usage and and and and audits um so I hope that's that's helpful any other yeah keep if you've got more carry on just a couple more I'd appreciate your patience with this um so Donna um you were talking about enforcement um who and is there a position that's going to be dedicated in DPW to doing this enforcement component we will identify someone I haven't gone down that road yet um to determine who that would be and and how much time do you estimate per week this person would have to dedicate to this enforcement I haven't had that conversation with um the team yet I'm hoping not a significant amount um but that is we haven't we haven't had a robust discussion about that um thanks and the last question and then I'll I'll give other people a chance um and is um maybe for John Odom as far as recording if John's listening um is this something where the price of recording could change uh depending on how it's recorded whether it's recorded directly in the land records or just simply recorded within your office um I'm thinking you know this this almost seems like something that wouldn't necessarily have to be in the actual physical land records but could be kept as a record within your office separate and whether that would reduce the the cost of recording it yeah I mean the $15 is just you know what's set by the state for recording anything in the land records you know I think if someone's gonna you know do that kind of research they're probably gonna prefer to have it all in one spot and it sort of makes a certain amount of sense to have it there but you know everything else is you know it's up for any kind of discussion okay thanks I appreciate that and appreciate the opportunity to ask those questions so uh cede the floor to others other questions from the council uh Donna go ahead well I'm just gonna use my own little condo and filling out the form there are a lot of weird things going on here so back to Dan's question do I call someone and say oh this doesn't fit and then I put in what I pay for electricity but I have a community net solar so I don't pay a regular electrical bill so there are exceptions and where do we go to cover those exceptions anybody so yeah so I mean at this point there is so so there is a contact form you know somebody in this group just send an inquiry during the time of this meeting and you know I and and several others have received it and will answer I yes there there are exceptions we're trying to sort of hold a line between something that is you know that doesn't get too down into the the the details um to um you know to trip up people I clearly understand I think there's there's already been a request from somebody in town to ask whether they could put quantities consumed as opposed to dollar amounts which would then allow us to use the standardized utility rates as opposed to the customized utility rate that we that we have so that request has now already kind of been submitted back to the statewide working group to take up you know where this is not sort of it's not we're not trying to be over formal about it I'm just trying sort of balance out city goals with the you know the reason why the initial focus was on dollar utility amounts and not quantities is that a lot of people will get tripped up by quantities um well I guess I was trying to find out there was a way to get somebody on the phone while I'm doing it because like one of the weird things that happened because I'm in a condominium building but I'm dealing with my unit is that I put a number in and then it takes it and divides like I only have spent like a thousand dollars a year on all of my electricity for everything but it's applying like 300 for heat and 600 for lights and I'm scratching my head the way it divides it the way it decides to divide what I'm paying out of electricity so I was just like gee if I could have somebody on the phone with me then I feel better of saving that data but if I can't then I just save it I talk to somebody and then I go back and correct it right um that's that's a fair question I mean I think you know we've we've talked about ideas about scheduling a consultation generally it doesn't we've realized it does not take very long to get people going and and even though there may be initial like what am I looking at um once people get over that it's it's it's it's actually pretty straightforward you start editing a few things and you look at how things adjust and um so you know I'm I'm quite open to have kind of a a scheduling tool to schedule a consultation if if that kind of helps the process roll out more smoothly um in the beginning because the experience has been that it really does not take people very long to to get going yeah we we had also discussed as a group and Mayor Watson certainly chime in that once passed that there would be somebody on the city side that it could help people walk through this process if a homeowner needed assistance but on the technical side neat or clearly energy is certainly available to help folks as Veronique said if you fill out that contact button we can set up a time to walk through with folks on how to use it we're developing other tutorials videos um to help with the onboarding but sometimes like as you pointed out you might have a anomaly in the system we need to then address that or figure out why that is and you want to talk to a live person so we're we're more than happy to kind of work with people through that process that's really good to know thank you you're welcome yeah I mean if we take a little step back I think you know the the result of this process is we have put more responsibility on the individual and the homeowner as opposed to other people in in in the in the real estate chain um and so we're cognizant that this puts more responsibility on on the individuals and I think there's there's a number of people between Neap ourselves the city that that are very willing and ready to help um but the benefit of this approach is that it's very cost effective it has no delays really in in in you know in in the transaction of the house or or any of that so so there are kind of a number of benefits with with the approach and people often get to know their home better and figure out how to manage their own home even if they're not looking to sell it is it's much more educational to do something like this yourself than to bring in someone someone else to do it for you wait other clarifying questions Jack go ahead hi thank you for this I'm speaking as someone who voted in favor of the of the Charter Amendment and who supports this idea and I do have some questions some of them are follow-up on follow-ups on what Dan said one question related to recording of the of the report it sounds as though the proposed ordinance requires the the seller to certify that the Vermont home energy profile was delivered to the buyer and then after the cell after the sale provide a copy of the certification and the report or the profile to the city clerk and I wonder if there's if it's necessary for the city clerk to have that that profile or if the the purpose would be served by simply requiring the certification to be to be filed with the with the land records that would one cut it from down from three pages to one page probably and to address the privacy concerns that Dan had because if that profile is never within the possession of the city government then I would think it would not be a public record that someone would have access to the the other thought I is I've gotten some questions from constituents or at least one constituent about about this being a punitive thing how we're charging people for for not delivering this profile when they start listing the property and we're going to be requiring a city employee to to pursue enforcement when if it's if it's not done and I wonder if the if the people who worked on this have thought about looking at enforcement from another angle and saying we're not we're not going to charge a fine we're not going to chase you but we will say to the clown town clerk that you are not allowed to record a deed unless you also in us is accompanied by the certification that this energy profile has been delivered and that that might be worse because it would it would hold up a lot of closings which which you know I'm not in the real estate real estate has never been part of the area of law that I practice in but I could see that could could create problems I see Dan nodding his head as he as I'm talking in another question related to the to the real estate transaction is is what are the implications of of any contractual rights between the buyer and the seller based on the representations made in the in the energy profile would there ever be a circumstance where the buyer would be able to go back on the seller and say you provided me this this profile this was a representation by you of the condition of the premises it turns out to be something different so you're liable to me for for that misrepresentation and is that a possible possible risk and if it is how do we deal with it and I think those are the questions that I have right now oh yes I should also say I'm I'm the person in this meeting who who posted a question to the to the website while while we've been talking because one of the speakers said well once you've created a profile for your property you have the ability to lock that profile so no one else can claim and and change it and I was on the page and I didn't because I created a profile for my own house as probably most of us did and I didn't see a place or a mechanism to lock the profile that I created so I'm sure I'm going to get an answer back to that question yeah well I think I can speak to at least a couple of the things that you asked about I think we would probably not want to go with holding up the transfer of a deed we did talk about that as a as a group and we're particularly intending to not hold up any transfers as a result of this so that's that's one thing speaking not on behalf of the committee but just in terms of on your thought about recording the report I'm sorry just I should say not not including the the profile in the records for the city I think I think that actually makes some sense and in terms of the possibility of a misrepresentation of the buyer to the or I'm sorry of the seller to the buyer that is certainly possible and but I think it is it it would also be it would have to be very wrong because there would be many many ways to end up with roughly the same number and so we as a as a group assumed that there would be that the the same avenues that buyer would have in terms of of other kinds of misrepresentations would apply to this one as well and then I'm sure someone will get back to you about the locking of the profile so hopefully that is is helpful um yeah no problem other questions maybe you should I just I I can just circle back on the last point and then I'll answer the locking bit um so on sort of the the liability question right any seller that is really genuinely concerned about that can pally up their utility bills enter that information that total is represented verbatim on the profile um so at that point I think that they have their documentation to back up what is on the profile and so then yes there can be a disagreement about how we adjust how the algorithm adjusted the utility total but I think they're in relatively um you know and again I am not a lawyer but at least that you know that number can then be backed up on on their end um and and I think provide them a fair bit of comfort um and then on the locking bit um when you initially claim the home there are two check boxes the first asks to certify or to the you know ask you to say that you are the homeowner or are allowed to um act on behalf of the homeowner the second check box is the lock um and it's a 30-day lock um that prevents others from from accessing it so you may have skipped it noticed that there is another way to do it kind of at any point after the fact um and I can share that separately thanks any other clarifying questions uh Connor go ahead not a question but I I got a few questions on this mayor and you pointed me in the right direction um a couple people have asked you know what if this $25 a day fine like keeps adding up and keeps adding up would you be on the put for thousands of dollars uh and you did point me to section one nine of our ordinances which do cap it at $500 which may be that the risk of being duplicative may