 So, I would like to call to order the South Carolina City Council meeting of Monday, December 16th, 2019, and we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance. David, do you want to read that? Sure. Our Pledge of Allegiance is to the Black of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. And so, before we move on to item two, I just want to take this opportunity to wish everyone who watches this a wonderful, joyful holiday season. And we hope you are safe, that we get some good snow for skiing, but not too much to cause the road department to have to be out for hours and hours and hours and hours over many days. So, that is my wish. Okay, item two, instructions on exiting the building in case of an emergency. If there's an emergency tonight, please leave the room by going out one of these two exit doors, going through the parking lot to the south and ending up beyond the building to the south of us in the parking lot beyond. If these doors are blocked for some reason, please go back out the main entrance out the front and around to the same parking lot to the building beyond. Tom Hubbard and I will be responsible for clearing the building, so leave immediately. All righty. Agenda review, are there any additions, deletions, or changes in the order of items? Okay, seeing none, we'll move on to comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda. Welcome. You need to identify yourself for that. Oh, yes. My name is Paula de Michael, and I am a resident at the Pines, and I am currently on the affordable housing committee. But I want to make it on the record that I am speaking for myself as a member of the committee now for the committee, and also mainly as a voter and a resident tonight when you hear what I have to say. I'm coming to ask you to start taping the Planning Commission meetings, but I would like to give you some of my reasons. I've been at least three since late August. Three or four, I've lost count now, relating to what our committee is doing with the IZ bylaw, which you're going to have before too much longer. But some other things happened at the committee. The first one I went to, the lawyer Daniel Seff turned up, talked for 20 minutes about the lawsuit that's pending in the Supreme Court. And was trying to get them to delay sending the TDR amendment to you. And I don't have to go into the politics of that, I'm sure. I didn't understand what was going on at that point. I was too new here. It was important. I mean, he said a lot. He said it clearly. It's something that I feel, looking back on it, and even at the time I was wondering why there was no tape running. I know there's an audio tape on the, let me put that aside. And some other things that have happened since then that have been important. But I've also been accumulating a lot of information. I've been talking to people because I'm new here and I'm still in information gathering mode so that I can work effectively on the committee. So one of the people I've talked to recently is John Dinklage, who used to be on the DRB and he used to be a council member. Somebody forwarded him, me to him, and he's just a mind of information. So I've had a couple of phone conversations, long ones with him. And I want to try to connect some dots about why I think what's coming needs to be taped. Okay, so be patient. I don't own property, but this whole place runs on taxes. And he gave me to understand that the entirety of South Burlington is up for revaluation now, private and public. Okay, I didn't know that. And I had started discussing the possibility, which is in the bylaw, the allowance for it is in the bylaw, that the transit overlays were proposing that within those commercial areas that housing could be built, and specifically affordable housing. And I will say, I have no problem in principle with that. But some of the things he said have given me a concern. He told me that historically, someone has kept the tax base since the 70s even between 50-50 or tried to between commercial and residential. And you can tell me if this is wrong. Now what he told me was that now it's 40-60 or close to that. And the commercial base has gone down. And that that is a serious concern. And then he asked me a question. He said, what do you think is going to happen when that mall is revalued? Well, we went through this in Essex with IBM, and the tax differential landed on the village. And there were some really unhappy people there for quite a while. So I have a concern. At one of the Planning Commission meetings, and Paul isn't here, so I can't reference him. We were forwarded some documents, and I'm not sure where they came from. I don't think they came from the PC. I think they came through the PC. There are four documents that Paul has. Someone had done research on how TDRs are used and found four municipalities across the country. Right, that's in our packet. Okay. They use them exclusively in commercial areas, 100%. And we were sent those back in, I believe, October. And after talking to John, and this is my concern about taping the meetings from now on, because this is going to come up, I had to ask myself, is that percentage, if we're talking about porting housing in commercial areas, is that percentage not going to be critical? Because if you're talking about anything near 100%, if you're talking about 80%, what John said was housing taxes of TDR receiving areas. Okay, I'm sorry, I didn't say receiving areas. I apologize. This is new to me. It's hard for me to keep some of it straight. It's about what those municipalities did was put their receiving areas 100% in commercial. Okay. This is a serious discussion. Any discussion about this, the percentage is going to affect taxes directly. Although I didn't think Seattle did. I thought Seattle had. Okay. No, all I'm saying is it's going to come up. It's already out there. I didn't know you have something about TDRs on the agenda tonight. I just saw this. So this is coincidental. I really didn't know that was on there. And I am not faulting anybody for suggesting anything. I'm just saying there's a context here that's bigger than just where we're going to put affordable housing. It's how much where we're going to put it. So I am asking you to tape the planning commission meetings because I think this is going to come up shortly. And it's going to stay there for the next year. And I realize we're halfway through a budget cycle. You would have to come up with enough to tape for six months. And then I'm what I am asking you putting it in the new budget. It's I think it's something between one and $3,000. I don't think it's a whole lot. I hope it's the lower end and not the higher end. But I don't think it's going to break the budget to put something into tape those meetings for a year. I just it's not only this issue. It's it's hearing Seth there and the things he was saying as a lawyer and about this case. And minutes, no matter how good they are, never reflect the whole discussion and the audio tape. I'm not sure. I know we audio taped in Essex and you never know when part of the tape is going to be blank. People are talking over each other. I mean, all kinds of things used to happen out there where we couldn't get back from the tape what we needed. So this is why I'm suggesting videotape. And I mean, as a voter, I would like to be able to get at these discussions as they go on the share because I know I won't be able to go all the meetings. So that's it. And that's my rationale there. Okay. Thank you very much. Call it any other comments or thoughts from the public? Yes. Roseanne Greco. Somebody just brought to my attention that there is no sign on the Underwood property that says it's the Underwood property. I mean, there's that big sign that says we're saving, you know, land and but if you wanted to find the Underwood property, there's no way you would be able to find it. And I as many times as I pass by it every single day, I've never noticed that the word Underwood is nowhere on that sign. We have Red Rocks signs. We've got Wheeler Park, you know, Ferrell, Samansky, but we just don't have a label for the Underwood property. Okay. Just offer me. Thank you. We can get to parochial, can't we? I know what's going on on the roots that I drive all the time. And I never noticed that either because I don't get over there very often. So thank you. Any other comments or questions? All right, moving on to number five announcements and the city manager's report. Tom, you want to start with announcements? Ugly sweater run. I wore a really ugly suit. It was a great time. Good attendance. No, wait. My husband has that jacket. He doesn't have the pants. I almost wore it tonight, but I figured it would be on the record. I don't know. The summary will be this Thursday, H.A. Pascal's pulling the numbers together. It was a good turnout. I didn't even make it to the Ugly Sweater Run. I had a daughter with an upset stomach, so I'm sorry to have missed that. Okay. Quietly. Dave? No, it was the end of the term. Not much time for much else. So I had the opportunity to interview 17 UVMMC applicants from the Medical College as part of the MMI program. Oh, that's right. Yeah. It was great. Not a great young people. Also ran the Ugly Sweater Run for the first time. I know it's the third annual. It wasn't in an Ugly Sweater. I didn't have an Ugly Sweater, and I apologize. I'll try harder next year, but at least I was there. Did you get chinsill or something? I was blowing 30 miles an hour, 26 degrees. I figured just showing up and actually running it was a pretty good deal, and they had excellent refreshments. I was really amazed at the quality of the refreshments. And as you know, last week we met for the CIP meeting, Monday night the Climate Action Caucus from legislators, and I was able to sit in for the first 20 minutes of the White Street bike lanes meeting that same night. And there weren't a lot of people there, maybe five or six, that asked questions about it. It seemed like, you know, there was no objection to it. They have a good story, and it'll be a good request, and I think it's pretty low cost. Just trying to push that along. So I did walk in the Ugly Sweater. I did have an Ugly Sweater. You walked in the Ugly Sweater, and you... And I wore an Ugly Sweater. Properly uniform. And I actually had two hats on, one that I came in, and then I got the gift hat. I put it on top, and I was glad, because it was chilly. I walked a little bit farther than the regular walkers, because that's my morning walk with my best friend. And I agree that refreshments were lovely. It was really nice to have it inside as well. I mean, the tents, it's kind of cool at Memorial, Veterans Memorial Park, but when it is cool, it's really tough. So I hope that that's the school board, or whoever lets you rent space or use space keeps that going forward, so that was really lovely. And I did go to the climate meeting, and I found that very informative and really helpful. I was pleased and impressed with how many South Burlingtonians showed up for that. I mean, there probably was, I don't know, 50 or 60 people in the audience. It was a lot. And the presentation was really helpful. So I'm glad they came to our community, and a good number of us were there. And let's see, what else did I do? I don't think I did anything else. I always like to let you do the thing that I saw you at. Afterward, the climate caucus, I spoke with the two legislators that were there, Chris Pearson and Sarah Hazy Copeland. Yes. Copeland is something of that. I apologize. Thank you for Brandon, right? Yes, I recall. She's up there by Hardwick. Hardwick? Okay. And I was very glad to hear that in addition to what they spoke about during the presentation, that our plans here in the city very much fit the plans for the climate caucus, which is reforestation, making sure that we have those green lungs in order to take in the carbon dioxide. Also, affordable housing is really, really important in terms of keeping the number of cars on the roads as low as possible. If employees can live close to their jobs, that is the best thing we can do to combat climate change. And I also heard from Chris that they're definitely involved in a reforestation project and working with people who work the woodlands in the state for a job, just that that is part of the piece. So I just really think it's important to put those out there, that what we're working on here in terms of a balance between housing for our workforce as well as our green infrastructure fits into that whole climate cause, I guess. One thing they didn't really touch on was the ability of the state to absorb CO2 because of all its forest, right? I mean, this was like 100% denuded like 100 years ago, and now it's 80, 85% reforested. So there's probably opportunity there to extend that, but we have a lot of forest. Well, if you recall too, Brandon, or Brendan, I never remember his last name from Brad and Butterfarm, he was talking about the carbon sequestration, I think that's how you pronounce it, that they're trying to achieve at Brad and Butterfarm by not doing as much tilling the carbon stays in the land or the ground, and that's a plus. So, yeah, we've got a number of different pieces. And the older trees take in much more carbon dioxide. But I think that's what they said, yeah, the older they are, the more... I was at our meeting here just two weeks ago, so I think those are... It was important, and then another one of their legs was just the... being held accountable, and I think we're lucky to have a very active and well-informed energy committee that keeps us pushing and reminding us. And I think that's important, because if you don't keep track of what you're doing or how close you are to your goals, you never know when you get there, if you ever do. So I have goals, so we are lucky in that respect to have some really talented people in this community who care about it. I was also busy baking this week. There are some cookies for the audience. Where? For the please and gifts for my friends. