 All right well so welcome everybody I'm gonna call the meeting to order so the first thing on the agenda is meeting logistics and I'll go more over that when as we go along so the first thing is to review and or the next thing is to review and approve the agenda so just looking at the oh yes I am not on the zoom yet but I will do that um do we is the zoom available it is okay yes so we will have her introduce herself soon right so actually let's do that counselor Brown Carrie Brown right can you hear us yes I can hi this is Carrie Brown attending remotely tonight excellent all right and all right so yeah reviewing and approving the agenda so looking at the agenda for today I don't know of excuse me any changes does anybody else have information to that end and Carrie just speak up because we can't see you yet so anybody have information to about changing the agenda okay all right so with that we'll consider the agenda approved all right so we're move on to general business and appearances this is an opportunity for any remember the public to make a comment on any item that is otherwise not on our agenda and if you would say your name and where you live that would be great try to keep your comments under two minutes and Donna's gonna help us with that she'll hold up a sign at one minute and then stop sign at two minutes and we might interrupt you if you if you get to that point if you there you go if you wish to speak you need to be called on by me and if you have multiple questions or comments we would ask that you make them all together sort of sequentially and then we can address them after you've made your comment or ask your questions all together so that we could because we don't really do a like a back-and-forth sort of setting in here and also try to keep your comments germane to the discussion of general business and appearances is for anything that is not on the agenda and we typically take up public comment on regular agenda items as we go alright so I think that is all I want to say for now so if you have something you'd like to say now is the time Zach Hughes go ahead thank you for recognizing me Mayor Watson Zach Hughes from a prospect in Montpelier Prospect Street and I just want to first of all thank Chief Pete and the police department for their gracious response in the Garton Park removal when we all got together for to commemorate that and you know and I also want to state that I we had our homelessist task force meeting today and I felt like it was a very productive meeting is that we were able to talk about things and feels like getting things kind of done I know we're not going to solve this overnight and I'm not interested in actually solving it just looking at solutions and so I just wanted to say that and also hopefully you can shorten the meeting for Bill tonight as he needs to get up early in the morning thank you thank you anyone else in person wish to make a comment with regard to Garton Park shame on you each and every one of you to yank that out from under the most even Whitaker to yank that resting place out from under the most vulnerable people in Montpelier is a gross disregard callous indifference bordering on criminal the packets you need to have some printed packets here to respond to agenda items it was a habit of having several packets it's fallen in the wayside I'm reminding you to start it back up again online records are insufficient we need to address ownership of the orca recordings to facilitate I object to the two-minute time when a person has a number of topics to raise you it's the violation of open meeting law to constrain it to two minutes we still have inches of dirt in the street this is the third minute meeting that I brought that up you can't wait for a quarter million dollars and was his advisor going out in the streets he just told everybody's face but it's contaminating people's food in their outdoor restaurants just look at state that I find out later on the D.D. Bank she's not just a mud that's not going to be picked up by a street sweeper it needs a shovel and a wheelbarrow or a truck we have broken planter boxes we had several that collapsed into the river and yet we had pretend that we're all green and clean so we don't maintain the infrastructure we have there's planter boxes on the Langdon Street bridge that are collapsing on the north on the south side the LED lighting has been vandalized and it is inoperable on one of the on one of the spans I know you're paying attention right but yet we we tell that we require the new business in town that puts some art on the side of their building to take it down because it's not in keeping with our architecture so the hypocrisy of the double standard is not is not living up to our best the trash is overflowing on the bike path both barrels will fall and no one is attending to it we need cooling spaces the unsheltered folks now have no sun shelter and on days it's already 80 degrees and they need cooling space I dropped into the transit center before five o'clock today but unattended no staff bathrooms were locked in violation over your two minutes if you could wrap your comments up thank you so we're still not enforcing the lease with the transit center tenant to keep those bathrooms open until six o'clock and it's just unconscionable your gross disregard for our own tenant landlord tenant arrangements is unconscionable while we have a emergency of people shitting on the riverbank so all right thank you very much all right anyone else in person no hey thank you I wasn't done you've over your two minutes thank you very much and you're done please do not speak out of turn thank you yeah okay oh thank you anyone else in person wish to say anything okay all right Linda Berger go ahead here's the end you I was trying to find the end mute hi my name is Linda Berger I live in district 2 in Montpelier I'm requesting that the city's progress update and supporting information for the city of Montpelier water recovery facilities notice of alleged violation of air pollution control regulations be put on the city council agenda for an upcoming meeting is that it less than two minutes true thank you yeah we could do that all right great thanks all right anyone else with us virtually wish to make a comment okay all right well then we are going to move on to the consent agenda is there a motion okay motion and a second and any further discussion okay all in favor please say aye aye aye okay and opposed okay so the consent agenda passes I just pipe up real quick on that I only just noticed that the minutes work on there so obviously you all had a link to the minutes we'll just have those on next time including the minutes of that apologize I should have looked closer at the agenda Cameron is there any way we can get the sound louder there are a couple folks who are not muting their microphones and was it pops up with them well folks are talking so if folks listening could remember to do that John would you mind saying that one more time what you said there are two or three people who don't have their microphones okay that was that was it okay and that's definitely going on yes I'm at the part about the minutes oh the minutes oh yeah I just I just was aware that the minutes were on the agenda I apologize for that I'll try to look for that next time but obviously you all got a link they are done but we'll formally put the on the next agenda along with minutes for this one okay great thank you okay so we are up to an appointment to the rightsville damn board member and so for that actually I don't know that there's any so we have one representative it has currently unfilled gentleman Dan courier who is present has volunteered Dan was a former member and then it had to step off because there was a conflict of interest with his then employer the central Vermont Regional Planning Commission who I believe he is no longer employed by so he no longer has a conflict of interest has reached out to us and would love to get back on and I probably just stole your speech Dan yeah if you'd come introduce yourself to us thank you yes thank you so yeah so Dan courier District 3 over on George Street and so as Bill kind of highlighted I was a member of the rightsville board previous planner with the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission as well just a little bit too conflict the the appearance of a conflict of interest as bad as a conflict of interest as they say and so I'm a step down from the Montpelier board probably about six years ago seven years ago and then sort of supported rightsville as the staff person from CVRPC so stayed involved through that position and so I learned of a vacancy because I've stayed in touch with the board and their manager Colin O'Neill and just knew that they were seeking the second Montpelier rep to be replaced because there's two one is John Copants and then the second one is vacant any questions for Dan okay is there a motion and make a motion to nominate Dan for this position and we mean a point yes a point yes okay so there's a motion and a second any further discussion okay all in favor please say aye thank you and a post okay thank you all right thank you so much thank you for your service all right so we are up to the meeting standards policy so this is an internal policy to the city and how we operate so but also affects of the public and how we how we work with the public bills or anything else you want to say about this we did have this reviewed by our lawyer correct so we had an issue that came up we've had issues with interruptions during meetings and council sought to create some more rules so we took a look at those in place in other communities drafted about had it run by our attorney who made some suggestions those are all incorporated and brought them to the council for your discussion so I've taken a look at this we'll have comments from council and then come from the public and then we'll go back to a discussion amongst the council but first thoughts from the council on this I was very impressed in the detail and it seemed to cover lots of needed material and things we haven't thought