be worth repeating in this ordinance but definitely I think it's worth saying just for the uh the audience we have today here thank you yeah that's that's a good point uh Dan go ahead sure right I actually want to respond to that exact point and I think I think the ordinance does need to be changed because if you look at one dash oh nine it talks about each day being a new violation and each day's violation can go up to 500 so there's really no cap on a number of days that there's non-compliance it's so if somebody fails to do this and they're seen as non-compliant from day one to day a thousand you know they may only be fine $25 but that 500 cap won't kick in even though that $25 will add up over the thousand so I mean I think if we want to put a cap on this we're going to have to change that ordinance to to insert that cap language to 500 cumulatively um because of the one dash oh nine um that's that's something that we had talked about with our lawyer but that is a fine thing to do we can do that the other the uh the other question I had um I just want to make sure you know I was looking again at at my profile that that I did and it just trying to understand the the data that comes out of this and this may be helpful is that you know we talk about the uh the so there's when I'm looking at it and I want to make sure I'm capturing all all of the data because we're starting to talk about things like liability but I I see that it has the home's expected annual energy cost is one thing and obviously that would either be based on a standard number if there's no individual data input or it would be based on the actual data that you input for your cost your oil electric gas and then um that's broken down in the second section into electric and heating oil and based off of kilowatt hours and and prices um and that would obviously be all based on actual data if you've inputted it as opposed to um the the sort of standardized numbers making sure I'm correct so far um and then what seems to really be generated by by this is in a sort of standardization would be the home's usage um expected annual energy usage um but what you know and it and it is it the is it is what the algorithm really putting out that place on that wedge um where where where a particular home is located or is there a piece of data that it's kicking out um beyond that that I'm I'm missing so there there are two scenarios to consider um the first scenario is that somebody comes in looks at the estimate um and says that looks about right um I have an energy star refrigerator I'm going to check that off um I've changed my light bulbs and they purely change the the home features side of things never touching the utility bill totals because the total looks okay to them so in that case the cost is purely generated from an algorithm um and the total cost really is the product is the product of the consumption broken down into the individual fuels and categories so electricity and then one or multiple fuels depending on the home um and the um utility rates and the fuel rates and obviously in particular for fuel everybody will procure fuel at different rates we use um you know an average over the past several months so you know there's going to be some some slight discrepancies that that come in there but so case number one is somebody you know does not enter utility bill data the cost and consumption are driven by the algorithm the second case is somebody goes in and they can still you know add their home energy features but also puts in their utility bill total in which case that is the driving factor of the overall cost and then the consumptions are rescaled if you want by taking by then by dividing by the utility rates that we that we use to make to um to match the utility so if if if you tell us that you have you know a thousand dollar heating oil bill and we're assuming two dollar fifty a gallon then from there we can calculate that your consumption was 200 gallons right if not my mouth 400 gallons whatever the thousand divided by 250 um and so um so the consumptions are then derived from that um does that help explain them and then you know I know that on the wedge the unit of measure is a million british thermal units which is not a unit of measure that's intuitive to the average homeowner but it's a common unit of measure that we can use across all of the utility all of the fuel electricity categories so it allows us to compare the utility consumption to say the heating oil or propane or natural gas so that's why that that place on the wedge is in BTUs as a unit and the design of the profile was really something that was spearheaded by by the folks at at Vermont at Efficiency Vermont and Vermont Energy Investment Corporation thank you all right I'm hoping that we can get to some public comment was there been a lot of folks who've been doing a great job hanging in there who I think probably want to comment on this so just just be clear is there any other counselors that have any clarifying questions at this point okay all right so I'm gonna make a list of folks who would like to comment on this and you can raise your hand in there in the raise hand function each would occur verbal okay so if you're going to want to know how to raise your hand at the bottom of your screen on your zoom there should be a reactions button hit that and it'll say raise hand and if you're on a phone feel free to let us know that you would like to speak if you raise your hand it does fit you into a queue okay so I'm gonna start with just the hands that I see raised here so we're gonna go Peter Kelman and then Dan Jones then Martha Nolan Laurie Holt and then Corby Griffin so go ahead Peter okay thanks Peter come and I live in district three I'm not going to talk a lot I'm just going to make a list to be a quicker version of Dan's who raised quite a few of the questions that I had but I just want to say at the outset I'm very much in favor of the goals of this ordinance I have severe doubts about the details um and I'd like just I'm just going to name some topics unintended outcomes without going into them right now number two algorithms are notorious for having hidden biases I'm 77 years old I don't have a long-range view number three Emmy's parents fine but the numbers that were tested and what they were tested against don't impress me number four we need to look at some real incentives what are the positive what this is a little stick where are the carrots we need to be thinking about some of the things that Peter Wells was talking about how to underwrite the improvement the energy improvements how to reward them number five hidden costs and hidden benefits uh I don't know about the rest of you but my fuel bills don't necessarily fall into the 12 month period and if I go away for a month things change and if I have somebody who is taking care of my house anyway there's a lot of there there are more anomalies than standards I believe and where do where does heating with wood come in where does buying bags of pellets come in where does the fact that I pay in advance for my propane and I get a discount where does the maintenance fees that I pay for my various fuel fuel consuming come in and finally um you know in real estate well some of the real estate people will probably talk about SPIR you know voluntary descriptions of your home when you're selling it in which a lot of this information is put in there well people are going to tell the truth or people are going to lie on that just as much as on this coming up with a single number is is kind of disturbing it lacks nuance it lacks you know paying attention to all of these individual differences so I really am concerned about this particular algorithm driven instrument which is so easy to do I looked at it I didn't find it that easy to do but anyway so easy to do how could something that is so easy to do yield something that is really valid thank you okay thank you um so we're going to just hear from everybody and I'm sure some of the folks from the group want to respond to some of those things but let's let's hold off for now and just hear from everybody Dan Jones go ahead thank you mayor unlike others I think you've made a great start with this um having been involved with the net zero thing for the past six years uh I am amazed at the amount of detail that goes into each of these decisions um I guess I would rather say uh that this is a great start and that what we have to get to the point of the saying okay there may be points with things break down and we have to modify them that rather than trying to keep back from the point where everything has to be perfect to start with I think you've made a really great beginning and I would hope that the council can go forward with that with the idea that perhaps in the future there's going to have to be modifications and we will find those modifications from experience not from the complaints right at the beginning so congratulations on getting it this far I hope it goes forward thank you very much thank you uh mark anolan yes um I will uh echo that I actually um wrote down before you were speaking um Dan or Daniel uh don't let perfect get in the way of progress um that was kind of my one of perhaps my leading thought um so I am um a real estate agent and I used to be in the solar industry so that's kind of where I'm um coming from in my understanding of uh both of you know the kind of energy efficiency sector and uh real estate um and have been part of a I don't know if we called it a task force that I guess hasn't met in over a year now with kind of people in the real estate industry talking about this as it progresses and just have a few I guess points to um a few kind of thoughts on all this and then a few things that I think do you think to note that I do think are um uh I guess things that need to be flushed out a little bit more um or at least like thought about um so one thing is is just that um I came into real estate thinking that um people in buying houses would be thinking very deeply about all of these things would be thinking a lot about their energy consumption um and thinking about whether not a house had solar and thinking about whether there were energy efficiency features um and uh I was apparently too optimistic and it's I really have not seen I I can't think of a time when I've had a buyer sit down and actually I mean maybe like two or three times sit down and talk to me about um okay this is our mortgage payment and then this is going to be our electric bill it's going to be our heating bill like um I'm not saying they don't think about it but it's not in the forefront as much as I was thinking and hoping it would be so um just providing that insight to everyone um in why I think that this is a good step um in giving consumers more uh information um I also just mentioning in terms of all of the uh you know the seller property information report and other disclosures that we have um every bit of that is is more information again if we're thinking of uh consumers having as much information as they possibly can even if it's not all perfect um all of it put together uh is going to provide more information for people to make uh more educated purchase decisions um also mentioning now this um hasn't come up but I anticipate it might that um I don't see this having any impact on the Montpelier real estate market there's low inventory it's very desirable there isn't nearly new development um I don't I can't imagine someone saying oh gosh you know those energy disclosures in Montpelier are really overwhelming and I don't understand them so I'm not going to buy a house there I just um I see it being uh again a way to educate consumers more um and I'm not concerned with it um at least from my experience not concerned with it necessarily um you know completely diminishing the value of a home or something within context um and if it does uh then perhaps that's a way of achieving the goal of uh encouraging people to make their homes more energy efficient um a few um kind of just points of concern and some people have mentioned this but um I do think that it's important to um make sure that somehow it's getting recorded with the town because I just uh I would have concerns about enforcement otherwise the an attorney is going to be the person who touches every transaction so I think it's important to somehow you know I know attorneys aren't going to like hearing that but like uh if you want to reliably