 I will let members and staff introduce themselves by speaking their names. Martha Smersky, member. Liz Pritchett, member. Dennis Smith, member. Steve Everett, member. Ben Steney, member. And Meredith Crandall, staff. Meredith, would you like to review the remote meeting procedures? I will go ahead and do that. Okay, so, all right. So this is mostly for anybody who's watching via Orca and might want to try and join in the discussion. So first off, if you're watching via Orca, you can participate in the meeting by using the Zoom platform and going to this link. And that should bring you right into the meeting. You can also call this phone number and use the meeting ID and passcode. If you have problems using this information to access the meeting, you can email me. Here I've got my email up at the same time that I'm in this meeting. So if anybody has problems accessing the meeting, please email me as I said. Also, if you're having difficulties while you're in the Zoom video conference, you can message me through the chat function in Zoom. The Zoom meeting is being recorded, but turning on your video is optional. Public testimony will be taken verbally, and the chat function should be used only for troubleshooting or logistics questions. Right now we don't have any public, and I don't believe, but just in case anybody does sign on once we're in progress. If anybody else does come on, please keep your microphone on mute when you're not speaking to reduce background noise. And if you do call in and participate by phone, you can use star 6 to mute within the Zoom feature so we know that you're muted. I'm going to skip over some of this stuff because we don't have any public here right now. If you do log in, sign in or call in and want to participate, please make sure that once the chair has recognized you to speak, that you state your name and address for the record. Oh, there's Eric. In the event the public is unable to access this meeting, and I learned about that through my email that there's people having difficulties, then the meeting will be continued to a time and place certain. If you're having connectivity issues, try turning on your video or closing other applications on your phone or computer. And then also please note that if you want to take a look at the meeting materials, you can go and download them here on this page. Please note that all votes taken during this meeting that are not unanimous will be done by roll call vote. I'll now hand the meeting back over to the chair. You're up Eric. Yes. Okay, great. Steve, there you go. Okay, good. Do I hear a motion from a committee member to approve the agenda? So moved, Eric. Do I hear a second? I second it, Martha. All in favor of the agenda, speak your names. Eric. Yes. Hannah. Anne. Steve. So the agenda is approved. And unless anybody else has anything to add, we can go to a review and approve the meeting minutes of January the fourth. Does anybody have any questions, comments or revisions to the agenda? I'm sorry to the minutes. I'm sorry. No. This is Martha. I moved to admit them the way they are. As they stand. Do we hear a second? I'll second that. Liz. All in favor of the minutes, speak your names. Martha. Eric. Liz. Hannah. Steve. Ben. So the minutes are approved for January the fourth. And unless there's any other business, we can go to 12 Main Street and informal review of the proposed city park. Is there someone there to describe it for us? Everyone, I'm here. I'm Cameron Edermeyer, the assistant city manager, and I'm really excited to review this proposal with y'all today. So the city would like to and has been approved by council to move forward to apply for a grant through ACCD, which is a state department for their better places grant. And what they're really looking for is something that can enliven and activate a space sort of in the downtown core. So one of the things that is required within this grant is that it improves your downtown core. So when staff was looking at this opportunity, we immediately thought of 12 Main, which we are now calling 16 Main just for clarity. Sorry about that. What it is is a conglomerate of three different lots. And so we were just calling it by the first lot number, but the main, the main lot that is going to be impacted is 16 Main Street. Meredith, is it all right if I share my screen to show some pictures? Cameron, before you do that, can you just clarify where that is? I'm having trouble. Yes, I'm going to show you a picture of what it looks like right now. So you'll see where I'm talking about, but it is in front of the drawing board. So if you see this picture here, this is the lot I'm talking about right behind me. This is Shaw's. This is the drawing board building. Here is the Save and Away be multi-use path. And back here is the river in a parking lot. So that's the space we're talking about. And so we've got a pretty big plan for the space. It's only a $20,000 grant, but we have really intense dreams for the space. We really want to activate it by partnering with Montpelier Alive to bring some downtown activities to it. Really thinking of like different types of cold weather activities, like an outdoor fireplace type