of that will prevent unknown conflict hopefully there was a section which I can't find about subcommittees I had a question about the wording subcommittees the only section I'm aware of is that in the very first paragraph it talked about how this refers this counts for all board committees task forces doesn't actually say subcommittees but the intent is that even though it uses the words council and mayor it's meant to infer any committee in its chair okay I'll review it and let you know I think it's just missing a word that's all but otherwise I really really appreciate the work done on it yeah any other comments on this okay all right comments from the public anyone in person I have a few comments can you all hear me oh I'm sorry I carry go ahead carry that's okay I was trying to use headphones and thinking you might hear better but it didn't work so I have I have just a few comments on this first of all I think it looks fantastic thank you it's very very thorough very detailed I really appreciate it I think it will make things a lot clearer but I have a couple things that are just sort of you know sort of minor nitpicky and then I have one bigger question about it so the first one is under section under the general rule section B number five it's titled unwelcome physical conduct but then it references and welcome physical contact so I'm just thinking that that might just be a little bit of a typo and maybe it needs to be consistently physical contact rather than physical conduct oh I can I can let staff sort that out it was just jumped out at me the next thing is just two items later in number seven where it talks about appropriate attire and again slightly nitpicky thing but we don't want to actually require people to wear pants right like somebody could wear a dress or a skirt we want people to be closed on their top and their bottom however they do that right so I don't think we should specify the exact articles of clothing so if we could just change that to be more inclusive I think that would be helpful and then the third and final thing that I had is if we go down to the next section addressing the city council and in in letter C it references the mayor and or council at their sole discretion may choose not to designate public speaking time certain tonight everywhere in this document it gives the mayor the sole authority to exercise their discretion about who gets to speak and when and how long and all that which I think is completely fine but in this section and in one other a little bit later on number three section D it also references something about the council and so it's a little unclear whether I mean for instance does that mean that the council can override the mayor or tell the mayor what they think they the mayor should do or do we want to reserve that authority solely for the mayor so that's a question I have about that the wording so my read of this which again I got from another place but as I looked at it and thought about it it was that the yes the council could choose to say we're not going to have public comment on this issue or the mayor could say we're not going on the council to say but we want to so I think it was designed as a check and balance in case so you know in the event that they weren't in sync the mayor was trying to cut off debate and the rest of the council wanted to have it or the other way around and then there was a place where it similarly where it talked about the mayor couldn't shut things down and it basically said if the mayor doesn't the council can vote to so again I was just in case the majority of the council didn't feel that the mayor was properly running the business of the meeting so I just took it as a check and balance of the system so that it didn't it allowed the council to have input on this as well. Mike I make a detailed suggestion just as a meeting runner and stuff I strongly suggest instead of the word mayor you use the word chair the mayor chairs the meeting but the mayor isn't necessarily the only chair of the meeting the the president could be chair of the meeting and presumably you'd want to vest that authority in whoever's chairing the meeting not necessarily you know if the mayor is not there the chair becomes disempowered. So in the intent at the very beginning it says wherever the word chair the term mayor is used here and it shall also mean the presiding officer of the board committee or task force etc. Sorry about that. I'll shut up now. It's all good. Jack go ahead. Thank you Miss Bonnie to Kerry's point the other thing that I would point out consistent with what Bill was just saying is that as a matter of parliamentary law if the if the chair makes a ruling it is subject to challenge and and there can be a vote to either sustain or overrule the ruling of the chair and so that is provided for in Robert's rules and so that I think is encompassed by the chair and council language. If I may for the purpose of notes council member Brown I didn't hear full the sounded here isn't that great tonight. I couldn't fully hear your comment about number five. I just want to make sure I got the notes right about the unwelcome physical contact. Contact should say not conduct work. Yeah it's just that. Yeah two different. Thank you. Okay. Yeah I also just want to note I so I read through this the first time as well. I also had a similar reaction to the to the clothing section. Let's see if I can find where that is again. Yes. Yes. We could. I mean I'm interested in what the council would like to do with that. I could see us keeping it. Well I don't I agree that we should not be specifying particular articles of clothing. But so I could picture taking that whole section out or modifying it in some way. If you thought of any thoughts on that particular part. Yeah. I mean has this issue ever risen are we worried about it. I wonder if we could add it back in if it became an issue. It's like when I read it I kind of thought it seemed a little like archaic like some of our old things like me proper. I've never seen it come up and I don't know. Some of you have been around longer. Is there some is there a problem we're solving here. So maybe we just take it out and I think it's fair to take it out now. And if it comes up we'll add it back in. Yeah. Does that work for you Kerry. Yeah it does. I think it can be eliminated. Okay. So I've got three changes so far taking out the seven typo and was the third thing you said Kerry. Oh I'm not a change but just a clarification about the mayor versus the council having authority to do things and I think that you know Jack's point about the council always being able to technically override the mayor is means that we're completely covered. So I think it's fine. All right. So I'm going to go to the public now for comments anyone in person have a comment. I have not seen the policy. I think that this should be handled similar to an ordinance. It has the potential to impact the rights of citizens and their ability to participate in the process and it should probably be handled with a public hearing or two and a lot more public notice and printed copies available to be looked at. It's pretty far reaching and I know you're with your two minute shenanigans you're quick to override people's rights under open meeting law. So I that's pretty much my comments without having seen it. I can't provide tonight informed comments on the details. It was posted with the agenda on Friday. That's insufficient. That's you've spoken out of turn a second time Stephen. So I just would like to note that one of the I'm going to point out a section of the of this post. Oh, we haven't. Okay. I will do that in a bit. Okay. Zach. Zach Hughes from Prospect Street Montpelier again. I know I serve on a body and we're struggling with this. So what I've heard from my body from the committee I'm on and was they were concerned about and just be cautious as you pass this that you're not closing out situations of commentary that you're open. I appreciate the mayor being open to flexibility on certain situations with the two minute rule because that's necessary sometimes. I also I'm very skeptical about I'm sure you guys will get rid of it tonight. The clothing thing really kind of you know that that to me is to this isn't Florida. So not yet. But I appreciate that. I just want to urge caution. I appreciate that the city attorney did look at this. So thank you. Thank you. Anyone else in person? Okay. Well, there's a couple folks with us digitally. So I'm going to go Peter Kalman first. Go ahead, Peter Kalman Montpelier. Can you hear me? Yes. Again, a caution. I have read it and the portions that deal with verbal behavior are obviously somewhat subjective. And as they as they must be. But it's not going to make the problem go away. It's going to be a tough one. So I think that Zach's point about flexibility is a good one. And certainly Mayor Watson, you've been very, very good about about that. And but I'm not sure that this policy is going to make life an easier. Thank you. Thank you, Peter. Go ahead, Linda Berger. Yes, thank you. I have one comment and one question. The question is how does this mesh with the meeting logistics section on the agendas? Specifically, and this gets to my comment of the back and forth part, because on basically the general requirements kind of refer to comments, not questions. And sometimes if there are questions, there has to be a bit of a back and forth because the person is seeking clarification or answers. Yeah, it's always the discretion of the chair and there. But the idea is that you would ideally have all of your your questions and comments together. And if it says comments, my interpretation of that is that's like an umbrella word that might be questions and comments sort of together. But we could clarify that to say questions and comments. Donna, go ahead. Is it a bit different when it's a general appearance comment versus when we have a topic is on the agenda? And someone asked a question. I haven't treated it differently. Unless I mean, there are times when people have asked questions, whether there's a quick sort of kind of answer