know that it's going to end up being recorded it's something the attorney has to do um I don't necessarily know that I'm saying the burden should be on like and you know the attorney should get in trouble if it doesn't get recorded but just like a deed um you know I can't see homeowners reliably bringing it to the town or recording it some other way so in terms of knowing that it's going to happen having an attorney uh record it with the town with the deed to me is the you know most reliable going to be the most consistent um I do um I guess still have um questions about who gets warnings you know I there's something about written warnings um so you know who like who is actually liable for that so obviously um if something's listed with a real estate agent in the MLS um the real estate agent is the one who uploads things you know the the seller doesn't have access to the MLS upload documents so um you know am I getting fined if I'm not uploading things I'm guessing it's on the seller um but I I appreciate seeing that just clarified and um you know who like who's getting a written warning and who's paying something you know who who is ultimately responsible for both the like including it with the listing aspect and then of course the um recording it aspect and I guess the truthfulness of it although I guess that's maybe something we're not sure about yet whether there's some enforcement with that you know people I don't know people are gonna lie on all kinds of things so to me someone lying about their energy disclosure is not anything new they're gonna lie somewhere else they're gonna lie there I you know I don't see it as like a new way for people to lie about things um and the the only other questions I have are I think I heard someone say something of the cost to use it in the listing and I'm just curious what that means um and it was also going to note that um you know 45 dollars to record something on top of all the other closing costs um I don't mean to say it's nothing but like uh you know a buyer isn't looking at the the closing disclosure and you know they're they're probably a little annoyed about all the wiring fees and stuff but like it's not um it's not the 45 dollars is not going to break the bank in terms of closing costs um and I guess the I'm sorry I'm I'm like looking at all my notes which have become more jumbled as I write notes to other things other people have said but the other thing I just want to mention and back to thinking about compliance is um just noting that you know a lot of what in terms of real estate agents a lot of the rules we follow are either state law or um realtor code of ethics and this one is um it's harder for me to see real estate agents having any liability um because of it because like we aren't really uh regulated through any towns you know there are a few towns that have specific things um but not that many like they're Burlington and St. Albans have their own and the various city have their own um like code enforcement people but you know that's like a very specific multifamily thing anyways um that's just something that I have some concern about I know it's there I'm not I think that all of this I probably should have started with like I think all of this is great I think um there are things to iron out but I think it's a great idea it's a great step with all of the effort especially that's already gone into it I think it would be silly to just be you know say never mind um but I think there are a few kind of details that I'd like to see um thought about ahead of time there are things that are going to get figured out with the data and stuff later as we go and um I'd like to know a little bit more about mostly like who is ultimately responsible for certain things um and uh who gets in trouble with enforcement don't let perfect get in the way of progress oh and Martha where do you live oh sorry um I live in dairy although I am currently in mobiliar um I also just want to note for council um we are past our normal time in which we take a break so I am going to assume that we're just going to take rolling breaks for now because I don't want to stop public comment at this point so just a just a heads up there um so and again um do remember to say where you live um all right so I think up next we have uh Lori Holtz go ahead thank you I want to start this by saying I have a degree in plant and soil science so I'm not looking to trash the earth um I think that a lot of what I'm listening to um not just in Montpelier but in general has to do with private property rights and the ability for homeowners to be able to have the peaceful enjoyment of their own property and choose to improve it um at their own pace and prioritize how they spend their money on their home um I think that strapping a seller with this need you know facing penalties and enforcement using public databases of information that aren't always accurate um and being held accountable are our issues for me uh there's nothing keeping consumers who buy houses from doing energy audits and doing um having a home inspection to determine actually what what they have there that they're considering purchasing I mean I've talked to sellers you know they'll drag me upstairs to show me one new window that they put in in 1974 um you know when I asked them what sort of insulation they have in their house you know they look at me like I've got three heads you know are are your are are your appliances energy of star it's like well I don't know some of them were here when we bought it and um you know if if they replace if they replace one do they have to do this all over again um it just seems I kind of put this on the same level as the smoke detector and carbon oxide certification which is required of sellers to provide minimum standards at closing if it's that important that we all be energy efficient then why wait for a transfer just like if people are are dying in houses that burn down because people don't have smoke detectors and carbon oxide detectors why wait until the property sells to just to actually have to mandate their presence I mean I've I've seen houses in town that have been built since the 1960s they don't even have one one smoke detector in them not even the old crusty yellow ones that you know were the original ones that went in it just it just seems like it's a bit of a of a of an overreach by the city council members I I I live in East Roxbury now I've lived in Montpelier I grew up in Montpelier every single day except during the governor's orders that I sold real estate full time in Montpelier for the past 36 and a half years I did so in Montpelier I've been a property owner there I sold it just I mean how many how many people on the council have actually used this software and have you had any difficulty understanding it I mean some people are just into their appliances and their efficiency not everybody and I just it just seems like if you're going to start in you know enforcing this on people and suggesting that the city or the brokers can help homeowners fill this out when they put their house on the market is just creating liability for the city as well as the brokers who probably aren't going to do it because they don't want it to come circle around and whack them you know is a homeowner held responsible if they don't know the square footage of their house or they don't know you know our values or how to fill out this form if you've got two new windows from the 1990s three from the 1970s and the rest from you know before 1930 I just don't understand why all this should fall on the seller who just wants to sell their piece of house when there's plenty of consumer protections for buyers who actually are using the utility bills as their primary reason why they should buy one of the six houses currently for sale in Montpelier in any price range thank you all right so Corby Griffin you're up next but I also want to recognize Ben Huffman you've had your hand up so you'll be after Corby well we got Stephen Whitaker as well oh yes I'm sorry Stephen is it okay if you go after Ben? Sure okay great go ahead Corby. Hi I've just got a few questions and a few comments that I want to make too and I'm cognizant that this is dragging out for a lot of people so I'll try to be quick. My first question is how much do you genuinely anticipate this ordinance will actually accomplish towards attaining our net zero goal because I mean listening to it it strikes me that it's a real mountain out of a molehill kind of thing this is small potatoes towards that goal it seems to me and with very with what seems to me to be very little benefit and a great deal of cost that's already gone into trying to accomplish this I'm just questioning you know why the council even began began this you know where did you think I mean I don't think Montpelier sells all that many homes in a given year um this just strikes me as being yet another example of the council spending taxpayer money that they really it's it's not well thought out and it's not well planned um and I'm you know I go on outside I drive my car on the streets the streets are trash our sewer system is falling apart you're not spending money on infrastructure you're spending money on committees like this and and I'm just I'm really tired of having our tax dollars going towards I hate to say frivolous because I really do believe deeply in achieving in getting away from fossil fuels I just think this has been a tremendous waste of time and energy for a very small achievement and you know but if you are insistent on passing this ordinance my next thing would be we absolutely need to have a cap on it I think it's unfair in the extreme you know if somebody's house happens to be on the market for as Dan was saying for a thousand days that's um that would be $25,000 worth of fees if for whatever reason they didn't they didn't do this I'm also concerned for people who are on the lower end of the spectrum trying to sell a house you know as all of the stimulus money goes away as we come out of the pandemic if we do indeed come out of the pandemic um as the stimulus money goes away and and forbearances go away and people are forced to perhaps sell their house before it gets foreclosed on this is just yet another burden for for the people of Montpelier especially the lower classes people who are are not making great money um and I'll leave it at that but I I'm just really tired of the city council spending its time and our money on things that are not directly benefiting the people of Montpelier and I'll leave it at that thank you the things that I would love to address in what you said but I am going to hold off for now um and uh Ben you can I interrupt for just a second I can't figure out how to add myself to this I want to I want to say a couple of things okay I can't figure out could you put me on the list sorry yes um you can go after Stephen Whitaker's thank you very much yes okay Mayor Watson uh yes Peter Tucker here and I have the same challenge okay thank you all right so right now the order um is uh Ben uh and then Stephen and then Jeff and then uh Peter okay go ahead Ben okay um I am Ben Huffman I live on Cliff Street and um as council members know I've sent them a pretty detailed review and set of recommendations regarding the profile and the comments I've got are focused on the profile as opposed to the various other dimensions to the proposal and I want to say that I too have in the past shared the thought that this was an idea that was of lesser magnitude in addressing the severe problems that we have with climate change but I'm also aware that uh at the state level particularly among the groups that are now in charge of setting the agenda on the topic of climate change that the labeling has become one of the key things that will become promoted throughout the state and that Montpelier is being looked to as a modeler for that which then makes it I think very important to look at this as a more serious matter than it does appear to me as well considering that we sell in Montpelier around a hundred hundred homes a year single family homes out of a total of you know total units living units in the city around four thousand um so my comments are based on the fact that I've uh done a I've done my own filling out and completing of the profile and it has seems clear to me that the the the profile really does that okay it's clear to me that the the profile needs significant revisions if it's going to measure