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, this is just a small way of really acknowledging I thank you for showing up. I know a lot of people show up by TV, which is great, but it's also kind of nice for us to have some live humans out there to talk to and respond, and we appreciate all that you do. That's delicious. City managers report. Thanks, Helen. A lot of scheduling things. So I sent you multiple emails today about Secretary Flynn being at the Kimball Avenue, Marshall Avenue bridge at 2 o'clock tomorrow. Those of you who can make it great, if you can't understand, Justin will be there early on the South Burlington side. You can park inside the barrier, but before the bridge. You can walk across the bridge, and Justin will have hard hats and anything else needed to be in a construction area. Also, at the same time, Suzanne Young, who's the governor's secretary of administration and perhaps the governor himself will be at the library talking about multiple other governmental priorities around budgeting and some other things at our library. Yeah, that's from two to three thirty. Yeah. That's a longer meeting, I think. Right. Very pleased to report again to you all that the garden apartments. The Champlain Housing Trust, 60 units of affordable and market rate housing will be dedicated, I guess, on the 13th of January at 2 p.m. All are invited to come to that. Reminder that the regular meeting of the council, which would normally occur on the 6th of January, has been canceled or postponed to the 13th. And at that meeting will be the major part of the agenda will be the budget workshop and following on to Tom's presentation tonight. I attended the C.C.R.P., the Chittin County Regional Planning Commission, legislative breakfast last week, which was very, I thought it was very well done. C.C.R.P.C. has a range of issues now that would seem to span beyond just the traditional planning things. A lot about transportation, which is planning and other things, but also about mental health and community health and other things like that. So they had very good turnout of legislators. So it was well done. It was a good meeting. Also, one last thing. At a prior meeting, the council decided that you had an interim zoning application for 550 Park Road over off the golf course. And now you can deliberate on that, having provided input to your direction on it. Do we have a draft decision? There will be a draft and it's going to come to you electronically. And the hope is that you can vote on this electronically rather than waiting to the 13th of January so that the affected parties can move forward since it was one of those things you decided was kind of outside of IZ. And so you can be looking for that in your email. Soon? I mean this week? Yeah, possibly this week. All right. That's it. Great. Thank you. Next item is item 6, the consent agenda. We have signed disbursements and two applications, grant applications. One for the design of the UVM Horticultural Farm Stormwater Treatment Practice. And the other for the Kimball Marshall Avenue Bicycle and Pedestrian Facilities over Muddy Brook. Move to approve. Second. Second. Yes. Do we have any knowledge whether the stormwater treatment practices at the UVM Hortic Farm are near any man-made structures that have basements? We actually have our stormwater director with us tonight if you'd like him to. Yes, that would be great. Do you mind coming up, Tom, please? Just a quick question. Oh, yeah, I'm sorry. We should put that on the table, please. Was there going to be a basin, I'm sorry? So every time, from now on, every time there's a stormwater change application, whatever it is that comes before us, right? I'm going to ask the question, are there any basements that are in the vicinity of that stormwater pond or new cashmine system that could be affected by a change in ground level, groundwater? This proposed project is in the upper field at the Hortic Farm. So there's no homes around it, but it'll shoot the water from a number of homes. Okay, that's what I figured, but I just wanted to, since you're here. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? Are you ready for the vote? All in favor of approving the consent agenda as proposed. Aye. We now move on to the budget considerations and council discussion. Tom Hubbard, you're going to leave that, I guess? The date, what is it? 12, 16, 19. Let's put 72. I don't know where that came out of. Okay. So the FY21 draft budget remains a work in progress. I would expect to have the full draft to you sometime this week, which will give you a good amount of time to look at it before our January 13th meeting and certainly available to questions that you have once you receive it throughout that time in advance of the meeting. I really do want to emphasize it's a work in progress. We're rechecking figures, especially salary and benefit information, which is a bit complicated based on contracts. And we want to make sure it's correct. And I wanted to make sure that we had the amendment approved tonight, which will be coming up so that we'll know exactly what the CIP will consist of. But I did put some of the major data in a summary sheet here with some of the major cost factors that we're looking at. These are things that I think I've shared with you for the most part in past meetings, but just to kind of summarize the health care, our insurance, contractual agreements, the CIP, the pension increase, and the proposed new FTEs, one for the Parks Maintenance Division of DPW, and two 28-hour positions within the library that are proposed to move to 40-hour positions. Since the one position doesn't exist and the other two are part-time, benefit calculations have also been made for those positions. So they are in the proposed budget. It currently stands at, I think it's a 3.73% increase. I'm not sure if that's what it will still be at by the time you get it or not, but like 3.73% increase in the tax rate over last year's budget. And we'll continue to work on that over the next few days and shoot to get that out to you by the end of the week. The revenue growth major factors for us there, we are, Todd is pretty comfortable with a 1% projected growth in the grand list. We're paying off the outfit of the Vet Center and the CJC. I think it'll be done after this. It'll be done. Yeah, no more payments. Is this a pay-ahead thing? So we've been putting about that amount of money in each year. So that's money we don't have to put in this year. Oh, I see. Okay, got it. We, a 3% increase in the budget, you can see what that generates for revenue. And then the difference in the interest income by switching to banks, you can see what that generates for us. So we have a bit of a delta there, almost $80,000 between the big factors between expenses and revenues. And we'll continue to refine this as best we can before you get it later this week. Is there, are there things that would be helpful to you in terms of a narrative to go with the draft budget? Can I just ask a question? Sure. I'm blanking. Why is a 3% budget increase considered revenue? That's just to show you what a 3% increase would generate. Oh, in taxes, or, oh, okay. So based on past history, if we use, yeah, no, that's a good point, Helen. If we didn't show something, we'd certainly have a bigger delta. But based on past history, we use 3%. I probably should say a 3% tax increase, right? We fund an increase of 3% in the budget. How much have been increased as the insurance comments? Well, health care is 10%, right? Yeah, 10% on the health care. The rest of our insurance is about $89,000. Is that an increase, though, of a certain? The group life insurance rates have changed. So there's a bit of a change there. Some contract agreements. And then our property and workers' comm, which you typically see. It's complicated for us to. Yeah, I mean, you'll still all be spelled out. I think our property and workers' comp is probably about 40 together in terms of an increase there. But I interrupted you because you were about to ask. No, that's fine. What kind of narrative, additional narrative things is the council looking to see? Or what other types of information would be helpful to you along with a draft of the budget? So you'll have every line item. You'll have at least three years of history, the percentage increase per line item. If that's helpful, we can list it out that way as we've done in the past. Any thoughts? We're going to talk about this some more next time, right? So basically what we've done. I'm in terms of any more information. I'd like to know more about what the FTEs are going to be doing. Yeah, so that's the purpose of the 13th, really. That's when we'll have all our department managers here. And they can talk about why they feel that's important and you can make your judgments as you need to. What we've tried to do to date is take everything that we receive from departments and basically put a priority on it. And there's a number of things we've already cut. We started well over 7%. But that's typical. We'll get a budget and it'll be bigger than we know would be reasonable. So we've begun trimming that down. And what you'll see is what we feel is a reasonable ask. And you may not feel it's reasonable. You may say we need to cut more. And that's why it's presented before you. So we'll continue to look at it over the next couple of days. But like I said, I think right now it's about 3.73. That is where we've got it at this point. 3% budget increase. I'd like to see that be the only budget increase. Not have a delta of 80,000. And I've always said this, if we could drive it under three, that'd be great. But you've got a lot of challenges. It seems like we've been hitting three pretty close for the last four years. So what is .73 equate in dollars? Is that the 79? Is that the 80,000? For the 80,000 dollars? Yeah. Yeah, that's, that would, the 80, I did, I did run that figure. I think that brings it down to like 3.21. This again, I'm sorry. If you took, if you took out the full delta, about $80,000, the budget would be a 3.21% increase right now. And you say there's still some flux, how much flux? Yeah, so I mean, there's, there's so many line items in the budget. And you know, there's certain things that departments are asking for that, you know, obviously important to each of them. And it's a matter of taking those comprehensively and looking at it. And that's what, that's what we're doing as, as a management team right now and a finance team. And that's what will come to you to continue to scrutinize. And bring you to a comfort level that will, would eventually be the adoption of the new budget that would go to the voters. Is the pension increase because of the new contracts? It's, it's mainly due to some, the increases that we had in staffing with fire last year. So we have a couple of additional people. The, the VEMIRS increase for this year. So it's both the South Burlington Pension Program, which is currently closed now. There'll be no more additional employees going into that. So over, over the next five to 10 years, we'll start to see a decrease in, in what the S, the SEI pension dollars would require. But new employees would be going into VEMIRS. I think, I think that's an 11% contribution this year. It's different based on non-public safety and public safety. Which begs the next question. Since we have a block of money with SEI, right, a smaller block, but a growing block with VEMIRS. What schedule does the state treasurer have for informing their clients about the progress of their own pension plans? How do they manage, do you know how they manage that yet? We get quarterly updates from SEI, right? We do, yes. We don't receive that from VEMIRS. I know that each of our employees receive an annual sheet, a summary sheet. Is that something that we would be, I don't know what the normal protocol is for that. Yeah. Because they're, you know, they're not a private client. I'll look in to see if we can get somebody from VEMIRS to come in, Tim. Or just find out what they're, what do they do with other clients because we don't know. Because our money's going there. We want to know that they're treating it right and what their strategy is. Absolutely. But we can't tell them what to do with the money. That's correct. That's the difference. The difference is that it disappears into a black hole and then, you know. Yeah, it's very different from the plan we have with SEI. Well, maybe we could anticipate better. They're on the wrong road. Right. Thank you. Any other comments, questions? All right. Thank you. Well, our public hearing on the capital improvement plan is scheduled for 730. So why don't we flip down to number nine? Is that okay? And this is the possible continuation of the budget discussion and potential March ballot items and council discussion. And the March ballot item conversation is something that I suggested or requested from Kevin because I wanted to get a sense. I'd had some questions from people who were looking at wanting to put different ballot items for additional money on the ballot and wanted to know where we would be in a place where the council was thinking positively about having, you know, sense for open space or what else is out there. No, it's just that. And I guess I wanted to have a thought. I mean, I'm sensing that maybe not at this point because we're looking at 1.73 and we'd really hoped that the increase would be three or under. But I'm just looking for some feedback. And of course we don't know what the school is going to come up with. And I don't even know the timeline for that. It's the January. They're meeting Wednesday. I think they're first run through the budget on Wednesday. I think the numbers on the bottom is what I've read. I think because of that it's premature for us to really make that decision. That makes it very difficult, I might add, for us to really think about our budget if we don't know what they're doing until mid-January. When do we have to have our budget done? January 20th, right? When do we have to decide? January 20th? The 21st is our second meeting in January. That's Tuesday because of Martin Luther King holiday. And we have to finalize it that night. We're going to see it for the first time on the 13th and have the public meeting. You can set additional time if you want. Tim for another special meeting. Or you can utilize the 21st. But by the end of the night of the 21st by our charter we're required to send it to the school district for the steering committee meeting which I think is proposed for the 22nd. Did we schedule that? Maybe. I think it's on the budget calendar. So I'll just say since the school ballot is going to have or the ballot is going to have a school bond, I support another penny for open space but I don't support asking this March. I think pushing it to August or even the November election, 2020 we've got three ballots, three vote selections that are already going to happen. I feel like we owe the school board, this community the right to just have the conversation about this very big question of the school bond. So I don't support putting it on the March ballot. One advantage to having it in November of next year is you will get a very high turnout. I'm theorizing. I don't know if that for a fact but I think we had a pretty large turnout in 2016 if I remember correctly and I would say we probably have. So the more turnout you have, the better it is sometimes. Do we agree with that? For an issue like two pennies to add to the tax for open space you would want a large number of voters to come out and voice their vote on that. I think that was nice for the TIF as well as for the library community center. That was in the summer and to some August that was a special one, right? That was the primary. But I believe that TIF and the library community center were on those big dates. I don't disagree. I'm just sort of bemoaning the fact that even with our deliberations on the budget we're still, you know, have to kind of be aware of what the school I mean on Wednesday of this week they are going to look at their budget which is different than the bond for the school. I don't know where that is. I think they've agreed upon their contract with the teachers or not. Is that final yet? They keep meeting. They're still updating on that on Wednesday night. Yeah, so I don't know if that's a data complete or if they're still... That's what the health care too, right, with the state health care plan. The state doesn't have its yield number yet, right? Its own head tax rate number? The commissioner of taxes wrote his letter to the legislature noting a 6%. If things were the way they are, stay the way they were. Governor Scott reaches into a black bag and pulls out another $22 million