and we could get right back into the comment. But in general, I guess my preference would be to keep it all together, unless folks have other thoughts. They are addressed slightly different ways are basically the same. But there are two different sections into the question Ms. Berger just raised. It says direct conversation between a member of the public and a council or staff member may only proceed with permission from the mayor. Okay. So it doesn't rule it out. But it's basically saying it shouldn't shouldn't be direct comments should be to the mayor about a person can respond or, you know, with permission that can be allowed to be continued under general business is really, I think intent the intent is people just raise an issue. Obviously, if there's a question, in fact, it says at the end, mayor members of the council manager or other city staff may choose to respond to public comments during general business that appears are obliged to respond to a response from a city official does not open the issue for full discussion at that point. Okay, great. All right. Vicki and Lane, go ahead. Hi. I have a couple of things, one of them not having anything to do with this particular thing, which I'll do first. Did you intend to not record this meeting because it doesn't appear to be recording? And also, it would be kind of nice just to actually see what you're looking at and talking about. So I went on and to the minute the agenda packet and couldn't find it. So just curious. Thanks. Thank you, Vicki. The document is available with the agenda. So you could directly go there and see the document that we are talking about. Any comments on the recording? It's working. Usually, oh, okay. That's true. That's fair. Okay. Recording in progress. All right. So I don't see anyone else with this digitally, but does anyone else have a comment who has not spoken? Okay. There's been a comment made twice tonight that restriction of the time is in violation of the public meeting law. And we have looked at that. The public meeting law says that a public will be given a reasonable opportunity to express his opinion on matters as long as orders maintain. It doesn't say that it's unlimited and it doesn't say it says public comment shall be subject to reasonable rules established by the chairperson. That's actually in the statute. There is no requirement. I'm not urging that you do this at all. But in fact, there's no requirement to allow public comment on any agenda item. You can have, it is a meeting of the public. The law allows that the public may attend and watch and listen and pay attention. It's a meeting of the council, a meeting of the council or whatever the committee might be. And it's here to do public business. You certainly can choose to and it's been a long tradition here in the city that we do that. And I certainly would hope that we would continue to do that because, but for example, our school board takes all its public comment at the beginning of the meeting on any topic and then proceeds to their meeting without any further public comment. The Bowlington City Council does the exact same thing. So there's no requirement that we have any comment on every item at all. So to the extent that we permit it, the law is very clear that it can be subject to reasonable rules established by the chairperson. And that's really, I think what we're doing here only having the full council, you don't have to adopt these at all if you don't want to. But it's incorrect to say that there's a certain entitlement to speak at public meetings. You have an entitlement to attend, to listen and to have the records. Thank you. Any other comments? Jack, go ahead. I think this is a challenging task because we're trying to balance a few different things. On the one hand, the message to the public is and has always been and should be that we want to hear you, we want you to attend and we want you to participate and we want to make sure that that can be done and where nobody's, this policy is not proposed to change that. Two is we clearly have a need to in doing the public business maintain order so we can get through all the work that we have before us. And so I think the question is whether we think this proposed rules of conduct reaches the correct balance of those interests and I think it does. Yeah, fair enough. I also appreciate the part that says that if someone is removed from a meeting that they may still make comments via writing, that's a certain welcome as well. Any other comments folks have? Okay. So the suggested motion is to approve the rules as per the proposed draft but we do have some amendments so is there a motion? Make a motion that we pass this or this rules of conduct at public meetings with the amendments as given to us. So the amendment would be changing conduct to contact in number five, removing number seven in its entirety and renumbering. Okay. Motion in a second. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Carrie was that an aye. Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you. I was unable to unmute myself. Aye. Very good. Thank you. All right. So I'm also going to interpret that these rules are going into effect immediately unless folks would like them to go into effect the next meeting. What are the thoughts on that? Yes. Well, I feel they so follow what we've tried to put out as a standard of behavior that I feel it's totally acceptable that we follow them from this point on. Okay. Great. Okay. Go with that then. Okay. I I'm going to we're going to keep going then. Fair enough. So we are on to the city of Montpeliers policy for energy in municipal buildings. This policy is attached however the so I don't want to speak for you Bill but in conversation that I had with our city manager expressed the interest to have a little bit more time on this to make some to collect staff comments. And so I guess my question for you all is do we want to pursue the the time that would take to for staff to actually do that research? To be just sorry. Yes, please. It was just a point of clarity. It wasn't just staff comments. Yeah. The policy which is fine is it proposes that all buildings will be fossil free by 2030. And it seemed to me that in the interest of good governance that we should have an inventory of which buildings those are and what needs to happen to make those at least estimated costs to do that so that we adopt the policy we knew what we were taking on and over what period of time and that kind of thing. So I suggested to the mayor that if there was interest in the council to even go in forward with this, then we would do that research and get back and so that people could make this decision. The public could have this conversation knowing what the policy actually was. Yeah. Yeah. And what it would require. Yeah, basically. So thoughts are you are we interested in pursuing that? Investing that time. Yeah, I think it makes sense to get that information and then take it up if you need it. Okay. Other comments? I'm seeing nods. Okay. Great. Okay. Great. Thank you, Carrie. All right. So while even though it's here, we will take this up at another time. Do you have a sense of how much time you think it will take? I don't yet because we've got to figure out how many buildings. You know, someone like these three buildings are going to be on district key. We've got, you know, pellets stove at the senior center. We're about to change the public works garage to either pellets or methane. I assume we would not consider the wreck building until we know what future of that is. So, you know, we may not have that many left, but I think we just need to figure out which ones are left. And I know that the net zero report did talk about this a little bit. So I think it's getting an inventory and then figuring out to see if there's a quick resource about what the best replacement is and how to cost that. So it shouldn't be too terribly long. It may not be next meeting. Okay. All right. Good to know. Lauren. Just a timely update just today. The Vermont legislature passed a bill that will create a grant program for municipalities for up to $500,000 for approved projects for weatherization, thermal efficiency to supplement or replace fossil fuel heating systems with more efficient renewable or electric heating systems. So it's exciting to see the state offering some support to municipalities to do this kind of work. And I very much support moving forward with this. I think it's the kind of thing we have to be doing if we're serious about our net zero commitment. Thanks. Great. I don't think we on staff have any concerns with the role of just to localize why you're open. Yeah, turn up. Okay. Peter Kiliman, I see your hand there. Go ahead. Is this, is this being tabled or is this being discussed? Well, we're discussing whether or not to take it up. So if you have comments about it, that's okay. Okay, just a little bit related to what Lauren just said. As most of us have been following the heating standard debate, the issue of fossil fuels versus carbon producing fuels is an important one that as you say, if we were to be serious about our commitment, I really wonder whether we should be looking beyond just fossil fuels. I mean, bio biofuels like like pellets still produce carbon dioxide, and they and to produce them, we're removing trees or removing vegetation. I know it's an extreme position, but it's a position I think deserves discussion. Thank you. Thank you. And we can talk more about that. I think when we bring this up again, but thank you for raising that. Anyone else have comments either in person or virtually. Okay, so we are going to move on then. And so we are up to the presentation from the Vermont River Conservancy. And I see Ricardo online. I am here. Here you are. Go ahead. Great. Thank you. Can I hear our screen? Oh, yes, you can apparently. If you can't let us know. Okay, really sorry, but this is a big screen. Okay, our folks, can you see the slide? Yes. Okay. Yes. Great. Well, thank you. I'm Ricardo Erickson, the deputy director at Vermont River Conservancy, and I am here tonight excited to provide you all with an