up to the various objectives that the overall proposal has including the critical practical one of influencing real estate market values and uh I see there to be two general problems with the proposal to this point one is I think in an effort to minimize the burden or cost or even the relevance of it to the market values by proponents has really trivialized in a way the overall proposal in a way that is counterproductive examples of that I think are making the repeated reference to what a profile is as equivalent to the miles per gallon stickers on cars or the nutrition labels and grocery stores as well as saying that it takes no more than 10 or 20 minutes to fill it out it seems apparent to me that probably most sellers and buyers would find um and and would be incredulous to the idea that they should spend not more than 10 or 20 minutes to this presumably important factor in deciding on a transaction transaction of hundreds of thousands of dollars which in a consequence of which fundamentally alters the course of their lives and in a similar way I find the profile itself in its effort to produce a single global number which is based on lumping together every type of use of energy in a home really produces something that is inscrutable and not much value um for example you know the energy use of space heating or cooling clearly has a direct relationship to the energy efficiency of a building envelope but very little else of what we use energy for in the house does that and um I don't want to go into much more detail but I would just say that many of the thoughts and remedies that occur to me are in the written document that I've submitted to the council and then in general what I would like to see all of us do is to focus less on the aim of victory through an immediate adoption of the ordinance and instead really devote some serious brain power to creating a truly informative profile that could benefit both buyers and sellers thank you great thank you um all right uh Stephen go ahead um I almost want to give you a minute to put Ben's comments sink in uh especially his closing comment um I was trained as an energy auditor out at the Lawrence Berkeley lab helping the 80s and it's a it's an area that I care a lot about but I also care a lot about Montpelier and this really strikes me as more of the self congratulatory uh pretentious uh you know four million dollar bike path bridges and while we can't keep our garbage and our sewage out of the river or create public toilets or fix our sidewalks so I kind of resonate with a guy you know two two speakers back in the misplaced priorities um I have issues with the privacy of the data uh the secret proprietary algorithm are we doing this to make a particular you know algorithm owner group uh successful or are we doing this you know uh as a statewide initiative so possibly we should consider if if this is something the climate council is dealing with and looking to Montpelier as a leader we can probably find some state funds and and have our own public algorithm um but the and this is a good segue into your next agenda item too the the privacy of the data is the something I raised at the first meeting of the homeless's task force and they have yet to deal with the fact that people don't want to just build their data trust us we won't sell it we'll take care of it and the board that was supposed to protect that data for the homeless management information system has disbanded so you know data creeps over time and uh data creeps are after it so uh pardon the pause um I guess I think we have a lot of other priorities to deal with uh that we should weigh on I think there's a leadership role that Ben alludes to about how we could do this maybe over the next six or eight months uh develop our own profile and our own algorithm or maybe it takes a year um I think the state will wait on us to be leaders or we don't have to lead in everything let's let's lead on getting the same plastic and garbage bags boxes from hauling in the river that I told you all about a year and a half ago and no progress has been made or some public facilities or you know let's let's get our priorities straight and quit you know trying to be so politically correct it's repulsive thank you okay thank you uh Jeff there I've managed my technology so um it's an interesting discussion and I uh uh Jeff Fitzgerald I've been a resident in Montpelier for 36 years and I've been on the energy advisory committee for many years I can't even remember when I started but it doesn't make any difference this has not been one of the things that I have worked on a lot um but I just want to respond to a few things and first is importance I I think it's vitally important uh I I don't I just don't agree with anybody who doesn't think this is a matter of vital importance so whether the details have been worked out correctly is is certainly open to debate and discussion and I agree with that but this is vitally important um what our homes use for energy is of vital importance to not only the sellers and the buyers but to the public and so I think this subject matter is vitally important um I thought that there was going to be a lot of pushback on the idea of a mandate and I was prepared to say you know I grew up when my dad would curse out Ralph Nader because he mandated seat belts and now no one is is really saying that that was a bad idea I mean everyone now acknowledges that seat belts and cars are a good idea this is a little bit of ahead of its time the idea that sellers have to disclose how much energy their home uses is a little ahead of its time and we should all recognize that I I get that um but the idea of a mandate shouldn't scare people if it's a little ahead of its time the details as I said uh are open to discussion and debate um and on that I I just want to say a couple of things I tried this algorithm and we live uh in a home that uses no fossil fuels and uses uh we produce more energy than we use and it was impossible I will I will say that when we first tried it and I haven't gone back and tried it again since all of the tweaks but there has to be and and I hope that the people in charge of the algorithm will say that this is true you have to be able to override the algorithm with your actual data you have to be able to otherwise it it makes no sense because it could be in either direction my direction would be no they're telling me I'm using all this energy and I'm going to show you my bills and I'll produce them and I'm not using any of the energy you're saying I'm using or on the other side if you're underestimating you have to be able to say no that's an underestimate that can't be true because these are my actual bills and I can't disclose to the buyer that I'm only using this amount when I'm really using this amount so that algorithm has to allow for that and if it doesn't then it needs to be corrected in my opinion and um the the last thing I just want to say is uh you know I've really I'm not sure about this recording thing and I I've said this to Ann I've said this to everybody I really think this should be sort of part of this seller's property inspection report it should be something that the city is requiring that maybe the state isn't and it shouldn't necessarily involve a recording or anything other than this is my energy use you either go with the algorithm you go with your usual bills but this is what my house uses and you have to disclose it to the buyer um that's that's what I have to say great thank you um so we've got a peter and then Tim I see your hand there so uh go ahead peter hi uh peter talker I'm a resident of Montpelier live on north park drive um and I'd also like to let everyone know that I am currently the director of advocacy and public affairs for the realtor association um so we've been immersed in this discussion uh over the past 15 months on the state level with the uh building energy labeling work group um there are two components to that commercial and residential um you know what we're addressing here is is pretty much the residential discussion um you know one of your local brokers Martha Lang uh has been involved in that as well and on the commercial side Tim Haney um you know served in with that board and you know the discussion is is really exactly the same discussion we're having tonight and at the end of uh roughly 15 months uh in the report back to the legislature um the building energy labeling work groups recommended a voluntary approach to using uh an energy tool this same energy tool is what's being considered um so you know really the I guess the where I wanted to start was you know what what are we doing now and you know and then you know how is this going to fix it um so currently uh we provide an energy disclosure suggesting to a purchaser that you know understanding the energy performance of the home is is something that they should consider um you know where do they get that information and a couple of people have mentioned the seller's property inspection report and that allows us to provide actual information uh the the amount of uh of electricity you know the electricity bill and the amount of fuel used on an annual basis and I have talked with brokers in the Montpelier community um you know to try and and and elicit from them uh you know their opinion on on you know what the approach should be and you know I think that it's a situation where we look at this modeling system and and just our you know need to to approach it cautiously I guess you know we're providing actual details I thought the miles per gallon analysis is pretty interesting because you know from from my perspective miles per gallons a math equation um you know if you if you drive 300 miles and use 15 gallons 20 miles per gallon you know it's an actual uh specific data point the the modeling system that that the Vermont home energy profile is is based on um is an algorithm and it and it's a accumulating data and trying to accomplish a kind of the standardization process um you know through whatever that particular algorithm is so um I have heard from many brokers you know concerned that um you know that we're just not sure how accurate this is going to be um you know in terms of data security uh this this algorithm does have the ability to auto populate to certain um real estate websites um like Zillow and Trillia and you know these are these are organizations that we as realtors have difficulty working with if the if the information's inaccurate um it's almost impossible to change so you know we would prefer to see the the council consider a voluntary approach to to get this program up and running and uh and we can work with that um you know what's the real goal the the goal is to prove that higher performing energy homes are are are more attractive and and command a higher purchase price um you know that is that that is something that realtors can work with if it's a marketing tool you know we can use it as an advantage to help our sellers sell more quickly at higher prices you know the concerns that we have uh our privacy um you know if it is if the information is out there and all of our public information was provided to the new england energy partnership all the public record information so that they could start to to build this profile system um you know how does it get disclosed or where does it go um we are concerned about the liability for the seller um there there clearly you know could be misrepresentations um you know honest mistakes uh that could end up uh you know causing the the seller to be liable for misstatements um and then the the last part really is is the the the property values in the in the city of Montpelier um you know we do feel that there are many homes that are older um one of the discussions you know one of the slides that was presented tonight was about negotiations with the banks or mortgage brokers um to get better rates or or more favorable um terms but the negotiations that will go on are really between the buyer and the seller and if the seller's energy performance profile is poor the buyer is going to negotiate a better purchase price as a result of that as a matter of fact the statement of of this ordinance says to get the better resin for to allow purchasers to better assess residential properties fair market value um this has been a really hot market so it's you really can't look at the current market or the last couple of years and try and make determinations think about