situation. None of those are quite figured out yet, but they will be removable and temporary in nature. But mostly like a stage, things like that. The biggest issue we have is, the biggest thing that we have is bringing over Gertin Park. So I will show. Okay, that did work. I'm learning to yell. Zoom is the worst. So here are one of our proposed site plans where Joyce has been working with us to come up with a proposed site plan. It has already undergone changes, which is why this is hard to present to you in totality. But the main thing is we want to bring this Gertin Park structure over and repurpose it in this park to really activate the space and make it a welcoming environment when you come into town. Because you all know that space is really on the main drag coming into town. And right now it really doesn't serve any sort of functional purpose. So we're really looking to activate the space as an extension of our parks downtown, create a relaxing, welcoming space to sit and maybe picnic and have a space where we can do small shows or other things in partnership with not until you're alive. Another part of this would be to have a public art bit where we'd ask for local artists to submit something to be put on this building as sort of a mural or other public art as possible. We're going to be taking suggestions, but our thought is a mural to sort of turn this building into something that sort of relates to the space. The most out there suggestion is building a pump track, which is very exciting to us because it doesn't involve moving around the dirt because the site is a brown site. We know that, but we wouldn't be doing any sort of construction to the dirt itself. We wouldn't be moving things. We'd be creating on top of it, and that would be it. So we wouldn't be disturbing any of the dirt, so we wouldn't be running into any of those environmental issues. We'd really just be putting things on top of. You can see in Warren's illustration here that he did put a playground structure that will not be included in our grant proposal. Playgrounds open up a whole host of things that we can't even get to. The only liability with the playground is we just pretend that's not there. Thank you. So another exciting bit is this activates the space in the back of the parking lot as well where you can see a little bench. So Gertin Park is named for Paige Gertin's husband who passed away. So wanting to make sure that we keep the vibe of it being a memorial for Jed, that would be a solid granite bench overlooking the water. So that's still up in the air too. Paige's family is currently looking at that, but she did approve moving Gertin Park to this location. We really do want to make sure that she's involved in all the planning. So I've rambled on quite a bit. I want to just sort of hear y'all's proposed like your questions and thoughts you may have going into this. The grant is due this Friday, so we're really excited about how this timing worked out so that we could like send to y'all and get any questions or feedback that you may have. So I'm going to stop sharing so I can see all your faces while I'm talking. One thing that struck me is that there are no trees or any plantings in it. I'm just showing the plan. Right, so the plan like I said is not quite final so the landscaping is going to be dependent on what does go there. But there does, we do plan on there being some landscaping. Again, some of that is kind of limited because of the environmental impacts of the space. So we're really just going to need to do our due diligence there, figuring out what we can and cannot plan. So do you expect this to be sawed? Yes. Where's Gertin Park now? So you know where the bike path goes past Shaw's and it keeps going towards the transit center? Right before you hit that bridge that goes across the river there's a little out jutting where Gertin Park structure is. So it's sort of off the path in kind of a hidden corner if you will. Okay, thank you. What kind of uses did you have in mind for the little building? So it's a really cute little artsy pavilion type thing that has an open side. So it does allow for some vaguely covered seating. It's not completely covered. Rain can come through it, but it's a nice relaxing space for folks who are shopping who want to take a seat. Or we could also because it's open in the front use it as a impromptu stage as needed. But it's primarily a seating opportunity for folks. Montpelier Alive has also partnered with a local bench maker who uses recycled materials to create colorful benches. And that's who we intend if we get the grant to move forward with. I don't have their name in front of me. I apologize. I would suggest on the benches that particularly the ones that are on Main Street not have a back so that the people can sit facing either direction. Thank you. Interesting. I happen to be that bench maker and they are modeled after the same benches that we created for Northfield. And they do have a back, Eric, and they have an arm rest. So, for what it's worth, it's a design that we have established and created and we're going to reuse. If you have been to downtown Northfield in this past fall, you would have seen them