update on the progress for planning around the Confluence River Park. And here it is pictured at the Confluence of the main stem and the north branch of the Winooski Rivers as they flow right through downtown Montpelier. And you can see on the transit center property there that is the future Confluence River Park. And for tonight's update, I just bulleted it'll be a brief update with a little bit of the history and kind of a timeline and where we're at. I'll review some key funding sources, latest activity and news and talk about what's next and then can answer any questions. And so for the brief history, what I really want to highlight is this project from the beginning when we first started talking about it in 2017 was really a community project and we received feedback from the community in the end of 2018 and all throughout 2019 we had 17 different community events and meetings in which we solicited feedback on what people wanted to see in a Riverside Park in downtown Montpelier. And we had pop-up events like this, Plan Your Park where people got to look at the different potential conceptual designs and vote on which one they liked best and what features they liked. And so it was a very robust community input period. And for those of you who attended those events, I thank you for your input. And I see the slide got cut off a little bit, but all that community input and during the conceptual design phase really helped us build a conceptual design with our landscape architect and engineer from Malone and McBroom who are still working with us now and came up with this final conceptual design. And we actually have this design is now on a sign at the Confluence River Park so any of you can go check it out and look closely at the details. It's also on the Vermont River Conservancy website. So this conceptual design was completed at the end of 2019 and presented to the council at the beginning of 2020 and then of course 2020 kind of put a pause on a lot of the activity that we were planning for the Confluence Park. But in that meantime, we picked up on fundraising and worked with, we had, we started out with funding from Canada Charitable Family Trust through Vermont River Conservancy for the conceptual design phase. And then we worked with the city to secure a land and water conservation fund grant, downtown transportation fund. And we were also, we also received community support. I think my next picture, yeah, the next picture here I wanted to show because it really demonstrates the community support around this project because this sign that you see here that you can see at the park site now was funded by AARP and the Unitarian Church of Montpelier. And then it was completed and installed by Alec, the parks director and a youth crew here. So really in funding and engagement, this has really been a park, a community effort here. And that really brings us, so from 2020 to, we spent a lot of time on fundraising and planning. And then once we were able to get underway again with the next phase, we kicked that off with SLR, which is formerly Melona McBroom. So still working with Roy Schiff, an engineer who's local from Montpelier and a landscape architect who was Regina Leonard, who was also on the conceptual design phase. And so the current phase has been also focused on community engagement. And I just wanted to call out the focus group work that we've been doing. We have been working with our advisory committee, which is comprised of 19 mostly local but some statewide members. And then we do have one Riverside Park specialist from Colorado, who's also on the advisory committee. And the advisory committee has been leading focus groups. So talking, gathering specific audiences and asking them questions about what they want to see at the park and how they see themselves interacting with the park. And to help us fine tune the conceptual design to get it to a point in which it is shovel ready and in which we are not losing any pieces that are important to different potential user groups and visitors of this park. So the focus group work has been really, really helpful and has helped guide some of the design features that we are fine tuning now. And I just wanted to highlight these bullet points here because I think they're very pertinent to to the council and to to the city in terms of what has what has come up frequently at these focus groups and maintenance will be critical. And that is something that has come up again and again. And once we have this beautiful park with lots of activity and people visiting it, we will need to make sure that we have a plan and resources in place for maintaining the park. Connectivity to the park is also really important for parking and pedestrians alike. Inclusivity for differing physical abilities and lived experiences and we Vermont River Conservancy has had commitment to accessibility for this park from the beginning and the city has shared that that priority. And what we have identified throughout the focus group process is we want to make sure it's a it's a small space this park and we want to make sure that what we are creating is our spaces that feel welcoming for a variety of physical abilities. And so we have so that has helped us fine tune the ADA accessibility path and to ensure that it's not just checking the requirements for ADA accessibility, but that it's fun and welcoming and that it can be enjoyed by all abilities. So that is something that we're really focused on. Considering the need for swift water rescue, what would that look like? I just want to put that out there as something to discuss in the future as we are developing a really incredible boat launch. And we want people to be able to access the water, the flowing water here and we it's something that I think could be important to look into to consider what would what would that look like to have swift water rescue in the area. And then lastly programming, you can see in this picture, this is one of one of many focus groups that we had on site where we set up a table and ask people questions as they walked by and we had this little flip chart and people could write down ideas of what they wanted to see at the park and what came up again and again was programs. You know people mentioned wouldn't it be great if there was a yoga class here in the park or food trucks nearby and we could come on and sit and have lunch at the park. So programming is an important consideration and to help make this space vibrant and community oriented. And then just two more slides here. The current design work summary just in a nutshell, we are as I mentioned refining the the design based on both community input as well as the geotechnical work we've been doing some of you may have seen machines there we've we've done a couple different days of soil borings where we're looking into you know deep into the soil and and then also looking at the structural integrity of the area and how we can knowing that we will need to make some space for the path and the boat launch etc and what will this area be able to withstand. So that's what this this image just shows some of that overlay and design work that's happening that's not quite as it's a harder story to tell than than the focus group work we're doing but that's that's a critical part of this current phase is kind of ground truthing what this space can can maintain. And lastly can't forget about the water in this phase where so this this picture shows how the engineering work that we're doing which is looking at the different water levels and the high water marks and the low water marks and thinking about how can we create a space that knowing that at times some of the park might be covered underwater and doing the design with that in mind and keeping a close eye on the engineering aspects of the park. So this slide just shows the different water marks and how we can knowing that it might flood at times and we need to make sure that we have a floodable adaptable park. So I believe that is the end there so I will stop sharing my screen and any questions? Yeah, Lauren go ahead. Just on that last point I know there's been conversation about looking into removing some of the dams around town. Is that being considered in the engineering or do you anticipate clear impacts? Are there any problems there that we should be aware of? Great question. Yes. Right now the design, the conceptual design and the design we're working on right now are specifically for the terrestrial park. But in kind of we're trying in a way that it's somewhat the timing may not work perfectly but yes, considering the in-river features is critical. And we are working on funding for dam removal studies and what that would look like for the different dams in Monopular that are particularly there are two right nearby that would impact the water flow and the in-river opportunities at the park. So that's a big part of the conversations that the advisory committee is having and it's definitely on it's on the front burner in design discussions in relation to the terrestrial park. Are there questions from the council? A little bit of questions from the public. Jack, go ahead. Well, since Lauren stole my question I'll just have a comment which is that I think this is looking great. All around the northeast we see cities that are built around rivers because of the industrial use of the river for power and it's great that we're able to move past that and make the move more along lines of making the river front a place it's an attractive location for outdoor recreation. So I think this is going to be really exciting. Yes. Agreed. Other comments or thoughts? One from the public. Donna, go ahead. Just say it's very exciting and to see you even expand over the area by the transit center is just terrific. Thank you. Peter, come on, go ahead. I'm able to unmute myself. There we are. Yeah. This does sound exciting. I wonder if you all have thought about some other changes that have happened recently. I walked through Confluence Park the other day and saw a number of people who used to hang out at the Gorton Park at the picnic table talking. I sat down and