or whatever it is. Like he basically has for the last two years, you know, from some other source. So if you're looking at a 6% head tax rate, right, with a school budget that we don't know what it is, but it probably will grow some, right, and then if there's a bond issue on top of that. In our own 3% or whatever it is. And are they trying to go to March for this bond vote? My understanding is that's what they want. Well, I think there hasn't been any real discussion or hint so far as to how much that's going to cost the average taxpayers. There's a lot of conjecture, but they haven't put out any numbers yet. I think it's most unfortunate that they're posing, spending a couple of hundred million bucks and taking it down right to the wire before they let folks know how much that's likely to cost. So we don't know that. We don't have the final report on the open lands yet, but we should shortly. And we'll have a better picture there of what the Open Space Committee recommends and what their priorities are that they recommend. And then we should be able to take a look at that and think, well, you know, this is likely to get developed soon. If we don't do anything, maybe we better take some action or not. Who knows? And we don't have a final number on the recreation facility yet. And we'll have that sometime in January. But there's an awful lot that we don't know. And I don't think we can make responsible decisions for the March ballot with everything that we don't know. And if the state indeed is looking at 6% education increase and we're looking at a 3% general budget increase, the school proposes this and we propose other things. I can tell you, I think people are going to rebel and say, that's enough. We're not paying any more taxes. Screw you. And we don't want to get into that bind either. So we're kind of in a tough spot. We may have to hold off on most of this until we can make responsible decisions. I think the school board has not been responsible in following through with this in a timely manner so that people have a real specific idea of what they're going to be asked to decide on right until the very last minute. And I think that's very unfortunate. Well, I'm certainly feeling the pressure just on our own budget. You know, do you really mean is 7.21 okay? It may not be if there's a really enormous increase on the school side, whether it's there, whether they can change it or not. Yes, Michael. Yeah. Michael, we're talking either in South Berwick or in my residence in taxpayer. Which of all the items that you're considering for the ballot, obviously the city's budget, the school budget. Yes. The school bond probably. Well, the bond is okay. The school bond. Well, I mean, they... The recreation bond. The sense for conservation proposal. Is there anything else? At this point, not that I know of. That certainly has been... Big one. Not the recreation bond. That's going to be done later. We've already agreed to put that off. Okay. Michael, the only essentials are the school budget and the city budget. Yeah. Everything else? I would say that... Can wait. The sense for conservation is also quite important because land is being used up, which you as a council might accept recommendations from the office basically to consider. So... Anxiously looking forward to seeing that final report. That's for sure. Yeah. What I'm hearing the sentiment is until we get some of that that final information, it's a little hard for us to commit to supporting any additional ballot item that raises taxes. Yeah. I'm not sure how you... By March, you can be comfortable in that 209 million dollar bond. That's not us. But that's not us. That's out of our control. It's out of your control as to whether it goes on the ballot or not. Correct. Is it out of your control for us to find out what it might cost to a taxpayer? Go ahead and ask them. We... Big apart? Go ahead and ask them. We've asked. We don't have answers. Well, they're getting the answers. Yeah. It's taking them longer than they had anticipated. I mean, I'm not opposed to paying taxes, but my personal opinion, this is gilding the living. We don't live in Los Gatos yet. All right. One comment I have is, you know, budget, cycle after budget cycle, there are always these... This is a single summary sheet, which is really helpful to the voters, right? Yeah. And the taxpayers that summarize for $300,000 house for $600,000 condo, whatever it is, right? My question is, how many times has anybody gone back and measured whether what we said it was going to be was pretty darn close to what it ended up being? That's a good question. Our auditor. Every year. Well, the auditor doesn't look at that. The auditor just puts it at the budget. We always hear what's so dover, right, at the end. So I'm just curious, because, you know, they go, our best, you know, based upon our numbers and projections and the grand list, blah, blah, blah, right, it'll be, you know, $400 extra per year of this. But we never find out if that actually... I mean, I guess you could wait for a taxpayer to go, ugh, just got my bill and it was more than... So the biggest ways to measure that, Tim, is what the actual growth in the grand list ends up being. For every year I've been here, except for last year, the grand list growth actually was higher than what was projected. So the tax rate actually went down. This past year for this fiscal year budget, in 20, because of those major adjustments that were made, a couple with the hotels and the Lowe's building and parking area, we lost a significant amount in the grand list. So the grand list slightly went down this past year for 20. And so that's one major measurement. The second measurement is what we have left at the end of the year. Did we manage the budget properly? Was there money to, at least some money to put on the balance sheet, but did we at least come out with a positive number? We've always come out with a positive number. I think we can all agree. We wish we could have put more on the balance sheet, too, but at least the budget has been managed in a way that it's never run a deficit. And then the third measurement, really to validate everything, is the audit that we get. And Ron will be doing that for fiscal year 19 at our meeting in January on the 21st. But does the audit probably doesn't include a measurement of what was projected on those summary sheets versus what actually happened? When we get the budget book, we see what the budget was, line item by line item, an actual spend. On the one sheet it says, on the $300,000 house, no, no, $105,000 condo, this is what your tax bill difference will be. And there's a caveat there. I didn't want the definitive answer, was it? And you wanted, I wanted, I was curious the following year was that projection correct or how inaccurate or how accurate was it? I got you. We can get some of that data and I can show that. I don't want to strain the process for that. And the other problem is that you're going to have to cherry pick values off the grand list where there are no property tax reductions or the property tax is different because of the income sensitivity. So you've got to pick those. But you're saying on the average, did we? You'd have to be on the average. But it doesn't matter about whether you get the homestead because the value of your home, whatever it is for that tax period and what is the tax liability would come out, should come out as, you should be able to do the arithmetic that says for a $250,000 condo the increase was what we projected $400. Now you may not pay that but the projections would be, that's what you're talking about. Are the projections accurate? Because it's too complicated to factor in who gets what as a reduction. But they know who gets a property tax adjustment. So the question is for people that didn't get property tax adjustments and they said for the $400,000 house expect a $444 increment. Is that what they got? In the same for the lower price condo. I think Tom's point earlier about we adjust the tax rate, the tax rate set in June, late June after we get the numbers from the state and where we create a projected tax rate to take to the voters to let them know that but that's corrected in June and as Tom points out every year except last the number actually got better. So it's pretty good projection what the taxpayer actually ends up paying. I suspect that it is pretty good because I don't hear people yelling that they thought the projection was going to go off. You told me it was only going to be $200 and it turned out to be $500. But with over 50% of the properties in the city getting a property tax adjustment sometimes it's hard to calculate that accurately. I mean we can measure the municipal side of things. The property tax rebate stuff I don't know if that's considered confidential information or... It is accepted in senior hands. Michael and then Rosanne. Both numbers are shown on our tax bills. If you're going to get an income sensitivity discount it shows as well as the gross numbers. So if you're going to be looking backwards you want to look back you'll see both numbers so it doesn't matter if somebody got an income sensitivity allowance. Rosanne? As you're delivering this and I know it's a very complex issue about pushing off and I'm talking about the sense for conservation pushing it off to November. My concern is that things are going up all the time and my guess is something will be on the ballot for November that could conflict with it. So I'm not confident pushing it down the road will make it a better opportunity. But the bigger issue is interim zoning. So at Tuesday's planning commission meeting the chair of the IC Open Space Committee gave their report to the planning commissioners. And I forget 1,000 parcels or... 183. 183. He was going about all of the land and he pared it down and he pared it down to 100 and I think he had a list of about 25 parcels or so. And when we gave our presentation we were giving just a rough estimate assuming there's this many acres which was roughly equivalent to what we thought they were going to come out with at the market rate it was $10 million and that's how we projected the increase or what you would need if the council would decide. So this is the issue. So the report is pretty much done he's by crossing t's and dot n's and I guess I'm going to bring it to you. So then what do you do with it? Unless you intend to do some major rezoning in order to preserve the land or other methods which I can't imagine what you would do in a timely fashion the council would come up with so what? Now we... and this is not the first time as you know that we've had committees and actually hired consultants to come up with what land do we want to preserve and over and over again they have the land you want to preserve and why? Now you're going to have another listing. What are you going to do? You know... Well, but even if you... I mean this is an out I mean an out this is a follow on to the actions you might want to take should you want to preserve some or all of those parcels otherwise what are you going to do to preserve them? So, you know I don't know if you are reluctant to put the sense for conservation on the ballot because you support it and you want it to pass and you think it will pass because of other budgetary constraints or if you are worried that the budget will pass because the sense for conservation is on there because you support both of them but in reality you don't have to support the sense for conservation the voters will vote on that or not I don't... I don't know if you're reluctant I appreciate your comments and I appreciate your letter that you sent to us Megan, do you have a question? I just wanted to say that I think it is important for this march my personal opinion for it to be dedicated to the school bond I think that we made that commitment when we decided to hold off on the recreation center but I am not wet to the idea that this needs to be that we need to wait until November to hold a future vote so I just want to put that out there Don't we have a primary vote in August this year? Do we have anything else before that? March-August So there's an August Roseanne, your point is variable I think every one of us supports preserving the open land most of us want the recreation facility as well I think... I had to talk with John Simpson a week or ten days ago he said he had some ideas and thoughts as to how we might be able to acquire some of this land without taxation right off and he didn't get into details because we didn't have the time but I think we need to explore whether there are other options for acquiring land that we want to preserve I made it very clear now and strong and I think that's who must have made your presentation He's right around the corner from me on campus in the same building we're not doing this and not doing anything we're going to do something so the question is exactly what and when and exactly how we're going to do it but I think speaking for myself and hopefully for the others we're committed to doing something and making sure that we don't let this that was the purpose of the whole IZ thing so let's make some progress here absolutely I want you to be assured that we're on the same page that we want to do it in a fashion that accomplishes what we want to accomplish without having to tax we don't have to tax and being timely so that if we do we get the votes we need and make things happen we were just trying to in that presentation show you the various ways of doing it conservation easements and donations and all that it just seems most of them are a hard thing to do in a short period of time and as we've done in the past if you don't have something in place when IZ ends you know what happened the last time you're not going to have that land available you know perhaps next year it's going to be all encumbered that's what happened last time and that sense of urgency that has something in place before you and IZ thank you well I appreciate that and I think you understand where we are it's now time to warn a public hearing for public comment, consideration and possible improvement or amendment to the capital improvement plan so I'd entertain a motion so moved second all in favor aye we're now in a public hearing is there anyone from the public do you want to go through changes we made and then open it up to the public sure is there anyone here to specifically comment on the CIP okay well so just to review we had a special meeting on Wednesday night upstairs and the council heard from the various department heads I didn't have them come back tonight because I think we I think we ended at a pretty good place but we did make some changes in terms of what was proposed and I think we ended up with $211,000 $111,000 above what last year's appropriation to the CIP was so originally if we started with the DPW budget we had considered a million dollars worth of paving and landed at $750,000 with the potential for Justin I believe to be able to apply for $160,000 grant through the state that would give us some additional funding dollars for paving his fleet was proposed at $250,000 and that was left the garage expansion which is the second year for of that project at $40,000 was left the removal of the infected ash trees was originally budgeted for $200,000 and Justin talked about how the actual cost of the trees and the