there bright red. I'll take a drive down to look. The reason I said that is so that people that want to sit and look out at what's going on on Main Street can do that. Or that they can look on what's going on on the park because I envision both uses. Are you looking at... Go ahead, Ben. I was going to ask if you're looking at benches and picnic tables. They're both included in the design. We're going to be the most limited by price. We'll see what we can get for the budget that we do have. Making sure we're still being fair to the artists that we want to hire to do work. So that will be most of our budget, I think. But yes, they're both in the site plan. I noticed that it looks like there's a food truck parked at the back of the park. And I would suggest moving the escape ramp to some other location so it's not crowding that area around the food truck. Thank you. If you've ever been near a escape ramp when it's being actively used, it's fairly noisy and it's not a good location right next to where the food truck is. I wouldn't move that somewhere else. You could even, depending on if you're not going to put the playground equipment and the pump track, you might be able to move that into the center of the pump track. Just to consolidate that area so it's not spread out over such a large area of the park. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you. And definitely if we have to prioritize one structure over the other due to financial limitations, we'll be going with the pump track over the escape ramp for sure. And I have to tell you that this was brand new news to me. That they do make new coverings for material coverings for escape ramps and the pump tracks and stuff that are noise absorbing. So they're less loud, which I did not know. And a lot of work has been done, a lot of advancements in skate park technology. You might be able to mute the sound of the wheels on the ramp, but you can't. Not the kids? You can't mute the sound of excited kids on the ramp. Right. That's fair. Which is fine, but if you can separate that from the area where your food truck is. And it might be nice to have one of the picnic tables down near the food truck unless people want to take it and walk back towards the main street. Thank you. I feel like I heard you say this briefly, but you intend to lay sod down over that whole surface? I think that's the idea because right now we want there to be grass as soon as possible, which would be a sod. Or we could get our department to come and help us price out how much that would be. I'm sorry. Who asked that question? I couldn't see anybody. I did. Martha. Okay. Sorry. I was just wondering what all the green was. Yes. Hopefully sod. Grass at least. We'll figure it out together. We'll talk about landscaping. So hopefully, hopefully sod. We want this to be up and running by this spring. I'd like to echo what Eric said. I understand the environmental limitations. But I'd really like to see some trees there. The the pump track pump track designs are pretty designing is pretty sophisticated. And have you worked with any pump track designers? Yes. So Alec is our park director and he's been working with us on this rant. And he has partnered with groups before to make pump tracks for the city. So he has been really great about that design. Is this going to be paved? The pump track. That I can't tell you. I don't think so. Because what the underlying thing about this lot is that this sort of a placeholder for council can decide to do whatever council wants to do with this lot, right? In a couple of years, they might decide they want to sell it to a business or use it for some other function. And so we need to be as responsive to that as possible. So we want this to be an open and engaging space for as many folks as possible. But also understanding that council could decide two years from now that they don't want to do it anymore, right? So anything more permanent like that is probably not the answer. I think a lot of this is going to either be dirt piles that we could very easily knock over or, you know, like the pump track down by what's that road called? Y'all know what I'm talking about, right? The new pump track. Coming through again. Yes, thank you. So we're not going to looking for things like everything can be bolted down because, you know, we've got to be responsive to the plane issue there. But it won't be permanent as a paved anything. Is parks going to take care of it? Yes, parks has a plan to manage it. Yes. Pump tracks require some maintenance. Yes, sir. I was speaking with Dan Groberg about this briefly a little bit and he had mentioned the idea of moving in a bunch of big boulders. I don't know if that idea is thrown out, but I like that as a climbing structure. You see it on Church Street where kids love to climb on them and it's like a fairly, you know, easy to quote unquote build and just artful and interesting kind of way of allowing people to climb and sit and be. But maybe you thought of that and moved it out. Yes, a few boulders are included in this site plan. I think maybe in the one I showed you, there were a little hidden. Let me pull another one back up and we can stare at it