had a nice chat with them. They seemed very comfortable there. Is that picnic table going to remain? As you said, it's a very small space. And as it says, we want to be open to people with varied life experiences. And one of the things that came out in the Gorton Park conversation was to try to make that area in downtown something that would be a comfortable place for both people who are unhoused and people who aren't to share. And it would be great if this could be designed in such a way that it would be shared among all kinds of people in Montpelier. It's a very small space. I appreciate that, Peter. Thank you. It's absolutely part of the conversations in this design and planning phase. We are very much aware of those concerns and considerations and want it to be a park for the people. And so that's absolutely top priority is conversations around how can we in such a small space in the heart of downtown provide an opportunity for a variety of user groups to enjoy a space and how can we have it such that not one use overwhelms another use. And so it's I am really happy that we have a lot of expertise on our team between the the advisors and our design team have a lot of experience in that regard. And that's why we wanted to do focus groups. We just wanted to just really sit down with folks via zoom and go over the design and hear ideas and also at the park itself. So that's a great point. Carrie, go ahead. Thank you. I'm kind of following up on that same point and that same question. I'm very glad you're thinking about it. I think it's a great job of mine to a lot of folks looking at this small space and it seems that it has a potential for any small group of folks or any one kind of use to kind of dominate it and make it feel less welcoming and inviting to other people. So I'm glad to hear that you've got a lot of expertise. I wonder if you have any more specifics about how you see that playing out and if you have any examples of other small parks or small public areas where there has been success in sharing. I've done a little bit of looking around at this myself. I'm not an expert though so I haven't really found much. So I'm wondering if you have any more concrete information about that. Well, what I mean one thing, I'll say a few things here. One is I think this the community engagement is critical and that is a piece that I value and I think it helps us get a sense of how people want to use at the park and it also gives a sense of ownership and just a community ownership of a space and so for example, when I was at the park doing a focus group, we were able to speak with those experiencing homelessness as well as passersby who runners or someone pushing their stroller so we were able to capture a broader audience and one thing that came up was the maintenance piece for example, like who's going to take care of this? And we had a number of suggestions people being like, well what if community members took care of it? What if there were what if people who by helping to take care of it and by being engaged in the process there is a greater sense of community ownership and I think that's one critical piece. Another is we are working with examples from around the country of municipalities and organizations who have worked with a variety of user groups in creating these parks and so there's some literature that we're referring to AARP and 880 cities just came out with a really fantastic resource for that and what they talk about is having design that's not hostile design not having any design features that prevent certain specific uses and so anyways that has been really helpful and then we've been collaborating with organizations throughout the state who are doing this kind of work whether it's Vermont Adaptive in regards to inclusivity with physical differences as well as AARP has been a great partner in this so I'd say those are the three top three things I can offer now and if you want any specifics I'm happy to provide them. Thank you I appreciate it. Jennifer go ahead Hi This is my two cents I would highly recommend looking at cities like Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington and how they've managed little parks but not on their riverfronts for a variety of community members. Yes absolutely Jennifer there's a lot of examples out west of Riverside and river centric cities and there's not a lot of examples and I feel like Montpelier could really we could be the example which I think is very exciting that we have these opportunities not just with the Confluence River Park but also as Lauren mentioned with potential dam removal and opening up a whole corridor of our rivers for for our community and visitors to enjoy and that I think is a pretty it could be transformative and it could put Montpelier as the area that people are looking to as an example I have a question related to maintenance which you mentioned have you been in touch with Alec who I think would ultimately be this being a park it would be under sort of his auspices or domain or whatever do you or Bill do you have a sense of whether well has there been any conversation about the need for extra staffing to provide maintenance for that space and I'll add one other thing which is that I'm really glad that you mentioned the low and high levels of the water and that some of that space may flood and I also can envision the water levels rising the water levels falling and when it falls there being like a layer of silt or something that needs to maybe be cleared out so anyway I'm wondering if you can speak to that yeah and I see yeah great question and I see that Alec is is in this meeting as well and I also I did want to just say how great it's been working with Alec and as well as Kevin Casey on this project and I think that we as a Montpelier resident also I feel extremely lucky that we have such such competent and just incredible work by Alec so I just I did want to just give kudos to him on that and yes we've been meeting the RC has been meeting with Alec and Kevin for every twice a month and so we're we've had many conversations about maintenance and what that might look like but you know as well as design elements and things that are coming up with our conversations with our design team so those communications have been frequent with city staff and the design team and VRC and no solution or plan identified yet but now is the time to be having those conversations of what it will look like and consider future budget implications and whether it might mean adding you know staffing for maintenance thank you any other oh Alec do you want to speak to that at all sure I can jump in on a couple of things thanks thanks Riccardo about staffing I think that you know even before Confluence Park arrives we had already identified the bike path you know the recreation path and some of our downtown areas is a place that needs better maintenance I think it's something that you know we did a great job building it but didn't ever really delegate someone to manage it and we talked about that as a team in the last budget Congress and it just you know there's so many priorities it didn't percolate up to the top to have that kind of maintenance that's what we did and we did a lot of work on it dedicated to our downtown but you know maybe Confluence Park will tip the scales we as a department have always you know focused on the trails and the trees and all the other things we do we don't have like a sort of what we called an urban ranger position which was borrowed from Burlington but I think that would be a great seasonal position but it's already been identified and you know I think whether or not we fund it it's a good idea and then the other piece I wanted to talk about was about Kerry's question are there other examples I think we could actually look at ourselves I think as a good example with the rest of our parks we developed this whole policy in relationship with the outreach worker that we have you know folks who are camping in the park using semi that we've developed a way to you know have relationships with people and have a connection to people in the homeless community to help you know people find resources and I feel like we often point to the Gert and Gazebo example as something that wasn't working great but that was very ad hoc you know we didn't have this position into like develop relationships with folks there and maintain it frequently as opposed to Confluence Park which is incredibly well planned and you know hopefully by the time it gets implemented we have a similar thing in place that we have in our existing parks now which from my perspective is working well oh and can I add one more thing sorry we recently there was a question about dam removal um and I just wanted to add on top of what Rokarta said we the city was awarded of a rec grant through the state um it was about recreation and economic development um it was a little more than $200,000 and a small piece of that was um some design work for the in-water features of Confluence Park and we already had some ARPA money set aside or some reserve capital fund set aside for dam removal study so we're gonna combine those and look to put out an RFP for somebody that can both look at what would it look like to remove the dam you know be structurally sound safe for the river and those downstream and also have in river white water features and to my surprise there are like multiple firms that do that work so um that's on the to-do list and hopefully we'll yield some good results thank you any other comments or questions I guess I have only one more um which is uh I assume we'll be talking about this again at some point or we're gonna need to touch base about it do you have a sense of like when that might be or what will trigger that I think um so this conversation has been moved back a couple times I think this we initially planned this for shortly after the town meeting just you know once we knew the where the bond was and then for combination of our agendas and Ricardo's agenda here we are in early May talking about it I would think that um when there's I don't know if there's a specific