replacing of them has been much less than what he originally projected and we cut that from $200,000 to $100,000 worth of work for fiscal year 2021 in the fire and ambulance we had um do we know what kind of trees you're going to use a variety of trees replacing the ash with a variety the synias evergreen I think we'll be using the arborus as a source of recommendations and follow those so we're going to use some expertise we're not just going to the gardener supply end of the year sale I just wanted to be sure you're not just going for the cheapest tree and that's how you cut the $500,000 no we're doing fewer trees and that we think they will cost less this year yes we're going to do all of them eventually but fewer this year thank you yeah part of the savings Michael was the cost in taking them down Tom I don't know if you want to comment on that at all but I think there were seven different types of trees that have been identified as replacements for the for the ash you're good alright enough let's keep going um fire equipment uh that proposed $10,000 and in um that was maintained $59,000 uh worth of fit up in station two to the upstairs living quarters there the $216,000 to the communications tower that's an annual payment that we have for the bond nothing changed there I would just note the $10,000 for the fire equipment was the CO re-filling our tanks and there's this would buy two I think this is the testing equipment but we could also work with other communities we could fill their tanks for them and test them and charge them so there's a potential to maybe make a little money and he also talked about an opportunity to go for a grant that might pull in $90,000 using this maybe but it was more for training than it was for capital stuff is that what he said you know I can't remember but anyway it just was positive under the police station the financing of the debt service service the 66,000 is the interest payment the principal comes out of the local options tax the vehicle replacement was reduced I believe the original amount was $180,000 and we took out one cruiser so the $126,000 is able to get them three replacement vehicles and fit up which includes one of the vehicles being their SUV the security and building access equipment Sean talked a little bit about this on Wednesday night it's the original equipment came with the building and it's they can no longer store that kind of footage and some of the cameras are already needing replacement so the technology is just out of date and the cameras are failing so they're replacing the building security equipment the communications computers and electronics was originally at 98 it's been cut to $76,000 and that's because they're going to purchase the fingerprint machine out of this year's budget which is $22,000 recreation parks nothing changed other than moving the bleacher replacement out one year into fiscal 22 that was for $10,000 but other projects planned there include Overlook Park improvements to Overlook at $35,000 improvements to Samansky at $20,000 which I think included converting that over to Pickleball $120,000 $20,000 is currently in there for the Wheeler House we expect to have a proposal this week from Red Lion Construction on exactly the breakdown of those costs Tim as you ask for it and as soon as we have that we'll send that out to you and that's largely for the roof which is failing there's safety issues some of the slate shingles are coming off underpinnings will need to be replaced this company that's giving are they giving a quote for the work an estimate just so we could refine the price a little bit better so it's like a pre-estimate it would be a pretty good ballpark but it wouldn't be an exact but it's not actually a result of an RFP though no we wouldn't do that until it got approved then we would go out on an RFP and get at least three quotes for the work are they being paid to give this estimate no they're doing it for free this one pointed we came up with that figure through Adam at Public Works in conversation with some people that do roofing he's met several roofers up there but this is the first kind of detail quote that we'll get other than kind of eyeballing what people think it might cause they're trying to hone in on that a lot of valleys on that roof yes $60,000 worth of improvements up at the basketball courts at veterans and a $30,000 cost for replacement of the Reckon Parks truck vehicle the only other change was we decreased the amount of the city center reserve fund proposed at $860,000 and dropped that to $750,000 based on what our current debt obligation is which is around $735,000 okay any comments or additional thoughts we had a good meeting last week where we really were able to discuss this so I'm fine with everything that was just laid out here I do have an additional file in the Performing Arts Center we have a conversation now we're outside of the public hearing so again I'm supportive of all this when I look at page 54 of our packet which is page 96 I just don't see the Performing Arts Center as having made its place on that list which again there are specific concerns about what was in it so I would just say it best to just take that off it can still be a conversation to have but right now I see that more as a wish list and this is a capital improvement plan and not a capital group wish list if we're going to keep it on there I'd like to put a pool on there but again I don't think we need either one of those things because they just haven't gone through there but the pool has been much more thoroughly vetted over the 30 plus years and I just I can't vote for the SIP with this $30 million Performing Arts Center in there two years out when the high school is also going to have if it gets passed which I'm going to vote for it is going to have a brand new auditorium and then also a black box area so that's my statement I'm not here to tell you guys because not going to change any minds but just I can't support this with that Performing Arts Center I think it could be stripped pretty easily you could add it back very easily in the future too I had forgotten about that it was easy to not pay attention to because we haven't talked about it at all since a presentation what a year ago now something like that and it's still I'm not looking at it right now is it still in the fiscal year 23 and fiscal year 24 how much? 28 yeah I think I think there's enough going on right now and enough unknowns and the school wants to focus on arts as well I would tend to agree with Tom I don't think it's something we should be focused on right now I just I forgot it was in there quite honestly I don't what are the thoughts? what are the consequences of taking it off and it can always be put back on by the same kind of a consensus I think that's all we need really for that item which is separate for the resolution tonight which is just for next year in terms of Tom's point if there's consensus among the council that we can just take it off if it comes to a point again where there's growing interest for it and if the council decides to put it back on it can be put back on yeah we can't just cross everything on it's got to be stuff that's got more substance to it yeah and I think at the time at the time it went on it did at one point it wasn't just a wish it was some real but right now I don't think it's called for or appropriate to leave it there don't forget like in probably a year or less there will be an open two big stage area on Williston Road former showcase five right oh right former higher ground is going to be vacant it has two stages well that's true there's a lot of reasons to keep it on or take it off I'm not advocating either way I was just thinking forward about open space that would be available for something different kind of open space that we were talking about before but just to make it clear it's open space open stage you do make a point that the Sears property will be empty that's a huge piece of property and if you read what's happened in other malls across the country arts have been integrated and amusement parks have been integrated libraries so anyway my I think that's an interesting point let's I would hope maybe we can take that off and we'll put it back on some time if it's if it's more timely can we do that where yes we can yeah because this was a public private discussion as I recall so just put asterisks on every number all right so are there any other comments from the public or yes any of the numbers you presented as a member of the public I have no idea what Tom is talking about if I don't see it on the screen and with a point so everything is on the website it's been on the website for two months okay the effort tonight was to keep it simple just for the resolution for me so the resolution is just for what they're approving next year Michael it's not a ten-year plan it's just what money is going into and just for the public watching just to be clear what's being voted on tonight is what the council perceives at this time because this could still change again when they finalize the budget for this year what the council is approving is what they believe tonight is a reasonable funding of major projects more than $10,000 in value for the next fiscal year which would be fiscal year 21 so that's what the resolution is and if you approve this tonight it does not lock you into anything you can still come back on January 13th and say you know I got thinking about X and I don't really think we need to do that right now and it can be changed but it's it's required by the way things are set up with the Charter with the CIP and the amendment allows us to at least move forward with a proposal to include these items in your proposed draft budget and that's really that's really the intent tonight it may be on the website but a lot of people have difficulty navigating a website Michael I'll give you this I know I can do it but one of those people I can navigate it but just as a courtesy to well there are not many people here tonight but if there were it would be good for them to see it what it is you're talking about I don't have a pointer that would be a good way does anybody want my copy we have done that so if you go back to prior meetings I'll talk about it tonight this $10,000 here this particular $10,000 for others who haven't read it or haven't gone to the website it's just a courtesy and it would be very good that's helpful to it's helpful to hear it's hard from our perspective sometimes to just sort out how much is too much information for people to kind of take in but I appreciate your comment Michael we can make sure that happens next time can we post this it is on there yeah we'll make it front and center okay thank you Roseanne in line with that you send out your packet and it's all here in the agenda if you remember to bring we're going to print out hundreds of pages but it would be nice maybe to have it just projected up there again I could just project this for the people that didn't bring their iPads or you know when you're talking about these kind of details unless you see something I appreciate that okay we can do better at our next budget make sure that happens alright so we need to vote on this correct David do you have a comment no I have a compliment to make I'm really impressed as a past town manager for all the information that the staff and the council goes through and ferrets out this stuff it's not an easy task and I just want to just note that you folks and the staff that get together and do this it's commendable we have that going on thank you most of us they don't come together all night so thank you it's a team effort a lot of folks on that one thank you we have a motion to come out of it public hearing all in favor then I would then entertain a motion to what will you approve did we take the arts thing out of it so the resolution is just for next year and we'll remove that okay so I'll move that we approve the capital improvement plan for next year okay with the caveat that it can be changed if we get into further budget discussions and need to find some additional dollars in our opinion so we have a motion to approve and the second all in favor thank you and thank you Tom for all your work yeah okay moving on to number 10 possible executive session to receive advice from legal counsel regarding the appeal of ANR weapons general permit 3-902 6 Vermont Superior Court Environmental Division docket number 142 12-18 VTEC evening help yourself to put these two town to feature a public works for more so I have on the agenda is a possible executive session counsel was provided with a significant number of settlement settlement documents that went to counsel only as well as a confidential memo by the buyer I think the executive session is on the agenda in case counsel wants to get into any discussion of the length of success or not otherwise I'm not certain an executive session is necessary but I wanted it to be on the agenda just in case and with that said I think we start to go through some of the details and Tom is here to talk about some of the bullet points this the state issued its wetland general permit last November and so a little over a year ago Tom had been engaged in discussions with the state providing comments on that general permit and the state issued it without so the city healed that position and filled it with the town of Williston we hired outside counsel and coordinated the appeal between the two municipalities settlement discussions have occurred over the last year a lot of exchange of documents and the end result is what was provided overall I think the city got a number of the things on its wishlist not everything on its wishlist but certainly got a lot more than it had been trying to get prior to the issuance so we want to go through some of the additional reasons kind of the things that weren't in the general permit as well as what the city was able to get so to back up just slightly we have a lot of stormwater work to do in south Burlington as you all well know and implementation and construction of those projects is many times frustrated by permitting specifically wetlands permitting so before this permit was even issued we had provided comments to DEC on a number of occasions about how their requirements to do stormwater work and their requirements for flood plains or wetlands or whatever it might be sort of they weren't in sync and so we'd express those concerns and DEC issued this permit specifically for water quality work but unfortunately it missed the mark in our opinion it's at a very low threshold so everything required a permit it wasn't clear in many cases and having provided comment over a year we felt the only way we could move forward here was by an appeal of this permit so that's what south Burlington most and did because we have a great amount of stormwater work relative to some of the other communities but certainly other communities kind of supported our viewpoints and our comments here as well so let me get into what we've gained in the end here okay so I think one of the most important things we gained is we got in a room with a number of folks at DEC and our concerns were heard by legal staff not just wetlands division so that was important as well and I think we understood in many ways we clarified and allowed use that's kind of a way of saying maintenance and repair