the market in 2010 you know after the the economic crisis and and you know then we had plenty of inventory and and no purchasers um so you know so we are aware of that and then just in closing um you know I I just ran an MLS search uh for sales in in 2020 and 2020 is turning out to be a huge year for real estate and we sold we through MLS sold 62 homes in in the in the city of Montpelier so you know at that rate and to Lori's point on uh fire alarm you know time of sale fire alarm certifications um at 62 units a year it's going to take a long time to impact the the energy profiles of of the marketplace and so with that I think I'll just leave my comments at that point in time thank you thank you um so we've got Tim and then Nate I see your hand um before you go Tim I just want to um check in with the council just recognizing the time and we are scheduled to have um the homelessness task force uh give a presentation after this um council what is your thought on um on on keeping that and uh continuing on uh or or do you think um I mean I would like to be able to to have the homelessness task force uh present this evening but just also recognizing that we're we're we're running out of uh uh conscious time here um what is so sorry about that Tim if you could hold off for a second um what what is your thought on that council yeah go ahead Dan I'm certainly I mean because I know a number of the homelessness task force people have been sitting through all of this discussion as well and I'd hate to say to them halfway through wasting their sorry wisely using their evening listening to civic participation activities that they have to come back um I think we could probably um I would recommend bumping some of the the strategic planning and committee assignments um instead and just make the homelessness and the the the letters and resolutions maybe the last items of business and well when we do have a potential executive session um after that so I think we'd be good to check in about that uh Jay did you have a comment about that um no just I agree I think we should hear hear through this and and still include homelessness task force for sure but like Dan said I think there's a couple things we can push off that are just still in place and carrying on we don't have to worry about for tonight so okay other thoughts Donna I would guess like to ask the people that are the leads on the homeless task force because if they sit through another 30 minutes of this it really pushes us late so I would rather release them and reschedule but I'd like to hear from them first uh Ken how do you how do you feel um that's fine Rick left an hour ago um because he didn't want to engage in further civic edification um no but that that's fine whatever we're happy either way um this is very okay um Connor do you have another thought and then Jack yeah no I long the same lines mayor I think we could probably maybe even do the strategic planning the committee assignments and the executive session like a lunch meeting or something the next couple weeks those aren't items we'd necessarily get a capacity crown for anyway so I think that might be okay that's fair Jack hearing hearing what uh Ken said I would suggest we we release them and let them come to our next meeting at which uh the homelessness task force report would be the first item after the consent agenda that sounds good to me if that works for you Ken then I I think we should plan on that let my people go thank you okay thank you um all right sorry about that okay uh Tim go ahead thanks Ann so I think a good comments tonight it's been interesting I think probably um rather than repeat things that the council clearly has a lot of good questions I think a lot of members of the community do um it's not a new issue it's certainly a topic that's been on the table for more than five years at the state level Peter Tucker and I have both worked on that different levels over the years and truly with all these questions the devil's in the details you know there's getting this right and really doing it properly um there's just a lot to it and that's why it's taken so long at the state level to generate this program um at this point I strongly favor a statewide program for this then monthly you're trying to take it on I don't think as a community we have the um the ability to add more staff and just to take on one more important task when it's going to happen at the state level anyway uh and I really think supporting that and helping that to happen I think we've all worked on that for a number of years and it's going to work I did a study committee this summer legislative study committee and so did Martha Lang um there is a lot happening it's not a dead topic there and um so I really would encourage you to flush out these questions and feed them to the state level because I really I think that needs to happen so whether the home is an East Montpelier or Montpelier or Berlin or Middlesex or wherever it is um we'd all be on the same level in terms of disclosures and what needs to happen and I think that's how you're going to get some meaningful results so um without beating up all the five points like that'd be my quick point for tonight is um it is an important topic and I don't think anyone's saying it's not um it's it's really how we do it and getting it right it's important to me and and in terms of energy disclosures at the moment they really are happening a lot I know 81 percent of the transactions in our firm when I went through the files um are using seller property information reports and within that there's energy disclosure and most cases buyers come back and even ask more questions about energy use after they see the seller's disclosures so I think there's a lot of positive things happening already anyway so really what this will do is is fill in that gap where it's not happening hopefully so um thanks for your work thank you uh Nathan um thanks everybody for I've certainly learned a bunch this evening and to the committee that has generated this uh appreciate all that work um I think that you know I've heard this talked about in terms of uh you know marketing a marketing tool for for real estate transactions and a strategy to increase the value of homes and I think that speaking personally my goal for this kind of action would be about behavior change for homeowners like myself which is you know do I choose to do I choose to spend $20,000 upgrading my bathroom before I spend $20,000 upgrading my energy use or insulation and I think that as much attention as we can focus on changing our energy use as a as a community and as a you know as a nation the better I don't you know my understanding of climate change is that we can't move fast enough so uh I think I'd rather that we default to action uh I hear Tim's point about the you know the state is working on this and uh you know I'll I'll believe it when we have a result and I don't see any reason why we can't start here and then uh if the state goes up and does a good job then we can you know navigate that at the time um but I think that I mean I loved I loved a bunch of the points I think there's some complications I would prefer to see energy use reflected in volume or energy units as opposed to cash you know etc but I'm going to trust that that y'all are hearing that feedback and that that can be worked out so just want to give as much support as I can in terms of creating political space for the city council to be aggressive and move forward on something that I think uh if we lead on then others will follow and it may actually make it easier for the state to get to uh to get to yes so thanks for your work and that's it thank you all right I don't see any other uh hands either digital or um oh Martha go ahead hi those who know me will be surprised that I just have one comment um but I'm a realtor in Montpelier and I have investment property in Montpelier my one comment is just to reiterate and I don't remember who said it but it was with regards to um having it be in the land records and I think it's a fabulous idea to if this all goes through if nothing else matters just a certification gets filed um and not the report and my issue with that is that I'm also my husband I build houses but you do one change in that report and it will change the report so if you've got people going back and looking at old ones you're going to just it's going to be a cluster so people are going to compare so I think that not only is it private but I think it will confuse things so a certification like the smoke and carbon monoxide at closing I think that would be sufficient that's the only comment so everyone had some great points and I'm so excited you know for and against whatever you want to call it but there was some really this was one of the better discussions so um Dan Richardson I am your biggest fan great job great thank you all right anyone else I don't see any more digital hands um any physical hands okay um all right there were lots and lots of comments and particularly like really interesting comments um as as a part of that um um some of which I you know I want to I want to address and and you know bring some of these ideas into our discussion but before I jump in um I guess I want to open it up to the council thoughts comments reactions uh yeah what are you thinking go ahead Dan sorry um and I'm happy to go um last or second but no one else is moving so I think there's a lot of really good feedback that we've engendered in this conversation um I have a couple of concerns about the way this the ordinance is written and I'm happy to get into the minutiae of it I've had some conversations with people but you know I think there needs to be some tweaking um but let me throw out maybe the big idea that I would propose which is I think one of the concerns that I heard echoed in some of the commentary is um everybody is supportive and I actually brought visual aids to apples we want to make sure that if we compare them um we're doing a comparison of the same but if somebody does home improvements and sheets their house inside uh energy improvement we want to recognize that in a transaction um and we want people to ask these questions as they're buying I mean I think every homeowner can tell the story I can tell the story of when I bought my first house at 28 and how foolish I absolutely was um in not asking about energy efficiency um but part of this is real estate is perception and it's it's what we perceive the value to be and I think we have to be careful about how we tread into this and what I would propose is that um you know I think finding a middle ground here might be to make this voluntary for at least a year um to allow some of this testing to go forward for people to opt in and then say if they want to participate and fill out this form um and and work through it they can but if somebody has these issues they don't have to for the first year we gather data um you know we work through it and then we have a way of um you know if if in a year you know people say this really doesn't work you know we can revisit it but the ordinance itself would would obviously envision a uh a mandatory effect down the road and I I throw out a year but I don't know if it should be longer than that um but oh I think it might be a way of getting this onto the books and getting people trying this system and buying in to it if in fact it is effective because I think the point I heard from the realtors particularly was that if if this was an effective tool they'd be the first to use it because it would give that benefit to people and because we're talking about perception and because we're talking about what people believe in you know and giving it value and not seeing it as a punitive measure but as a positive one to allow their not not cause an apple to drop in price but cause a sheathed apple to to rise um in value it it might be something where um giving that time to sort of test it out would give people confidence in it and to work out some of these algorithm issues that's my big general comment I'm happy to go into the minutiae but I don't know it this night you know some of some of my smaller tweaks to the language we're not doing a line by line of this yet so I'll I'll hold my power on that thank fair enough other comments uh Conor go ahead just want to start off by thanking everybody so much for speaking um I think it was a really good conversation tonight um I think it's important to