time I think we would be when there was maybe a decision point or a key update that we have a steering committee and I you know we're in pretty good touch with Ricardo and with Alec um I think there'd be a sense of it's time to come back to the public maybe when we have you know some key point that's going forward great well thank you uh Ricardo and Alec and thank you for all of your work on this this is it's very exciting great thank you all okay said a council meeting again and sorry we pushed it back a couple times thank you for your flexibility yeah okay all right so I think we are ready to move on okay so the the next uh item is uh the uh social and economic justice committee's stipend policy and I saw oh Shayna has turned her uh camera on hello Shayna and I'll turn it over right to you hi thanks so much for having us yeah my name is Shayna Casper I'm chair of the Montpellier social and economic justice advisory committee uh we are uh I live on Kim street um and we are established in 2018 to assist the city council in addressing and reshaping the systems and policies and practices that perpetuate barriers to racial and economic and and other injustices in our community and so we went through a 18 month long process with consultants at creative discourse about how to make our city operations more equitable and just and one of the main uh actionable like immediately actionable recommendations was to provide stipends for participation in city committees in tasks force um and things like that to ensure more opportunity for diverse representation among participants. One of these stipends are critical to compensate people for their time as well offering assistance for child care and food and transportation and other needs that folks might need to be able to volunteer their time to attend these meetings and to continue our work implementing the city's equity assessment and in line with our strategic plan that the city recently adopted um back in December we received $30,000 budget line item for FY23 for these stipends um with a request to have provide an update for how we want to propose to use it so that's what I'm here to do today. So Montpelier has 23 active city committees with about 155 non-unique volunteer members um holding about 250 meetings a year and so these are the volunteers that make our city run um and we proposed a couple of different offerings when we first brought this back in December and um in lots of conversations decided to go with a first come first serve $50 stipend for any and all committee members who want who requested who want to fill it out. So city committee members um there's a couple of stipulations around this so city committee members are can't be employees or in any committee that already receives a stipend so like city councillors um and want to receive a stipend for their participation in a committee folks will have to fill out a W-9 form um to be able to be kind of reimbursed um it only also only others also stipends regular meetings so not subcommittee meetings or things like that. And so if they're part of more than 12 meetings a year or more than $600 the finance department will issue a 1099 um for for tax purposes um and once that $30,000 is allocated participants will be notified and will no longer be able to receive the stipend um and for committee members who are not part of the stipend process the only new thing that's going to have to happen in order to make open up this new equity opportunity is um that a staff rep or the chair of the committee will need to submit um complete and submit an attendance record for after each meeting um or on a monthly basis whichever is um less frequent so um and that is also attached in the in the um materials um and so finally we're asking us to all city current we want to track how how this works and how we're doing recognizes as a pilot program and so we're asking all current city committee members to participate in a pre and post survey process for this year so to see how effective it is at getting more members with more you know racial and socially and economically diverse backgrounds on to different city committees so we hope to do this as a one-year pilot project and then evaluate how many stipends were used on what committees how people heard about it and just survey that effectiveness so like allowing seeing how effective a stipend is that allowing more types of people to participate in these committees on in our community so um we can make a more robust kind of budget proposal and analysis of how this worked um probably for you know more likely 2025 to see how effective it all is um also just keep track of the number of applications we have generally um and the number of vacancies that we have on committees um pre and post stipends as well so um we'll also just start tracking voluntarily shared demographic information about who is applying for these volunteer positions um so that's kind of that information that I wanted to report back if there's any questions but also wanting to use this opportunity to hope that anyone everyone can help get the word out about this we really hope that you know uh you know offering these stipends is not enough it's about making sure that folks who aren't already a part of city committees or um haven't been able to participate because of these financial barriers that this can just be one small small way to support and encourage folks who may have felt like they couldn't participate in Montpelier civic life um you know a way to really take meaningful action so let me pause there um yeah just see if there is any any questions or other additional comments well I've got some questions I think this is great by the way I'm so glad that you all were able to put this together and of course it has some legal implications about like having 1099s and all that I'm glad that you worked that all out that is wonderful um so just a couple questions um I saw the part about the attendance record and I helped me understand why we need a separate attendance record as opposed to just using the minutes from a meeting because if I understand correctly usually minutes include attendance but maybe they're not detailed enough I don't know but I thought I'd put that out there to you this was recommended by this Essex city which just implemented these and it was it's really a matter of you know intention and impact or implementation of you know recognizing that there's the you know intention of timely turnings of of getting the minutes in and approving them and everything else but that sometimes that can take a couple of months and wanting to make sure that people get this um as soon after the meeting as possible um in order to make sure that we kind of know where in the budget we are and everything else so it makes sense um and I have one other comment uh which is under the eligibility section um number two the City of Montpelier council members or any board commission or task force members um received stipends I think it's probably just also worth mentioning the mayor because sometimes mayor is included in the council and sometimes it's not and so um just to make it abundantly clear that the mayor is also not eligible for this um yeah right um that is it for me other thoughts or questions Donna go ahead I put this section in the wrong policy this is what I was talking about the on number two the and is referred to see any subcommittee another exemption would be any subcommittee meeting the pilot will only reimburse for attendance at regularly scheduled meetings don't you mean at regularly scheduled committee meetings it's the core committee right not the subcommittee and when I read it just I sort of stumbled there I wanted to know that the regular scheduled you could have a subcommittee regularly scheduled for a while so could you reinsert the word committee committee meetings I'm not totally following where you are but I was she was on on two under eligibility yep so exemptions from stipends program and you're excluding subcommittees which means makes total sense with me um but it's just explaining that you're only reimbursing for attendance regularly scheduled meetings and maybe you meet it differently maybe you mean if a subcommittee meets regularly then they get a second stipend I was reading it that they don't get a stipends for a subcommittee so help me understand what you intended yeah I believe that is the intention how I understand it at least is it is just for regularly scheduled full member meetings not subcommittee meetings so we could potentially amend it to say uh uh well the pilot yeah committee yeah committee meetings is that the word committee in that that's all thank you it's a great document you've covered a lot of detail Carrie go ahead sorry um thanks so just on that last point if you just kept it to say any subcommittee meetings I think that would do it um so that's just my suggestion for a wording change um but my my other comment is I think this is fantastic hooray I'm so glad you're doing this I think that people should get paid for their work whenever possible and um I am I'm thrilled to be able to support this I'm so glad we're doing it and I'm I hope that it helps to meet the goals of increasing the diversity of the people who serve on committees and I think it you know it does represent a barrier that people face in um being able to serve on committees and task forces and stuff but I think there are lots and lots of other barriers that people face and so I I imagine you're not expecting this to be the the magic bullet that fixes everything and I would just I just want to make sure that we have appropriate expectations and um what we call success from my perspective the fact that we compensate people even just a little bit for their time even just to kind of help out with things like childcare or transportation or just to remove a little bit of that hurdle to me that's a success right there and if it also contributes to a larger effort to have a have greater access to committees and a greater more diverse set of people serving that's fantastic but if it doesn't do that I don't want us to call it a failure