so we didn't want to have to get a permit every time we go out to fix something and so that wasn't especially clear so that's now much more clear in the permit there's an impact threshold for this permit it was at 5,000 square feet we got that slightly increased to 7,000 square feet of wetland impacts before we need to get a permit another it's kind of an inside baseball thing but there's many clarifications here but how the avoidance criteria so if you're going to impact a wetland you have to first minimize and then try to avoid if you have a single piece of property and you need to avoid wetlands you go and you look on your property and say I've tried to avoid it I can't put my project over here when you're a city and they say to avoid they haven't been looking just at that piece of property they say go find that project you have a very difficult time proving that you can't do a project anywhere when it's just for treating a specific parking lot for example so we've got them to put some guardrails on that so we all understand how they're going to do that analysis so we can move things forward I think those are the big highlights I guess if there's any questions I'll go from there so this essentially broadens the general world so there will be more city projects that can move forward as we go through the process for the wetlands actually a lot of municipalities look to us to kind of carry this right well it sounds like they respected your position because you've earned that respect and you were raising good issues it wasn't a frivolous kind of pushback on bureaucracy conversations but we have some good games so did the state learn more about this than we did did the state learn more about this renegotiation process than the city did in other words what did the state do wrong in the first place by not having the conversation earlier about what they wanted you to do versus what you actually practically could do with the regulation they were proposing or whatever it was in other words you can make a law but before you make a law you're dealing with repercussions and you're probably the number one customer in the state like we just said we do quite a bit of work the reality of all the stormwater work that we're required to do by one hand and then how implementation of that work can be frustrated by another hand of the same division it's a DEC on both hands so do they have two hands that don't talk to each other there's different divisions so there's a wetlands and a stormwater division and so these wetland permits are handled by the wetland division and while there's certainly some back and forth between them they have the same high-list level manager they have a management problem where they can't figure out how to talk to each other before they issue regulations and I don't want to solve a state bureaucratic problem here but the question is in the last year did you help them figure out that they have a problem with the process that wasn't in the stipulation I guess I think I would hope that through this process more folks at DEC have heard if they want they want this stormwater work done and we're required to some of the costs of that and it may be more impacts to something like a managed wetland buffer so a managed wetland buffer for example is a lawn next to a wetland that may be in association moes and so they've been applying they've been protecting that lawn and rather than maybe let us put in a stormwater treatment practice in that lawn they'd say no, go look somewhere else for your project or you have too much impact here, reduce it so we go look somewhere else and then we can't find it or maybe we have to build a much more expensive project under a parking lot so the permit they issued didn't really look at the whole picture it was protecting wetlands in a very narrow way perhaps I think I should help them broaden the net water quality gains here that we all want this problem is not unique to the wetlands division but they're the ones that issued a permit specifically for stormwater projects so this is you know even though it took a year of conversation you got to a better place hopefully that realization in these new I guess rules will be applied to other municipalities to their benefit so it just reminds me of a problem I had at IBM I'd been there for two years and I was like I don't know 24 years old the quality department was monitoring some testing of modules and the modules had to be heated to a certain temperature but the tester so they each had their own spec there was a specification for the testing of the quality modules there was a specification for the tester itself and they both had temperature ranges right so they didn't agree with each other so the auditors would come in and they would write us a ticket for your temperatures too high and I go but this temperature has got to be this for these modules but that's not the tester temperature and I go you wrote both the specifications no we're writing you a notice and this went on for six months until I called them all in the same room and I said this has got to stop because nobody is winning here and they finally changed one of their documents and that took care of the whole problem it was just a piece of ancient history it's private business it happens everywhere thank you for that reminiscence okay so do we need to take an action Tim must have the unless there's some other comments or questions second page so I would like to move that the council approve the proposed settlement of the appeal of ANR Wetlands General Permit 3-9026 and authorize the city manager to execute the settlement agreement and any related documents any further discussion all in favor aye thank you okay very good work now we have the second one right oh it's the same one how come it's down to twice oh that's right okay sorry great we're chugging right along here that's Helen okay so we can move on to item 12 um a little bit ahead of schedule receive transfer of development rights interim zoning committee analysis report and discuss possible next steps so Bernie are you Ann I don't know Michael and Michael both of you okay that was a long document you sent us um so I have two roles here I'm a planning commissioner but I'm also the chair of TDR in terms of I think I will probably address you as the chair of TDR interim zoning committee and Bernie for the commission quick background the report was presented to the council on August the first I believe and since that time the committee me as the chairman have been trying to move ahead by either having the commission accept and approve the recommendations and guide the committee on its next steps and that hasn't happened yet and I guess that's why we're here tonight yep that is so um you were provided a memo on essentially where we are as well as the latest version of the TDR report and the gist of really the reason why we're here tonight is when the TDR committee and Michael presented the the TDR report to the planning commission first of all the planning commission thought they did a really good job on it and it's pretty comprehensive with respect to what we looked at and the recommendations there was a split in the planning commission in terms of what product it was that the city council was looking for when we looked at the language that the city council provided undertaken analysis of the program and provide recommendations there were several people on the planning commission that felt that this report essentially did that I think it still needs a little bit of review and some tweaking of the recommendations but part of the commission felt that the report met the requirements and the tasking of the city council other members of the planning commission felt that the objective of the city council was to have written regulations by the end of the process so at that point we felt that it would be a good idea to come in to the council let you take a look at the status where the TDR committee is at and then provide some direction as to whether you know essentially this is kind of there and we just need to tweak it, polish the apple, get it done and turn it in or whether there was something a lot more comprehensive that the council was looking for and so in our meeting where we discussed this we decided to hold off on making any final comments and moving forward until we got some direction on exactly what the product was that you're looking for and so the feedback item one is essentially the report has written meet the direction that you were looking for and if it does we'll move forward with tweaking out the recommendations and stuff, if it doesn't then we'd like a little more guidance on exactly what you're looking for and and prioritization on how to get there. Okay, Megan? I would like once we have the open space report and ideally the earth economics report either bolstering or not bolstering the open space reports recommendations for there to be on your committee your planning commission committee a discussion of which area should be the receiving areas outside of the southeast quadrant that's what I see as the ultimate outcome and then that would require some changes within the LDRs which is what you're recommending an option for, yeah? Yes, option four which is the recommend option by the TDR committee is essentially to expand both the sending and the receiving areas but the question is whether to proceed with writing the regulation before the end of interim zoning I would think you're going to have the open we would be receiving the open space report in January earth economics we have a smaller job for them to perform could they move that up to February by any chance Kevin, did you talk about their deadline was still February? Still February so and our end of interim zoning is February right right and time for the planning commission to you could probably tell I'm quite frustrated by this process unless we extended interim zoning for another month or whatever in order to get the LDRs because I'm one of those commissioners who believes that the deliverable that this council expected from us were draft LDR regulations draft regulations which are LDR ready and that's not a small task identifying receiving areas and sending areas in the entire city is not a small task and arriving at TDR ordinance which doesn't have what I call the fatal flaws of the one we've got is not a small project for legal staff either and so if we don't start now well we can't start now there's Christmas, there's New Years we're in January people going away and I'm one of them we've gone in January 16 to 29 for something like that it doesn't leave a lot of we would have to get cracking soon if that's the council's will separating the discussion about extending interim zoning and just looking at what's before us tonight in your report I gotta say this weekend I spent a fair amount of time with this I was looking for a reason to be concerned and then I contacted a lot of people that I go to for advice previous planning commission chairs and members as well as commercial real estate people and I basically spelled out what I interpreted in the direction it's really two-fold one assigning a square footage potentially working out the kinks to a square footage allocation to a dwelling unit and also expanding the sending and receiving areas for the TDR market program both of these are very sensible so if you're looking for a gauge from me I think this is the right direction to go in the question about whether or not interim zoning needs to be in place for one this gets adopted and that's a conversation that we need to have but for what you put in front of us tonight I think this moves in the right direction to make the TDR program I don't know more thoughtful and to accomplish the goals that are outlined in those. What we're looking for is does this report with some tweaking on the recommendations meet what you asked for originally and if it does then that's the feedback we would provide to the TDR committee and the regulations would then follow sometime later. Tell us your meeting schedule. We don't have a meeting schedule because we don't know what's next. No, no, no, but your regular meeting schedule. The planning commission? Yes. Tomorrow we're meeting. Your agenda is already set. Yes. Is that on it or not? No. And then our next meeting is second Tuesday in January. And have you finished have you finished the PUD regulations or is that something that you need to absolutely focus on since that was Yeah, that's so we're focusing on that and I think Paul, correct me if I'm wrong but you provided a separate memo with a status of all the different things we're working on. I did. It might have been a little bit varied at the end of the TDR report but there is a tax report on each of those. It is a long list. On a point of order if you like there were three items under interim zoning. The PUD project wasn't one of them. Yes it was. It was the primary one. That was part of it we wanted you to complete that. I stand corrected. But it's a project that's not going to be completed during interim zoning whereas the other two open space and TDR could be completed during interim zoning and it was my interpretation of the council's brief to us that that's what you expect. I think we expect to do all of it. My fear is if we don't do it now at least I speak for the TDR committee to work alone if we don't do it now we won't get it done. It will get there are a lot of things that might have higher priority after the action. Well not if the council says interim zoning is over but we want that done. Top of your list now there's some TDR overlay the map. I don't know if it's very rudimentary and by far not complete. As you mentioned we need to wait to see how it lies with the other things we're doing. Are there other comments on the recommendation? The recommendations I tend to agree with Tom but our charge to that committee was not to produce the draft regulations it was to produce the report. We have the report with some suggestions forward to move forward with some changes to the LERs. That's not going to happen by the end of whatever chapter of IZ work right now. I think the PUD is paramount and it was paramount at the time that we went into IZ because of the importance of future projects that are done with smart growth. I disagree with you but other things have got in the way. Most notably inclusionary zoning it's taken up a lot of the commission's time which means that's time we could not spend on the PUD project. The charge from IZ from the city council was inclusionary zoning? Yes. The council asked for it in January last year after in term zoning was adopted in parallel. We had a big appetite. More working through it. Always. One more comment I'd like to make on something that Bernie said which is that it requires tweaking the first page on the memo about interim zoning I mean about the TER work was the tweaking. The committee asked the commission for some comment and guidance on the report that was presented in July and they eventually produced that one which has got some of our comments in red. Right but the commission in the last meeting that we discussed this there were commissioners that had some additional questions that were holding on. They haven't been put to the committee yet. That's the tweaking. A question I have based on this report though is you wanted to have some kind of broker