assume everybody's coming with the best of intentions here right like nobody's saying global warming's a bunch of malarkey and we don't have to address it um that's not what I heard anybody saying today but you know like okay your house is a very personal thing it's probably the biggest investment you can make right so needless to say there's going to be some anxiety over this and I think people are raising some good questions um that said I I support moving forward um I think the community has been very clear over the last few years making a commitment to getting net zero by 2050 and uh I think to do that uh you need to take some bold action um an action that actually does put people outside their comfort zones a bit you know if you look around the country um plastic bag bands plastic bag incentives um it didn't work when you offered somebody you know a little bit off their grocery build to bring their own bags or something uh you needed to ban it you needed to have fees attached to it and I think with climate change um it's often the case where you need to have somebody who's saying the stick versus the carrot the stick needs to be a part of it and I don't think that precludes us from looking at grants looking at different incentives um to to move the ball forward um but but what it comes down to is you know yeah now in a year we're not going to be a blip on the radar on this if it's 100 houses sold or something but we're not looking at the short term we're looking at the long term and over the course of 20 30 years what I think it does is it it gets a conversation going right it makes people think about this type of stuff I often think like ah I'm a good I'm a good environmentalist because I recycle right now it's more than that and when I use the tool I could see all the things that I needed to do uh to be better in this regard I can't afford putting solar panels on or something but can I can I replace a few appliances yeah I can take that step um so again I really appreciate people's concerns I think we have a lot of uh suggestions that we can use to make this ordinance the best it can be uh before we have the next reading of this for example I I think you know Dan raises some good points I think whether it be a few months maybe a year of having this voluntary that gives you time to work on the tool if there's mistakes you're not penalizing people over that time um but but I definitely think we have to do it I also think you know we do have to make the cap explicit if that's going to be the case so people aren't afraid that they're spending thousands and thousands of dollars on this but at the end of the day I think what this ordinance does is it gives buyers it gives everybody all the information they need to make an intelligent decision about these matters so I think it is very important that we move forward but really appreciate everybody's comments um yeah I also want to oh gosh there's a bunch of hands um so we'll go uh Jack then Jay then Donna but before you go Jack I also just want to echo um your thanks Connor thank you to everybody who came to speak to that thank you for sticking around uh to to make your comments we really appreciate that um it's it's really important and and helpful uh Jack go ahead okay thank you um um I want us to move forward on this and I think it's going to take some work to do it I have a couple of observations one is that uh you know who knows what the quality of the algorithms that this product uses is but um I looked at my my profile and it showed that I spend $1,310 a year on electricity and then I looked at my bank records and it turns out that in the past 12 months months I paid green mountain power $1,283.89 so that's that's damn close based on the inputs that that I made and it didn't take me more than 20 minutes to to create my profile probably 10 I think people uh did some did make some good points and points that should be addressed um before we're ready to adopt this ordinance and uh I know we tentatively have this on our agenda for our next meeting on uh March 20 or April uh 14 whatever it is 14th 14th um it's not clear to me that those answers can be those questions can all be answered and this can be redone in time for our for our next meeting so it might make sense to have it at the following meeting rather than at the next meeting to give you get some legal opinions get some detail work done on the on the product um I think Peter Kalman makes a good point about incentives for people to do energy improvements um I was one of the uh people who uh worked to create efficiency Vermont when when we did it during the time of electric industry restructuring back in the 90s and um and I think that the city of Montpelier it's hard to hard to imagine picture that we're going to have a lot of money to provide incentives but we do know that efficiency Vermont is a large operation that provides energy incentives in in many areas including space heating and electrical appliances and so that's one of the things that where people can go to get funding for for improvements insulation we had an energy audit and got a lot of benefit from efficiency Vermont for that um so and and the last and I really want to give great credit to to Anne especially for pushing this for many many years from the probably the first meeting when you were mayor and and on from there and uh and Lauren and and Kate Stevenson and everyone else who's been working on this I think we're moving the city in the right direction um I'm open to considering the idea of this being voluntary for a temporary period um and I do not want to foreclose uh discussion beyond me but I at this point I will make a motion that we uh schedule the second hearing for on this proposed ordinance as it's now written for two meetings from tonight all second okay so that just to be clear I think that would put us at the April 28th meeting um and I'll I'll just uh you know I'm not well I've found that's Lauren or uh I'm not sure if Kate is still here um so I guess uh Lauren do you have any thoughts on having it be on April 28th I think that's fine I mean I think there were great questions and I think you know making sure that there's really good answers which I think there are but making sure they're compiled and that um any suggested changes to ordinance language could be you know ready to go I think having extra time I think a lot of what we heard tonight was let's get this right and we are you know wanting to do this in a way that you know if we're going to move forward that is creating a good model and it's going to be as effective as possible so I think I think taking time makes sense yeah and I think I would agree you know having because the the energy efficiency working group is going to want to meet again to debrief this and tweak language and if we need to go to back to the city's lawyer at all I think that extra time would be helpful so I think that means good to me as well um I uh so let's go Donna and then Jay you had a or actually uh Jay you had a comment obviously if it's okay uh just to keep with the original order Jay and then Donna go ahead right yeah um yeah I don't want to be redundant I do think that um uh and yeah taking more time on this is fine as Lauren and Kate are okay with it I think that for me um if we move forward with this the it will be successful if the report that's created by going through the process is accurate and what I'm hearing from folks um from Jeff and from Ben you know we all got the the very detailed email from Ben is that you know the way we heat our homes in Montpelier and in Vermont is very nuanced we invest a lot of our time and energy and money into finding the most efficient and often um uh and not only financially efficient but also energy efficient ways to heat our homes and what what I'm hearing I heard from them and what my experience was in filling out the form was that while the you know and I don't want to I don't want to just write it off to algorithms because a lot of it is about how the the questions and how they're asked and what you know how that whole process works was it didn't really leave a lot of room for nuance it felt kind of obtuse in terms of the questions and just wanting to very be very general and to be able to create a report that was understandable and something that could be um you know just easy to digest and to work with and so I think that part of what we need to when we're thinking about is beyond just the language of the ordinance itself is listening to folks who have used this and you know Jack I wish I came in within like 50 bucks of what my actual costs were but um that wasn't my case and I know hearing from other folks that wasn't their case as well so I think that trying to be able to add add some depth to the questions that are asked to you know help develop more accurate answers so that um folks who are filling it out and they're selling their home are you know feeling like they're being acknowledged and recognized for the work they've put in to make sure that their home is uh heated is heated and you know the how they're keeping the lights on and and all that so that's recognized so I do think that that's just a really important part of this process that ultimately that will make this initiative successful thanks thank you and thanks for waiting on that's right I just had a question about Jack's motion but I'll do my points and then I'll ask the question about Jack's motion so first to me I think it's really important that the app for the home audit will take an override otherwise you're going to really not have very much accurate data for all the exceptions and I think it's important to Dan's point about we better understand the public record aspect so I would be preferred that it is voluntary for a while but that we build in some incentives and that we work with efficiency Vermont and have them maybe link people to us that there's a way to give a benefit built in that helps people do what they want to do and also start this data bank and I think if we go mandatory I really would want a cap that and so I was very uncomfortable when Jack says he made the motion to accept the material as read today versus just making the motion we move forward with the second hearing I'd be much more comfortable with that motion and allow some tweaking maybe for some of these points want me to answer that yeah go ahead Jack yep I think that I could be wrong but as I understand the process if we're scheduling a second hearing it's going to be on a particular proposal and this is the proposal that's before us now but I we've always changed stuff from one hearing to the next that's why we have them actually and I that's what I would expect to see but what you're saying is that you would ask the committee or to come in with the redraft and that's what we would see at the second yes that we would take in the comments we heard and then apply them to the second hearing that's why I was surprised you restricted it okay I think bill has an answer yeah I think it's a matter of process you know you have an ordinance before you you haven't amended it so you're going to hold a second hearing on that ordinance you may come in with an amended version which you could move to amend at the second reading you can you can hold you know you can make amendments at the second reading you can hold the third reading so so the fact that you're just moving this to a second reading doesn't preclude you from making any changes in the future if somebody drafts a change in advance and circulates it you can just substitute this whole one for that whole new one so I think you haven't given up any flexibility from a process point of view bill sorry go ahead go again we we would want to go pass the first reading which in other words if we wanted to to tweak this but not go pass the normal process would be to put it past the first reading because we can always have a third or additional reading if necessary but it's the idea that we've gone through this particular first hurdle even if it's not in a form that anyone's ready to vote on for final approval is that right bill yeah yeah I just don't remember us ever restricting it before I just always heard the motion that we move forward to the second hearing that's all so my miss Donna Donna and not to belabor this but when you move forward to the second hearing that's exactly what you're doing you're moving the the ordinance has drafted this again I think Jack Jack just phrased