you know what I mean so um I'm just fully supportive of this all the way around that's what I have to say thank you thank you yeah it's it's also reminding me of one other comment that I wanted to make which was um in regard to the survey that you're doing I'm so glad that you're doing a sort of a pre and post uh survey um it seems to me that since we're starting it with the set of folks that have already signed up um one of the things that I would be interested in finding out is if this type and helps prevent burnout uh you know does it help encourage people to stay on when they might otherwise drop out because they've found it to be too taxing um so I guess I'm also wondering if uh I mean obviously you all will be looking at that data uh but I guess you'll you'll probably be presenting that to us when when you come back to talk about the results of this as a pilot yeah and so that is yeah a couple of things I want to reflect back here is um that uh uh first of all is that um the way the budget timing works like we probably we're implementing this in July and so we won't be able to do the work with we want to see it through and so we won't be able to have the results of this until at least after um after July and then also to note is that we don't have a lot of this um baseline data of kind of who is on our committee is now and we're going to try to do a bunch of outreach to make sure that current members um know about this type and that's happening and fill out the the you know kind of demographic survey beforehand but that um uh that you know we're just getting getting this information being able to collect this information and asking these questions is really valuable um and so and kind of changing our policies and practices about when people apply being encouraged to fill out demographic you know the demographic survey and things as well um I think those are the only two things just in that order down either comments or questions for Sheena and from the public either yes go ahead Peter Kalman Montpelier um I just want to build a little bit on what Carrie just said uh the the next steps besides paying people is getting people to apply getting people to even know that there's openings getting people to um understand what it means I think we do a better job of outreach a really outreach specifically when we have committees that we know impact people who ordinarily don't participate that we try to get them to join um I was on the C. Jack in its founding and we did a good job of recruiting the diversity very quickly because it was too demanding for their lives and we should have been clearer about that from the outset it's not just getting you know a person of color on there for example you got to look at the whole picture so I hope this is the beginning of an effort that will succeed thanks who else in person anyone else virtually wish to make a comment David Delcor go ahead yeah just a question when you talk about attendance are you talking about in person attendance or I mean I guess I want to be clear because I have to explain it so yeah great question as a person who's immunocompromised and calling in from zoom this is really important this is for participation full stock first in our virtual participation so both okay any other questions comments right so I think we are at the point where we could have a vote Lauren go ahead thank you just just a couple comments first of all really excited to see this move forward all the work that the community did weighing in and hiring our consultants to work with us creative discourse following through on the implementations I think is so important and not just having that be a report that we did or a process that we went through so I'm really pleased and grateful to see the community support in the budget and moving this forward you know a lot of times these kinds of things can hit walls when it actually involves putting money into things so that is exciting to see that we're really taking seriously our commitment to equity and just really grateful for a ton of work has gone into it it's you know one of these things where we we're like yeah let's just do stipends and then of course the complexity of figuring out all the details Cameron did amazing work pulling together you know how to make this actually work on the back end so we could get these out to people in a timely and as efficient as possible manner you know and we very much on the committee recognize that it's you know going to take as Peter was pointing out you know it's the outreach and you know hold suite of things just having this available and people don't know about it and you know looking at other barriers and things but really excited for this to move forward and really appreciated Carrie and a couple of the people's comments about thinking about success there was an example we presented this to members from different city committees to come learn about it and provide some feedback and one of the participants for example said her term was going to end this summer and she was planning to step down because it had become a burden and she was like I think I'm going to rethink this actually makes it feel more possible for me to continue serving so I do think that you know as we look at the reflection on it and thinking about questions we could ask membership of both retention and you know the ability for people to continue serving as well as bringing in new voices to the process could both be important so really appreciate that and I would move that we adopt the FY 22 FY 23 pilot stipend program policy with the amendments of under the eligibility for stipends number two C to add in the phrase regularly scheduled full committee meetings what did you think about council member Brown suggestion to just take out everything after any subcommittee meetings I think that could work too I think that explanation might make it really clear for people but to people have a strong preference okay and then was there an amendment to add mayor to yes and then also to add mayor to the list in one a any appointed and elected member to be to be city council members so mayor commas city of modular council members okay second any further discussion oh yes Jack go ahead as I was listening to this discussion I'm supporting I'm voting for the motion as I was listening to this I was thought occurred to me whether I would want someone to feel hesitant or stigmatized for signing up to get this stipend I'm just starting to look at the public records law but I would hope that we could come up with an interpretation that says that signing up to receive the stipend is a personnel record that would mean that it would not be a public record I don't know if you have a thought about that could you see the payments certainly would be okay just like our all city employee payments are in the report I know this came up when we talked about it with ASICS and I can't find it in my notes immediately but I do believe that they that's one of the reasons why we're doing it that's why sorry to jump in Lauren and Donna kind of in that vein we did talk about how for the committees themselves the way that we want to do the process is that they're just submitting the full list of attendance so it's not like people who are receiving the stipend so the committee members themselves don't need to know I mean if someone wants to FOIA it and do you know look at the public records but it wouldn't be you know handled that way so it would just be a full attendance list every time and the city staff who would be processing it would be the ones who would know which participants in the stipend program were attending each meeting Donna I think we should change the culture and that we get our little stipends and that we shouldn't feel guilty about getting our stipends as city council members and we should be proud to get the stipends that we serve on committees so I think it's up to all of us to change the language and the attitude that we deserve this little bit of stipend there now great any other comments okay there's been a motion in a second any further discussion okay all in favor please say aye aye aye and opposed all right so that passes yeah thank you Shayna please pass along our gratitude to the rest of the committee yeah well I just want to say huge huge thank you to Cameron I feel like this has just been a huge amount of work for her to make it happen and make it you know smooth sailing so just yeah huge huge thank you to Cameron yeah and Shayna I'll be a graduation at your alma mater this weekend thank you okay super all right so we are up to the item about housing task force and I think we probably have a couple of folks here that so you're welcome to come on up to the table welcome thank you so for those of you who I have and Michael okay for those of you who I haven't met I'm Polly Nicol and I'm the current chair of the Montpelier housing task force and this is actually the first part of a two-part presentation I'll be back later in the month for more details on the housing situation in Montpelier but housing task force has for the past 22 years been Montpelier's unofficial city housing committee it was actually started by what's now down street housing and community development and it's a group of volunteers and we do have representation from city council members and support from city staff but it's kind of been whoever wants to join and because of the seriousness of the housing situation in Montpelier now we think that it is time for the city to create an official housing committee and we think it would make a statement about the importance of housing in Montpelier you all would be able to vet prospective members and figure out who you want on the committee and what skills and interests you want and you could solicit membership to a wider community than we have so we put together a memo that I think you got suggesting what some language for mission and operation these were just thoughts that the housing task force had but we would propose for purposes are to gather and evaluate housing related information to propose responses to housing concerns to recommend policies