in the city staff I'm assuming to be able to bring the sellers and the buyers together and keep track and how feasible is that? I see your pickets. That was one of the key recommendations of the 2007 report too that you need to have some brokerage of those with the TDRs to whom they want that. Well that and a math to track since published the availability you know I mean just published the availability and let the buyers come. Right but that's some work considerable work is it not? It depends on what And we want to map it too sold to include I mean I think it's sort of crazy to have a TDR of land that could never be developed period and to use that as oh we're going to preserve it and you're going to pay me whatever it is $10,000 and then you can build some more stuff somewhere else is absurd. I'm not sure how that. I mean if it's billable land that's different. I'm not sure how that registry would come into being but the TDR program is voluntary the city might ask landowners to list their TDRs on this registry which is on the city's website would be open available to anybody who wants to see what TDRs are available buyers and sellers alike but it's not it's not a small task quite a bit of work for staff to do that and the DRB would have access to that so if someone came in and needed to have TDRs you could at least look it up and say this TDR is not a you could put TDRs on Craigslist right now if you want to Craigslist if you want to there's nothing to forbid you you can put it on front porch farm and say I've got 12 I mean there's obviously been no problem in the past of buyers and sellers for TDRs that have been purchased for the possible future use because I haven't heard any complaints from developers saying they can't find them they don't know who to go to has anybody heard complaints like that yes who have you heard that from from some of the developers that I spoke to which comments are there in this report but some of them said it's difficult it's difficult to find where the TDRs are through some of you go to the records book and you just call up and say hey I need 31 units you want to sell them this boggles my mind I know the statute requires or asks that this type of balance requires that the buyers and sellers or whatever it is actually the statute doesn't say that but every other city manager I spoke to I thought it did say that it says you have to have a map a map you have to have a registry or a bank but you have to have a map that says this is the acre or the 0.83 whoever came up with that that was just an acre that I'm selling right and I only can sell once presumed but what's I mean I know that we haven't yet submitted the report the open space IC committee but the draft is there for all to see the 2025 parcels are there for all to see and lining it up to this map is something that we can do knowing that this is a draft right and just eyeing it it seems like it will line up pretty well to be quite honest and one thing the other question I had was with regard to the commercial which is something I asked long ago and was told that commercial was out of the question and I don't see in the Vermont statute anything prohibiting us from using TDRs for commercial and this is something that you brought up right the report mentioned that big cities do it for commercial and the people I spoke to in Seattle and Pennsylvania they said they have never heard or seen of a TDR program where you transferred from rural to rural yeah this is what we do that's why we're here but they're always transferred from rural to industrial or rural to residential some of them only do commercial because they want to develop a particular commercial campus and what I see on those transit overlay districts on your map there's the potential there for going up right I really I see ways for you to move forward now I'm only one counselor but and I see your list of things to do but it involved maybe picking the places that we want as receiving and the places that we want as sending might be the simpler of the tasks ahead of us because once you've done that there are zoning changes particularly if you want to give density bonuses for the use of TDRs and zoning is not simple so it's a lot of work to implement the recommendations in option 4 that's just a list of recommendations but the underlying work is significant we want to get it done right in terms of the planning commission Megan suggested well you have the draft of the open space that says five parcels how many is it 23 20 is 25 so there they are on a map and you see how big they are and where they are before that's kind of adopted the TDR work yes I think that's part of the tweaking of this report is to better define the sending and receiving areas using that draft report that presumably might have a few more tweaks to the property as the basis for that conversation yep I think that's possible I think the major question is so you could go forth and do that in this early January you'll start it or something Paul just wanted to sort of put a framework around the planning commission did receive a presentation from Alan Strong last week on the top parcels that's an excellent product that the committee has done they did not, as I understand it in their recommendations recommend what should be done with these properties should they be regulated should they be purchased to be simple should it be some of the property or all of the property and so there are some significant significantly large properties contained within that list and so I just wanted to make sure that as you're having this discussion realistically broad policy recommendations by early spring and possibly regulations in the fall of 2020 just to be sort of realistic on the time frame because each one of the receiving zones has neighborhoods around them there will be a lot of interest in each of those neighborhoods as to what the up-zoning like be around them what pushes a full lever to the city want to install are all the properties appropriate to become sending areas should some of them be targeted for use of acquisition by the city or other tools I just want to be clear on the scope of the project isn't it more simple I get it if you're receiving community or neighborhood that has a potential real big impact on where you're living in terms of identifying sending areas that seems less intrusive particularly if you're not eliminating TDR so you have 25 acres and even telling everyone you're banking on selling the TDRs to send your kids to college someone to testify to your community but that could still go forward it's where who receives them sending areas may identification of sending areas may involve certain rezoning or down-zoning for example if it's a sending area that's a down-zoning to be a sending area only could be currently little to no development is allowed in any area that's a sending area that's the purpose they went from being allowed to be built upon to becoming essentially a conservation property so the development potential could be significantly increased on some time but the value in terms of TDRs remains right so you have 25 TDRs well at 0.83 acres I don't know how many you know 0.25 acres that's a lot I was supportive of expanding the receiving areas so that there would be less congestion pressure on just the Seq that's why I'm open and I support expanding the receiving areas as we're sending right but I'm just identifying one of the ways you conserve land as open space is to identify it as a sending only area that's right but that would be just one tool for conserving those small properties or whatever I'm wondering if that is something that can be adopted or approved before you actually have the receiving communities and all of this stuff I was just going to say sorry Monica Osby and I'm on both the TDR committee and the planning commission that it doesn't matter if the actual list from the open spaces is finalized or not the the plan of what to do with a new sending area no matter what it is can be treated in then whatever the zoning or whatever the language is that the planning commission can develop what the actual parcel is can be assigned later if the concept is yes we want to take X number of X properties we can work conceptually around and strategically around that and then later the two can meet again so that when an actual map is created the real parcels are there but this would by starting now and just understanding that yes generally there's a general consensus that some parcels will be converted over to sending only that will give the planning commission enough to work with I would think at this point and then again when the open space committee is finalized then we can specifically connect the geography Paul do you think that's accurate in terms of how you I mean looking at this from a framework perspective the there is there should be some form of a balance between how much acreage is intended to be conserved and what the total amount of receiving widgets are and so figuring out that balance can be done without knowing the final elements of what the sending are ultimately there will need to be you know policy decisions made around each of the sending areas and each of the receiving areas as to what gets down so what gets up what gets either up zoned or up zoned with restrictions approaches from a very macro view so you enacted interim zoning to do three major things the open space, the TDR and the PUD and I'm sure the goal was to have all of those analysis and reports done before interim zoning the plan commission had the PUD and I don't believe that's done yet because they were just working on PUDs and inclusionary zoning and other matters came to them so in the course of the interim zoning period that was not done but if you look back let's assume it was done I mean they've done that let's assume the open space reports done our report is done this is right exactly where we were in 2014 when we had the we had an open space committee we had Susag and so forth the reports were all done the people we hired, the experts to write them had written the reports in some case they even drafted the language to be incorporated into our LDRs and we're five years later and that hasn't happened I'm just trying to say if you don't do it now who is going to do it because the plan commission has so much work to do just doing planning unless you have a special entity to write your LDRs we might be repeating history again all the reports are done but the devil is in the detail we're just talking about in a few minutes little ins and outs of the TDRs is sending, receiving all very important issues that would be difficult to put in writing it would take time you know Michael's point which I agree with is get the job done now don't assume that it'll get done I mean it didn't after the last I see so just a cautionary tale that if you're going to do it finish it you know I don't disagree with being the volunteers back to write you know LDRs but most people civilians are not skilled in how to write you know zoning documents I just see it happening again you know the question before you is is the TDR committees work done with the presentation of this report or is that your expected deliverable or is the TDR committees work not done because we have not produced draft regulations to implement the recommendations that were made we ask that that be done not by the TDR committee I think the planning commission has to develop the LDRs so I guess on that question I read the report I thought it was really helpful to read you included all the minutes and everything and it was very informative at least what I got there was a lot of reading but it was really informative and I concur personally with the recommendation of four I mean I have some other things as I stated that use land that can never be developed as a trade for greater growth somewhere else I think is abusing the system and should be illegal but that's different I mean I guess when you craft the LDRs you can make that clear that we're not suggesting that you can preserve something that's already preserved for I'm going to rephrase the question in light of Dave's comment but is it the expectation and the council that the planning commission will produce the draft regulations in terms of as part of your charge well that would be my expectation but in terms of the timing I don't know if that can happen within interim zoning as the timeline is now the question will be a couple weeks before it ends whether we extend it as the person who has voted against interim zoning in extending it I will just say all of these things can still happen after if interim zoning expires it doesn't stop all this work these things can still occur outside of these bylaws being enforced no but the current LDRs are in that one oh it can happen for naught because the current LDRs are in place which allows for very different things the first quarter of 2020 right gives them through March right so we just have to be mindful too the reason for doing interim zoning from the planning commission perspective was so that they could simply focus on this and get it done now granted we've gone beyond the six months that they said they needed right but these things happen as we know right which is why we've extended it and I think we have to be sensitive to the primary impetus behind giving them nine months thinking that six months with all the time to get off the ground was maybe too quick for this to truly come to fruition 15 months now though right we've extended to 15 months we are but the initial impetus was to allow the planning commission to finish the PUD that was the reason for choosing that time limit and I want us to really keep that in mind that our planning commission's time is valuable and that is the reason why we declared interim zoning to begin with I quite agree with that interim zoning came into being this particular version of interim zoning because of the people's presentation the council got clear its functions from the residents of South Burlington that they don't want all this they want development on open space going on if we don't do it now interim zoning comes to an end it's open season the little land that we've got left the little land that we've got left in the SEQ because that's the only place we can use TDR's will be gone Michael you need three votes on this board for anything to be extended so let's just be realistic yes it was people powered but in terms of this board determining a timeline it was based on the planning commission's timeline and that is what I want to remind the people who are going to be voting whether or not to extend so it's really the first quarter of 2020 that we see in this timeline which is why I asked is that in January and the answer was no that's what I understood so it's important for us to keep that I mean Earth Economics won't be ready with their report before the current but you have two members of this committee who voted for interim zoning who are looking to your timeline in order to say yes I will vote for it and it should only be this long okay so two of the four votes that got us to where we are today I just want us to be mindful of that so are we in agreement that the TDR committee has completed their work and that this report we can task yes and you were the first to complete it well I would just comment that the the planning commission is still reviewing