it differently but it's yeah that concerned me thank you I think we're I think we're on the same page though um okay any further uh comments on this yeah Lauren go ahead yeah thanks um just wanted to start like I'm so grateful for the participation and the really thoughtful feedback um and you know we've heard it echoed by all the counselors but I just thought it was really productive and I appreciate that everyone came in with really kind of concrete and um really helpful feedback um and you know I mean to me I just come back to you know as a as a community as a council as a state we've declared a climate emergency we've established a net zero goal as a community and to me this is a modest step but a valuable one towards that goal and we have to be willing to to move forward with actions that are different than the status quo and actions that are not voluntary um we've seen from decades of evidence of voluntary climate measures they do not work I'm totally happy to you know do a trial period and like work out the kinks and all that but that can't be our end goal here which is what I'm hearing um but I I think it you know you will not get the same result from a voluntary program over the long term um you know the a test run it could make a lot of sense for some um some period of time um but I hope that's not where we end up um for the longer term um you know I do think that a lot of I think the issues that we heard tonight can be worked through I think it was great feedback um you know the the positives of where we can end up where we're helping people have better information when they're buying homes um and pointing people to incentives and to other ways they can make investments that are going to actually save the money over the long term they make homes healthier more comfortable like these are all good things that we want for our homes you know well also addressing um the climate crisis so I'm eager to move forward with this and appreciate the hard work that a lot of people have been putting into it and the really good feedback um and and I do really want to also look into how the city can be um helping promote the the incentives that are available and there's a lot right now and um have been getting even more information from some of our our great team as this hearing's been going on um but I think you know as a as a community we can also make sure that that's front and center so people know you know what's out there because there's a lot of really good programs to to help make this really affordable and for low-income people there's things like free weatherization programs and so on so making sure that people know what's out there um so we can be kind of spurring these these conversations and knowing that that's out there so I I guess I'll just wrap there but again really really grateful for the the dialogue tonight um yeah and I just want to add I took three pages of notes on all the comments that people made and uh I thought people had some really good things to say I want to just call out a couple of things um well just one uh so someone addressed that uh they were worried that we were spending tax dollars on this on getting to this point and I just want you didn't everybody to know that I was a volunteer committee with the exception of our department of public works director who spent some time with us but we're otherwise um I did not have spent any um taxpayer dollars getting to this point um and uh also uh yeah I well I guess there there's some some great questions that people raised and I think we can incorporate a lot of them into um some of the the tweets to the to the language and um add some um either some information or clarity or um uh or or just getting more information about the accuracy of of the the tool I I should note also there is one other way that in which we did spend some money which was um in consulting with our lawyer so um anyway so that's I just want to make sure everybody has has that information um all right any further comments on this okay um so there's been a motion and a second uh to have the second reading on April 28th um any further discussion okay all in favor please say aye hi hi all right and opposed okay all right well thank you everybody and thanks everyone uh for um for showing up for this and um we'll uh we'll continue the conversation on on April 28th uh all right so just want to check in um with uh council we have so we're not doing the homelessness uh task force uh presentation one of the things that we did say that we were going to do uh was the letter to support Disabled Montpelier Coalition and um uh after the homelessness task force um Donna do you want to speak to that yes I'm going to go right to it I'm going to make a motion that the city council supports the application of the Sustainable Montpelier Coalition to National Life Group Foundation to get money to support CAHN's efforts I'll second this okay we have a motion and a second any further discussion and thank Anne for a great letter uh no no further discussion all right all in favor please say aye hi hi and opposed all right so we have approved that um strategic yes uh so the strategic planning process um we were going to punt some of these things uh Bill how long do you think it would take to talk about the strategic planning process um you probably asked the person that's going to actually be doing the talking what she thinks well it honestly depends on if y'all feel comfortable with my recommendations or not but my presentation won't take longer than 10 minutes at most um I am game what do you think team where should we put it off to them to the 14th we go go ahead did I was just gonna I'm I'm I'm all set to go to keep going sure other thoughts jack go ahead that's fine I'm I'm already comfortable with the with the recommendation so I I'm thinking it shouldn't take too long yeah agreed with yeah agreed I I'm comfortable with Cameron's recommendation for for the change of timeline based on what we're you know how we're looking ahead at this year so let's move forward okay Donna well I'm comfortable with it as long as we can tweak it as we go along and we that's a live document so I'm comfortable with it so presuming that folks have read it um sorry I guess I'm gonna stop my my comment there Lauren go ahead I I agree I I mean I think revisiting it makes total sense for this year with the same council and given the pandemic and where we are I could see if you've got new people coming on that you would have to probably rethink or offer or you know they might not agree with the priorities or want to make sure the other thing so I think you'd have to adjust it but I think for for where we are and sinking it up better with a budget um makes total sense for for this year certainly Donna I'll make a motion okay we accept the proposed new strategic planning timeline and process for 20 2022 to 2023 strategic plan thank you Cameron that presentation would buy super quick you can give it another day I was gonna say that's presentation for action ever good I I do really appreciate that I think I think that a change before y'all vote just to just sort of flesh that out just a bit is is really changing the timeline of this really does help staff and I think the community align the strategy and to help y'all align the strategic plan in your priorities along with our budget it makes it easier I think for all of us to understand the budget timeline sinking it with our strategic planning timeline I think we'll clear up a lot of how it works together for folks not only for staff but for the community as well I think it really aids in y'all's conversation with folks about what your priorities are so I really do appreciate um sort of the vote of confidence on that absolutely um so I did see a second from Dan and just want to verify that okay and uh there's been a motion and a second uh accepting this uh plan to be forward for the strategic plan uh any further conversation okay all in favor please say aye aye and opposed okay so I think we are good with that thank you Cameron it was so clear he didn't even need to present it oh gosh okay um so the next thing theoretically that would be on our our list is um committee assignments uh do we want I kind of feel like we can punt that right like we can punt that for another time is that okay team okay all right we'll put it on the 14th and then maybe we'll actually do it um and then uh all right other business we were going to do um the talk about the uh resolution that Lauren put together uh do you want to talk about that Lauren sure so did everybody receive it the email yes um so I guess I would just say if if people are okay with it we could read it for the record and adopt it or if people had changes that we'd want to discuss and then we could just read it once and say people um so I guess was there any feedback people had before spending time reading it out I'm sorry again for the not being able to get it together ahead of time I think it looks great I had a chance to read it through to make a motion Connor I'd move to pass the resolution uh condemning attacks and discrimination against Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities I'll second okay any further discussion hey all in favor please say aye hi hi and opposed I guess we have a very high density of motions no last 10 minutes uh all right so the last thing is a possible executive session do you want to do counseling and put this stuff first okay uh I do want to let you know that Alec um had heard your conversation earlier thought his agenda item was being tabled it is not time sensitive it was an update for y'all um if you went into executive session for that so he is not on the call but if you want me to get him back on the call I will so no worries no pressure just letting you know as long as he doesn't it was not um a time sensitive matter then I think it's okay we can put it on the 14th yes Donna I just have a question about the meeting next month I don't know if you want me to do it now or in my council report the April 14th meeting I'm going to be out of state and I it's a school break for my granddaughter so I don't know if anyone else has that issue but I thought I'd bring it up do you mean like is anyone else going to be anyone else going to be away or okay uh Jack I will not be physically present in the city of Montpelier but I don't have to be to uh to appear at this meeting so I intend to be here I'm going to the ocean I don't plan to be on wi-fi very cold Cape Cod fair enough okay um I suggested to Donna that we might want to check just to make sure we have a quorum fair enough um and no one else is planning on not being present um so we will we'll just have to carry on uh without you Donna I'm sorry and uh we'll just hope that that because you're the you're the our our vice president is that right so we'll have to make sure that both myself and Jack are here okay um all right so uh all right so I think we're on to council reports um and if we can go in the regular order that would be great I'm passing I'm talked out okay um all right who's next uh Connor yeah no I I think I can pretty much pass but I just had a question I think Donna's off um are we set on parklets uh April 1st or everything's good great well everybody should get out and have a pint or have lunch at a park list next Thursday April 1st great thanks okay Jay you're muted I know I missed that but um just one very quick thing is uh good luck to the boys varsity basketball team and the playing in the state finals on um uh at the barrier auditorium I think on Sunday this weekend um and and I I do think it's it's probably worthwhile mentioning that Leo Ruby Williams um will is 12 points away from reaching uh a thousand points in his his basketball career um and and I think it's also worth mentioning that beyond his athletic achievements noting the the impact that he and his his siblings have had on Montpelier schools his older sister um and his younger brother and and more to come you know in generations uh or as the years go on I think is is the the political fans and the willingness to uh be out front of social issues I think is um worth acknowledging beyond something a thousand points is great and um and the state championship would be great and all but what what he and his family have meant to to our our schools and our city is really um I think worth noting so I just wanted to point that out thanks for you thank you uh Dan thanks just a couple of