together. Hold on. I like that idea, Ben. Do you know the story behind the boulders on Church Street? We have some boulders here. We have some boulders here. We have some boulders here. Mother Earth's reemerging after the weight of the traffic has taken off the street. Oh, Church Street is pretty remarkable. I spent a while understanding all the sort of longitude, latitude cities on Church Street one night. It's a pretty serious piece of art, actually. We've been successful in the country. Yeah. Can we see that site plan again, please? Oh, yep. This drive, is this the way people are going to access the back lot, the Jacob's lot back there? Yes. And so the driveway has no bearing on this application or this plan. The driveway is established by other projects that DPW is finishing up now. And it is too lane, I assume. Yeah, it's an in and out. But the part done by the river is part of the project. Yes. All of these lots are the cities. But the pavement work has already been established by another DPW project. Yeah, I would think more benches down close to the river would be nice. That's probably a cost factor. Yeah, it only is a $20,000 grant. So we're working the best we can. It always expanded, so. Is the placement of Gertin Park intentional for some function like that? No, so like I said, I apologize for talking over you. Sorry. Zoom is very difficult. I can't see here. Anyway, so we actually asked Ward and his final drawing to move the park so that the back of the structure faces the sidewalk. So if y'all are familiar with the structure, it doesn't have a solid back. It has like slats so you can still see through it. So we asked him to turn that towards the sidewalk and then open up Gertin, like the Gertin Park structure to the greater parks as that performance space ad hoc performance space. And so that when you're in the park structure itself, like when you're there in Gertin Park structure, you can see the rest of the 16 main lot. So this is sort of where we engines it being, but rotated facing the park. Yeah, I like that. I think it makes more sense lost the way it is now. And again, I'm sorry. I don't have an updated second plan to show you guys right now. Are we going to get a look at this again when more of the designs are finalized? I believe so. Meredith, can you walk me through what approval steps we'd need? Which approval steps you need really depends on what your final design is going to be. Okay. You know, I mean, you're moving the Gertin Park structure. That's, you know, even though it's okay to put it one place, we're moving it. I just, it would all depend on what exactly you're doing there. You know, because the, like the pump track out on Cummings needed a permit, but that had to do with its specific location. I would need to look at distances from the river, all of that stuff. Perfect. I think, you know, once you've gotten your grant approval and have a closer to final design, bring it back and I can figure out where, what the actual approval process would require. I think that we'd probably want to bring it back to design review for landscaping at the very least. Once you have those ideas, because landscaping is something that design review has authority over, whether it's a municipal project or not. All right. Well, you heard it from Meredith. And you and I can talk about that too. Once you have some ideas before it even gets through to the DRC process about what actually, you know, makes sense with the rags and any ideas you and I might go back and forth to fine tune stuff too. Great. Thank you. It looks good to me. Thank you. We're very excited about the opportunity. I really hope that we, we are afforded this grant. Yeah, it looks like you're trying to do it. Trying to do a lot with not a whole lot of money. So I applaud your effort there. You're definitely going to be a stretch to pull a lot of those things off. So it's hard to be too picky about it at the moment with what, what you're trying to accomplish with the money you have. One advantage of many of the components of the park is that they are movable so that as you set it up and it starts being used, you can tweet with the exception of the pump track. That's a really good observation. Thank you. Yeah. I'm going to sign off because I have another park commission meeting. I want to go to a six o'clock. Okay. Does anybody else have anything to add as far as comments, suggestions or questions regarding the park? Thank you guys so much. I really do appreciate it. I'm going to go ahead and say thank you. Thank you guys so much. I really do appreciate it. I'm going to, I've got another team meeting this week before we turn it in and we'll be discussing all of your suggestions and I really do appreciate it. Thank you very much for coming and good luck with the project. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Did you have anything else and Meredith to add? Nope. Next to me. Next meeting. Then our next meeting is February the first. And do I hear a motion to adjourn? I motion to adjourn. Second, Liz. All in favor of adjournment speak your names. Martha. Liz. Hannah. Stan. Steve. So meeting is adjourned. Have a nice evening. Thank you. Good night. Good night.