it and we may have minor comments on it but would I want to make clear for the public because this TDR keeping track of and it's all very you know it's too hazy it's too you know it's like mud we have in the records I'm assuming some list of who has TDRs who has sold TDRs who has purchased TDRs this can be found I mean it's not only Tim going to you know look at the properties and going and calling those landowners we have records right in our vault I would defer to Paul so just to be clear under the state law all TDRs that are transferred through development review must be recorded in the land records with a plaque an exact location of every TDR that has moved from parcel A to parcel B in addition to that there's a location or they're all sent with each move the state law says that let's say a house is built in the Rye neighborhood which used TDRs when they trip the point when they need TDRs it must be recorded in the land records exactly where those came from along with a deed restricting that parcel parcel from future development in a survey for example there's a portion of the Auclair parcel that has an exact portion of where TDRs have been the term that the state uses severed they've been removed from development so that we maintain separate from that with the work thanks to Tom Bailey and Michael we have a list of using our GIS mapping essentially all of the land that is within the natural resource protection district and approximate or close to how many acres exists in each one of those which would provide an overall close estimate of the amount of TDRs available sometimes they get severed as I just used as an example in some cases they get used within a development so the south point neighborhood for instance all the homes are relatively close to spear street they used up all the TDR potential from the eastern portion of their property so we have to account for that and that we have in a parcel by parcel basis but thanks to Michael and Tom we've got a pretty good handle on and Paul who did a very very detailed analysis which none of us would have been able to do so have we answered your question I think so yeah I don't know I'm not sure that Bernie has answered my question because the tweaking this was the tweaking we can talk about that separately but you remember in the planning commission meeting where you presented this art and in particular had some comments he wrote this okay so the process going forward then so just so I understand so we've kind of said to you you're looking at the TDR final their final report the planning commission might make some adjustments or tweaks to that final report does that then come to us you looked at it and said you know we liked the you know number 4 and I would expect that if the planning commission had any final changes that we would let the TDR committee know these are the specific things that we would like you to add some track flesh out they would do that and then the planning commission would then present that as this is 100% done right now I would say it's 90% done or 95% done but before we got it to 100% done we wanted to make sure this is what you were looking for the one question I have for Michael Monica and Tim are the business uses not currently permitted as part of your recommendation right the map uses TDRs in conjunction with current zoning to increase residential density and in some cases business uses not currently permitted what does that refer to that might refer to if I'm wrong maybe in a commercial property that the allowable log density is 50% you can build on 50% however with each TDR that you buy you can get another 10,000 square feet but I thought we were limited by the statute the units only to residential units so we have to be careful the statute doesn't refer to residential units does it copy that it can be density log coverage or other measurements of bulk those are the bulk like going up where footage it could be those are the restrictions density square footage and bulk it might be a requirement in the zone that you can only have three stories right so bulk is going up is that where to be good bulk could be going up it could be going out it could be it's broadly written to be the things that measure the size of something but it can't be for instance one use versus another use okay restaurants but non-offices the allowance of them it has to be an amount of something does that make sense yes so I have density square footage and bulk meaning height and log coverage amen I'm so glad yes to that okay good we're good I think we're good you asked the question but I never heard the answer is the PUD done I mean we know about open space no the PUD is not done so that's not done either first quarter of 2020 that's close to being done correct Paul yes yeah it just isn't quite done working working to meet the deadline thank you thank you very much appreciate it and all for free thank you to our volunteers do more things for our volunteers yes we do what do you do I'm just asking just wondering please pass them around okay moving on to item 13 this is the review and possibly approve the errors and omissions report from the tax assessor for the 2019 grand list can we have that oh okay I was thinking well I didn't remember reading it so okay so Todd had shared this listing with me I didn't ask him to be here tonight because there's nothing that represents any change in value but it's merely corrections misspellings wrong address those types of comments but there's a requirement of our charter for the grand list these corrections need to be approved by the city council every year so there are some on the back as well it's and that's kind of the shortlist as you can remember we've had years that this has been eight or more pages long are these new rental properties changes I'm not sure maybe yeah do we usually have this many mailing changes an enormous number of corrections like if something changed in terms of how we gather data this is a shorter list it's typical well I've seen it eight to 13 pages long and there's been this many mailing address changes that's what I meant not always on the mailing address now what typically causes a mailing address change wrong number of the house misspelling of the name of the road just to change not the actual address has changed or could the address there be more likely than a number for the road I just want to say I do see a lot in the not only but a number I'm not saying even I didn't count I'm not saying mostly but I see a lot in the Chamber of Labor mailing address change why would you think that's because they've become rentals because of the gorilla 35,000 pounds of gorilla in my neighbor all right do we need to approve this we do I'll move the way we approve the area's any further discussion all in favor I is a liquor board did you guys get the background the weird window yes it was about 85 pages I mean really what was the separate I know it's a separate thing I just want to make sure so that makes a question council be privy to some of those documents in here I mean we were successful in getting the social security numbers should we be privy to some of this background check information I mean part of the requirement for us to be able to see it is for the application for the state because this thing goes on to the state liquor control right right but I'm just curious do we need to see that but we swear to uphold German law so we are I think also held accountable to maintain private information I understand I mean this couple went to an excessive amount of any fractions all voluntary oh I know I feel like math test in eighth grade I took it into account well you can't believe how much stuff they hold we've never seen before no I'm not going to share it but it was just remarkable I mean usually it's just the speed is being taken on or DUI or something big but this was a man all right I moved to approve I moved to enter the liquor control board all in favor all right we are now the liquor self-rolling to liquor control commission we have one application before us for the weird window brewing LLC I moved to approve do I have a second second any discussion this is the former Farton this is Farton oh they had some really some really good beer but anyway let's vote well they probably sold beer too I'm sure the new company is going to have good beer too any other discussion okay all in favor all right now the councilors on committee assignments oh I'm sorry I moved to adjourn them I moved to exit the liquor control board second all in favor okay so moving on reports from councilors on committee assignments does anyone have any I'd like to report a few things so one we're facing a very tough budget here I just want to say again these things don't generate themselves so I just really appreciate the articulation process I'm not faulting GMT at all but I just think we're not looking at nearly as as a sustainable picture right now we're sure falling short about a million dollars it's we've been completed all our reserves so we've opened up conversations with a variety of legislators but we are making some very deep and painful cuts and so that's going to happen for the next month or two service cuts as well as others I'm also tomorrow morning 7 a.m. is the last meeting and I will be chairing I'm going to be stepping down as chair as of January 1st and that was already the case for quite some time I was going to do it last July but I extended for six months but I will stay on the board as long as you all are still okay with me there but the new chair will be Monty Wendiger and we have yet to be the vice chair I plan to stay active and we are engaged with the state health with the variety conversations about more sustainable funding methods that are we see in other states our registration fees I'd also love to be able to assess the rural communities in the same way our urban communities are assessed like us so we're looking at a variety of different ways creative ways for the long term sustainability of public transportation in the state but sadly I would expect that we can see a decrease in service hours in South Burlington next year just because we can't continue to offer the frequency necessary we've got to find the savings somewhere we're finding a variety of places is that at late night it'll be likely it all has to be approved by the board but everything I'm seeing is mid-day so part of the next gen was to go to 20 minutes throughout the day and so that consistency was a big plus and it just helps for people that use it to get to work but we'll probably go after 30 minutes during the mid-days that saves about $250,000 here in that frequency and we're going to look at other cuts in the rural areas so while you're going to ask them for money it's interesting to look on that one how much of your revenue is fares? about $2.2 million right now, Tim Asch as well as Kurt McCormick are intrigued by the notion of fare free because we should see ridership increase we just need to find money and that represents 1% of your budget $22 million budget so it's so it's not unheard of but where does that money come from? I don't understand I've got some other ideas I could talk to you about it but I don't think this body would have much influence over that it's like giving away fares for free and then you dig yourself a bigger hole and you cut back service and people get disenchanted and go back to driving their cars I think honestly this is a problem that's been around for decades it doesn't seem to be getting everybody keeps hoping people are going to get out of their cars on buses and make more progress somehow it doesn't seem we ever make progress on any public transportation really and you can't go the rural communities are all stretched in on their budget so you're going to go ask them for more money forget it they already are giving us money but every year to go to 45 plus communities and ask for a 3% increase and sometimes they cut us from the budget because they get new select board members and they are looking to trim I wanted to just be able to send them a bill it's about $5,000 to $10,000 in the smaller communities that graduates each year that would make our rural side more sustainable and our support is statutory isn't it we are part of the Colchester is flirting with joining Colchester might join as a member community we're going to be discussing a service agreement that would get us to there how much do we pay now $525,000 last year will you set that assessment tomorrow the board might go for 5% increase last year we were at 4% I representing the interests of South Burlington currently only supporting a 4% increase if you want to influence that I can go another way we already increased it last year to 4% and now this year again we're trying to find out just about everywhere I just feel like we are overtaken urban communities and I want to find more ways for all of our 5 counties to contribute I'm currently only at the 4% but if you all say you're ready to go 5% talk as long as he's okay with it oh yeah I don't know what that difference is it's probably enough for $5,000 well I commend you for the attempt you've made it's most unfortunate I love the bus I have to follow up on what you said which was very disheartening and we can't leave it on that note I have to say that when it's horrible weather outside I am so glad to just go on the bus I let someone else deal with the mess deal with the traffic I can sit I can read I can do my emails I am in warm comfortable environment I love the bus yes and I love your new roots I love the next gen I can go from 20 to 30 minutes I think that's reasonable I just I find it to be just an ode well all I'm saying is it's been a battle we've been fighting for years and years and years I remember back in the house transportation committee 30 years ago same discussion same argument same problem same challenges and justice it's just a matter of seeing the light to me it was a matter of seeing the light because I was someone stuck in my car with my little parking sticker through all that bottleneck to get to UVM for years and all of a sudden they made parking much more difficult at UVM I said let me try and it was like why haven't I been doing this since day one this is a dream it is just lobby the state house to increase the gas tax by 75 cents so for what it's worth some of that for GMT what is worth ridership is finally increasing but we had four declining years and to your point ridership on public transportation tracks exactly inversely to gas prices and the economy sure better the economy the less they take so to your point increase gas prices the gas taxes people will take public transportation or if we have a major economic downturn that would really help yeah! yeah I mean things are finally increasing I do want to make that clear we're up I think for ridership but there's four solid years of double digit declines you hear the gas went over four bucks do you have any recollection what happened I'm just curious oh transportation was that bad if I recall correctly but I've used up a lot of time on this I just thought I'd give you some heads up well no it's worth $5,000 to spend some time I would like you to stay at 4% if you can personally I don't know there might be a majority of voters to go to 5% well I get that but I think that's where I am I mean do you want some like a little vote or something