quick points one is uh Jay and I are actually hosting a district three zoom meeting on friday this friday and noon um and if anybody wants to join they're welcome to email me and I'll give you the zoom link just to avoid unwanted zoom bombers uh from coming in but uh we're hoping to have a good opportunity to talk with constituents and talk through some issues to bring back to the council um the uh other is uh I'm starting to hear from constituents and maybe this is uh something to pass along to Donna and and Bill is just about various potholes that are forming particularly on colonial drive in that neighborhood um a woman uh wrote to me about falling into one um and anytime somebody talks about falling into a pothole that that uh suggests there's probably a need for that repair to happen pretty quickly but you know it's the season for that but um the last thing I guess I I want to say are two sort of related notes and and one is um you know the governor has talked about adding inviting immigrants to vermont um and I think as a city we should invite them as well um in the sense that um you know I grew up um with a parent who taught english as a second language and so we grew up with a lot of immigrant communities and the vibrancy and hard work and benefit to a community that groups bring um that are pursuing the american dream um that have fought to come here and fight and to live the american dream make a community so much better um and you know it's not proposing any sort of long term you know specific concrete steps but to the extent that we can um you know I think these uh new americans and people who wish to become new americans um you know are really people that can improve who we are as a community um and I certainly support the governor's uh push for that and it would be nice to translate that into some some action and and I think we should think you know this is really a good discussion that we had tonight um but it would be good to see um new housing um energy efficient housing um and I was reflecting as I was preparing for tonight on the fact that you know for 13 years we sat on a drb and we did not have a major housing development proposed in the city of Montpelier during that time that wasn't um something that was um publicly subsidized um and it will be nice when we're on the other side of this um to be thinking strategically about what we can do um to add um you know towards those goals because those type of new homes that um give people an opportunity to join our community um our benefits to us so that's all thank you yeah thank you uh jack thank you I uh I was thinking the exact same thing that Dan thought the other night that we would love to have I think it would be great benefit to the community to have uh the doors open to refugees and immigrants and I feel it's uh it's indicative of the problems we have getting the shortage of critical shortage that we have of housing we have in Montpelier that it's hard to responsibly say well more and more people should come here because we we want to have people to come here we need to develop the housing to for people to live in because this is a great place to live and we can uh and we want to encourage people to live here so we need to be moving forward on our on our housing goals um I want to uh just report briefly on the on the police review commission if maybe Lauren was already planning on doing that but we're working hard we're making our meeting every other week we're doing outreach to many different segments of the population um targeted outreach to make sure we're hearing from everybody and and our next meeting which is going to be April 12th is going to be a public hearing for anyone in the city to talk to us about their their thoughts their wishes their goals their experiences with Montpelier police there will be notices going on the city web page and front porch forum um so it will be a zoom meeting of course but we hope to hear from from a lot of people um I I don't have any of the details with me now but that that will be coming and then the last thing is Connor reminded me that Connor and I are also doing a zoom session for constituents tomorrow afternoon at three o'clock so anyone who wants to email either Connor or me at our city council email addresses we will get you the link and that's it for me uh Lauren go ahead yeah thanks um so one thing just wanted to to flag so one of the things that it was great having um congressman Welch here and there is this community project opportunity but applications are due March 31st I don't know if there's um what's the what the city's thinking if there's some potential projects that might be a good fit for getting Montpelier in the queue I don't know if it would be helpful to try to get the lobbying committee together to just think through what we learned from um from the congressman and we're at the crossover point in session so maybe we should check in soon um and see I just want to make sure we're we're being as helpful as possible um in that and I know there's a lot of state funding discussions and how we're kind of positioning our city as well as possible in those discussions um so maybe maybe the lobbying subcommittee can set up a time um through email would be great to do that um and yeah other than that just wanted to kind of in the vein of jack's update um the social and economic justice advisory committees also have been doing a lot of outreach to to various community members and just really grateful a lot of people are taking time and sharing really thoughtful input um on you know their experiences and you know suggestions and ideas for um how we can improve as a community so really looking forward to we should be getting um a kind of set of recommendations sometime in the next Cameron would probably know month and a half or so um but there's going to be a community survey going out and some other steps as well so um we'll keep people updated um but kudos to to Cameron who's kept the staffing um of that committee going really well um and looking forward to some really um hopefully tangible recommendations coming out of that process and just grateful to all the people that have participated from the community to help shape that um and similarly for the police review committee and the public hearing is April 5th um and we'll put the details out so just to make that just looking that up um but I think that's being posted yeah yeah but I believe it's posted in all kinds of places so hopefully people can find that uh that info and that's it for me thanks okay um I just have one uh thing which is the mountaineers are hoping to have a season this summer uh and but it is at least one part of the things that depends on is them finding host families so if you I know that is more complicated with COVID uh but particularly if you're in a household that has space and you've been vaccinated uh they are looking for people to to host uh players so please get in touch with them actually if uh if you don't know how to get in touch with them you can get in touch with me and I can connect uh you with the right people uh if you're willing to host a baseball player for um for the season this summer uh so that's that's it for me I think also I'm so thrilled that you that multiple uh of you are hosting uh zoom meetings just to chat about stuff that seems like a great idea and um I think I'm gonna have to do something like that myself I love it it's great uh all right and so John hold him I'll pass okay um Bill and or Cameron because you've turned your camera there you go go straight to the boss so just a quick report uh you know councilmember Hurrell just mentioned the federal money we've been working this week um to put together uh well lots of lists but specifically taking a look at uh the so the first thing we did was take a look at the projects and equipment and types of budget uh deferrals that we've done you know at the end of FY 20 and in this current year and then things that had been wrecked you know sought in the FY 22 budget that we couldn't even recommend so you know thinking is and that didn't include positions and those kinds of things this was sort of you know one time money one time you know projects um and it was well these are the things we would have budgeted for had it not been for these revenue shortfalls um so we have those then we you know looked at some of the bigger projects the bond projects we've got to you know those put together one of the one we were planning to sort of share that list with the council one of the things we wanted to hear first was tonight's conversation you know get some a better sense of what is isn't eligible and while you know the car next to me I thought was very helpful you know obviously he doesn't know all the specifics so this still leaves us wondering about a few things but I think we have a better idea the one area that we're still he kind of gave us the answer and I realized he doesn't know I'm not faulting him but you know sort of how big are these these grand things for next week so we have you know we've talked about the C state street project which is you know it's got water lines through lines paving it's a CSO outfall you know it's a good environment olympic but you know all together it's seven million dollars so is that something we could apply for or not you know I mean it's so you know we've got the rec center at five million dollars or six million dollars or something you know is that something we can apply for uh or is it more like the confluence park is it more like the berry main intersection so they you know it's really all about scale or do we throw in a bunch of these and say you know here depending on how you want to divvy up money here's so any any feedback you have and I realize we've got to have this done by Wednesday so I mean I think what we would probably take a staff to a recommendation send it out and um and I realize you can't have a discussion or decision by email but at least if somebody says hey I don't like this then maybe we can arrange a quick you know short meeting just to talk about that if if you all really want to weigh in I mean you know I I do think and then so then our plan has ended an upcoming meeting now that we know the amount of money and all those things that we would have on the agenda this you know sort of the use of the funds and all these lists that we've talked about we've also done we've also put on things like the public bathrooms and some of these other things that people have mentioned at these meetings and tried to get a pretty comprehensive list of ideas and if nothing else it'll be really helpful for our capital planning you know going forward because now we you know we hope we've got every everything that's on the table until the next good idea Donna go ahead I'm glad to hear you mentioned public bathrooms I think it needs to be right up there and on the list priority wise okay um any other comments or questions about that if we need to call a meeting after you send out that list filled then we can deal with that as as we need to we need to be before Wednesday so before Wednesday of next week right the 31st right that's when the that's when the applications do so if the council really wants to weigh in on this then we'll have to be probably Monday or Tuesday of next week okay all right um well I think that is the end of our our business for this evening thank you everybody uh for your patience and sticking through this I want to apologize to Donna because we didn't take a real bathroom break and I said that we would and I I thought anyway that's that's that's on me I do think it's unfair do you have to leave the discussion in order to go to the bathroom so I would like us to have a policy that we have a break no matter what policy yeah at how do you all feel about that sure sure I'm seeing some okay so so maybe like regardless of what we're doing we like you know as we'll interrupt the public hearing we'll interrupt or you know as soon as this you know the present presentation's done or whatever it is then maybe like the very next thing is we take a take a break um I I want to yeah I'm seeing some is that okay with folks okay okay thank you sorry about that but having had this conversation now now I will interrupt people so that we do um okay thank you everybody have an excellent evening and we'll see you in a couple weeks probably okay it's not my day or Tuesday good work folks see you next time have a have a good evening