are people wishing for it to go up to 5% or it might anyway I just put it out there when I had a conference in Washington DC free transportation Georgetown free transportation and they did that after some kind of catastrophe was it and I'm sorry I've been grading for weeks on end so I cannot and we don't need to dwell but it's something that municipalities do invest in it is part of the plan to create you know an environmental plan and a smart energy plan so if it's $4,000 or $5,000 I tend to say I'd go for 5% you know Burlington still has that part of now it's the purple line it's still number 11 they still have it on the bus that's free going up to the hospital from the old north or is it the new north end where it starts I can't remember that's because it serves a purpose it serves a social purpose and there's something to that so it actually it's only about $3,000 but it will be a larger risk if we're recalculating it but the 4% or 5% difference is $3,000 $3,000 that and the other option I'd go for $3,000 $3,000 more than what we pay now VA assessments add to that we can't control well you're the chair at the moment and you've been watching this more closely than anybody else so I value your opinion what do you think we should do I want to stay at 4% for the following reason I have a letter from our auditor who is Ron Smith we all know and he wrote a very nice letter he's been with us for 8 years and that he too sees our financial insist are sustainably unsustainable financial app picture and he looks to really rural communities that it is unsustainable since we merged in 2009 we need to extend the same methodology that we use for the urban communities for our entire service network but that didn't happen so he wrote a letter saying we need to look at our birthright open up our charter and find a fairer funding method across our entire service region so I'm at 4% because I want to put pressure on that but I also want GMTs to succeed so I'm on the bubble here and I didn't want to be the deciding bloke tomorrow is what I was kind of going to say we should go to 5% I've gone with that but you're the expert on this one and I'll go with what you say while I fully understand what Megan has said because if they can accomplish the same purpose the semantic pressure based on the auditor's recommendations that's the right thing to do that's what you try I'll go with the 5% but if I'm not then I'll go to the floor tomorrow we'll go with what you decide best okay any other committee assignments just that we put together the final parcels we put together the final narratives on the parcels and it's been presented to the planning commission and it's open space open space IC that's fantastic here are valiant member who's done a lot of legwork for the committee I just want to thank him publicly in addition to Alan Strong Duncan Murdock as well and Allison Schell Amanda has done amazing work it's an amazing committee of people we've had Bernie and Tammy Zilka and Tammy is very detail oriented it's an amazing committee airport commission meets Wednesday I had hoped for this committee that I would have had the final draft of the MOU but I haven't gotten that yet from the mayor he is coming to the airport commission I think I mentioned that last time share his thoughts on the MOU on this Wednesday he's early on in the close to four o'clock so anyway I don't have anything else to report next time I will unfortunately for him anything else? okay it's nine o'clock do you want to take a quick little quick stretch and then we will come back for the final couple issues we don't have much to go so I'd like to call back into order the South Frontine City Council meeting of Monday December 16th 2019 and we will pick up at item 16 which is the council discussion and possible approval of a proposal from earth economics to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of certain properties in the city of South Burlington so Kevin so the I went back to earth economics with the refinement of the mission and they came back to us with the proposal that I sent to you that was more tightly honed in on the 20 I think I said to them properties that have been identified by the open space committee what those properties are can be decided at some point but the response is that the one that they came back to you and I sent to you they haven't started with the 20 properties we've identified they have the map don't they they haven't started with it you guys actually need to approve their proposal and the price tag for that I think it responds to the change the change in focus well they still are looking at a February completion date roughly half the price of the old one so if it meets your expectations and needs John Stewart continues on with more budget specific budget related portion of that study but if you want to give me the go ahead tonight we'll get on the phone tomorrow and have them crank it up I'll move the way is that what you're going to do? I'm just going to say I'm still going to vote against it I voted against it the last time I just don't think it's worth $27,000 I don't think it's going to tell us anything we don't already know and I'd rather spend $27,000 on more paving but again I'm not going to try to convince you guys I just don't think this report is necessary to continue down the path we are going towards sensible smart growth and conservation that's all I'm going to say Tom I understand what you say but I do think we'll learn something because we've got experts who will confirm what we might surmise and I think it will give us some data for the future that can be valuable going forward and for that price with 20 parcels that have been clearly identified by a committee that's worked really hard to identify them and asking us to do something with them and understand their value I think this is probably something that's a valid expenditure I'm not jumping up and down about it but I'm okay with it that's just my reasoning and so for that I would move our approval and as far as February is concerned everything we've talked about and everything we do takes longer because it's predominantly volunteers people take vacations some people have jobs and it's hard to schedule meetings and then you have the holidays and who knows what else and so reality is reality so let's just do the best we can so I think this is probably something we should do and it'll be done when they say it'll be done, fine other comments? we need a second any other comments from the council? thoughts? Michael before you vote on this I have some questions about the basic assumptions that earth economics has made in the first table that they presented they say business as usual the cost of degraded ecosystems and the loss of ecosystem services and the benefits would be revenue from property tax we already know that open land returns that the return of open lands are quite beneficial to a city and we also know from the Vermont National Resources Council that expanding the grand list or the population shows that and they've done this over a number of years for 20% of towns in Vermont that have a population of over in several categories but they've shown that the taxes go up they don't go down when the grand list is expanded or the population expands so I don't think it's a valid assumption on their part that the benefits are going to be revenue from property taxes when you expand the revenue doesn't cover the additional costs of infrastructure I've got to say something about that Michael because I've been quoted on that as it relates to the sustainability of the budget and I was taken out of context on that had nothing to do with growth when I made that comment I think that you have to consider the sources of where that came from as whether or not those sources are valid representations of the issue I know the person who made those representations in Vermont over the last 20 years and I don't think that it meant without some bias going in so I'm going to say I was referring to anything that you say I use that opportunity to bring that up because I think I was taken out of context that's not what I meant it's a study that was done by the Vermont Natural Resource Council and the Vermont League of Cities and Towns and I believe that Alan Strong presented at least one part of it yes he did so it's a question in my mind where they're starting from that maybe that's not a good place to start from and that the costs of the costs of open space are lower revenue because and the benefits are preserved ecosystems yes but I don't think it's necessarily lower revenue there are other state organizations that and it may also be the Vermont Natural Resources Council that have shown a very good return on open map but I think figure two gets to that return where we have air quality biological control climate stability, disaster risk reduction the benefits of ecosystems are entitled to yes so that's the return right so they are going to be quantifying that return in addition to looking at you know tax income tax or property taxes they're going to be doing it for each person people on the table because we can talk about this all night and I have lots of opinions but I want to keep us here all night so I think I've said what I wanted to say and I think you should take note of what I'm concerned about those basic assumptions by earth economics thank you any other comments or discussion ready for the vote all in favor of having our city manager agree to a this proposal from earth economics for 26,000 change signify by saying aye aye post carries four to one thank you thank you Kevin for following up on this thank you so the question I guess I have because I'm not sure that it was understood before it came to me will they now be able to look at those 20 parcels or do we need to approve the 20 parcels before they look at them I think if you can get from the open space committee the 20 that are set them to you would you go back and just confirm it because I have two different things can you let me put it this way can you send the list to me again after this vote and then I'll send that tomorrow okay thank you item 17 council discussion and possible approval of amendment to the natural resources committee authorization that would adjust the number of members on the committee and the number of members to achieve so as you may have heard the natural resources committee is down several members and we have been advertising for new members to join the committee and we have not gotten any applicants yet this has caused a problem for the natural resources committee and their ability to conduct their business I would like to propose to the council that you set the number of committee members for the natural resources committee at anywhere between six and nine and that a quorum shall represent one half of the committee members plus one at any given time on that range of active appointments this will allow so moved second discussion clarification if we say seven four and a half people five oh four if it's seven it's four take it cut now okay if it's not a number it's okay yes do we have specific wording on that or is it just what you're pretty much what I just said because you are the city council and these are your committees you can decide was the current number they had nine just nine they're authorized for nine so this allows them to continue to be a viable committee if someone finds or we can only fill two of the spots but they can still go forward as a function the optimal is nine we'll continue to work to advertise for nine we really encourage people to think about a Christmas gift or a holiday gift to someone encouraging them to apply a nomination for the new year trying to convince someone they know there we go David has his hand up so we would like to say something I'm speaking as a former chair of the natural resource committee the natural resource committee is going through a bit of a trouble time I had to resign for personal reasons and all but I think that we really do appreciate the commitment that the council is trying to make to help us through this period and thank you for that so still a very interesting member of the committee but not the chair thank you okay everyone ready for the vote okay all in favor is there any other oh I'm sorry we can skip down to the first no the executive session 20 possible council action on extending the right of first refusal related to the conservation of property we have this relates to the all clear issue that Paul raised with you at the last meeting we have reached an agreement with wild turkey divide LLC which was dirt capital or is dirt capital to extend the right of first refusal period till such time as we have an appraisal on the property and within four weeks after that so they're dirt capital do they change their name or do they have another name I think that's what this project is called so this relieves any pressure that you have today on making a decision about exercising the option so I don't think you need to do anything okay thank you good all right possible executive session received confidential attorney client communications relating to the pending appeal of the city of Burlington zoning permit 20-05 one four C A there is no other business and no other business I had some other business no other business at the executive session okay so before we go into executive session there's some other business okay so one public works needs to put the 25 mile an hour speed limit sign back up on northbound spear street at quarry hill entrance the police department cannot issue tickets until they put that sign back up because they paved it and it's been lacking since then I think about that every day when I stay at 35 it's great I help I know I know and I know everybody's busy there's been some snow and stuff don't they have one of those things you just turn the drill on and go right down and they hit a gas line you know okay is there any other business there are a couple potholes opening up I just want to point them out there's one on feral street next to eastwood common one I think it is is it there and there's another one that's on spear down it's on the uphill north side after you go to the interstate somewhere down there it's you know it's a delamination but the problem is once that water gets in there and freezes it's just going to start breaking up and get deeper we've got the honey wagon let's go out third one on Kimble Ave $1,300 damage just broken shock broken shock suspender I thought you were making a joke about the bridge being out that's the biggest pothole where's that one I'll ask my husband exactly where down there all the way the other day Kimble which direction at erratic french driving I don't think so he's pretty safe he's pretty good driver I'll ask him specifically I'll send that to Kevin along with the maps put a pin on it right and send it out after the weather that we've had the last couple of weeks it's no surprise any other business okay no other business well then I would entertain a motion to go into executive session briefly stated before the appending appeal second all in favor oh and I invite Colin McNeil I had I knew you when you were little how do you look familiar or young I shall say well you're taller okay and and you are you and we will not be coming back into session for any so that we will adjourn following that executive session