and programs to the city that meet the housing aspirations in the master plan and to both educate the public and advocate for policies designed to increase the supply of housing as well as affirmatively further fair housing which is the second aspiration I'm not going to go through our suggestions on committee operations they're in the memo they're things like who the committee could consult with things like that but I did want to say we think that the committee should have between 9 and 11 members and that Montpelier residency should be preferred but not required because you business owner or somebody with a relationship to Montpelier who wasn't actually a city resident member should have a passion for housing issues the time and willingness to work because it is a lot of work the open mind creative and compassionate and whenever possible have general work or housing related skills or expertise and we're not suggesting a committee of folks who do housing professionally but that there be enough people on the committee with some technical skills so that the committee can do its work right now two members of the housing task force serve on the housing trust fund advisory committee and that's the policy for the trust fund so we would propose that carry over and two members of this new committee serve on the housing trust fund committee and that the staff support from the community and economic development specialist the planning department and other departments continue and that's been really key to have Kevin Casey when he was in that role as staff support to us so simply that's the recommendation and we think there would really be a benefit to the city to move in this direction and that there's certainly plenty of work for this committee to do Super comments, thoughts, questions for Polly okay go ahead Bill I've talked about this with our staff internally I don't know if you had this conversation it was my understanding that the housing trust fund was created as a separate board because the task force was made up of a lot of people that might be applying for it and if that's not the case anymore is there thought about that you just have one committee that recommends those and not have two groups yeah we didn't really talk about that just might save on two sets of meetings people that are dealing with housing policy and issues can see who the proposals are I mean you still just recommend the council anyway yeah that seems like that might be worth looking into but maybe not for today for a future potential future meeting yeah and the reason we wanted to bring this to you now rather than wait until the end of the month is we know setting up a committee and recruiting members will take time and as I said in the beginning given the importance of the housing crisis I think is not an exaggeration in Montpelier it would be good to get going can you remind me how many people are on the housing task force right now nobody knows it depends on how many people are there at any given meeting there have been years where it's been like three or four of us lately it's been the range has really been more in the five to eight or so people coming pretty regularly but because it's not an official body there's no official membership so anyone who comes can basically say that they're a member of the task force okay Donna go ahead all this time I didn't know you weren't official so under that are there people now on the housing task force that are saying they're interested in serving I'm interested in some overlap you have such a wealth of knowledge of several of the members I think so I mean I haven't talked to everyone and I've been urging people who are on to apply and I know at least a few people are going to but I couldn't give you account thank you thank you for your service I hope you signed up I don't know 22 years I know but keep going other thoughts or comments council the public go ahead Peter Kellman needless to say I'm struck me in favor of this I think it is quite important I think you can tell from checks somewhat amusing answer nobody knows the housing task force was an informal group and the core of it really aside from Polly the core of it were representatives of particular organizations Down Street Good Sam help me here housing authority et cetera so the votes because you can't have a quorum I mean we had consensus more than votes and and certainly it served its purpose a lot during the last 22 years I wasn't here the whole 22 years but I've heard a lot of good things about the but I think it really does make a very housing committee for my failure a real housing committee and to have one that really can reach out apropos of what you just passed in terms of the stipends to reach out to the whole for some and really recruit for some particular life experiences for some particular business experiences and to interact for example with the Montpelier Energy Advisory Committee because housing is not just a matter of how much it costs to buy a house it's how much it costs to maintain a house especially how it costs to maintain a house that is not energy efficient so I really see this as doing a full change from house ownership to rentals to unhoused you didn't mention it but the unhoused has been a very big focus of the housing task force and I think would continue to be even though we do have a homelessness task force with whom we would work again having a committee a real town committee that can make concrete proposals about let's say low barrier temporary housing for example so anyway I think this is the time to do it and it's going to take some time to get this started thank you other comments from folks either oh yeah Jack go ahead I move that we create the Montpelier housing committee composed of 9 and 11 members to be appointed by the council that the committee the purposes of the housing committee be as set forth in the memo that's been presented to us and that we start to recruit members oh second okay other discussion okay all in favor please say aye aye and opposed okay thank you looking forward to hearing more from you all alright it is only 817 do you want to take a break now no we should take a break now okay it is 818 we're going to take a 10 minute break the back at 828 we'll see you shortly I think we're up to the community survey so I'm going to turn it over to Bill thank you so one of the things you approved in the budget and you've already approved the contract before was our whole contract with Polko and there's going to be a whole other piece about that that we'll introduce but the main thing that we're getting from them is the draft survey and that's the copy of the draft surveys included and with the packet we did this in 2009 and have hoped to update it regularly since then but here we are doing it again ideally you do this every couple years and track the progress and maybe we'll get back on to that but most of it's pretty well set compared to data from other communities that do surveys so you can see how we rank our services versus others but there is like a half a page where you can put what's called custom questions and they really need them I think first and next week we have a meeting in order to stay on the schedule that we have so I drafted some that I thought would be interesting but this is kind of the council's chance to weigh in on at the very least topics you're necessarily the questions but there are specific topics you want to try to get in I will say that for me given all the emphasis we've talked about with communication to me the most important question I want to know is where are people going to get and see what people respond because we make assumptions that people are getting it from here there or somewhere else and then I just listed what's the top issue there are other questions in there to kind of get at that these were the second four were just from their own recommendations of questions that other communities have used so I threw those in but I would assume we're going to get maybe this is probably space for three so if you have the input I certainly didn't want to go ahead and put questions on without the council weighing in thoughts, comments yeah Jack go ahead I think it's for Tomelli I think I know you wanted to get this some kind of information like this for years and we've had a couple of years where it was it fell off the budget right at the last moment and so I'm glad we're getting this in I think I support doing it I think the your proposed custom questions are fine and just to be clear you've already voted to do it with a contract the only issue of a debate tonight is what the questions are yeah I don't know Lauren go ahead yeah I think the the suggested questions look good maybe maybe on top issues I mean I think those all make sense and I assume there's a limited number but something on climate or I actually thought of that after putting climate change that might be one to add there it looks like maybe you can do more than five I think you can do unlimited okay so and then the other possible questions I liked the just we got a lot of feedback from the equity assessment about the opportunities to participate in community matters and we are redoing the community's website so in terms of getting some baseline data that then in a comparable format for future years those might be too good ones because you know we're doing efforts right now to try to improve those and let's see if we're actually making progress over time so I might recommend that is a baseline question that was my thought go ahead rephrasing D12 from American Indian please so I just see 10 I'll ask them I think I'm not sure if this is their copyrighted but we're buying this thing the only thing we really have is there's one space this half page is where we get the print hours but I will ask if that can be done just Native American just say it fair enough thank you thank you it was another one I caught that I'd ask so weird that they would not be able to that they all ask them I agree I think that's a they asked them there was one number 11 where they ranked us and the federal government I said could you please put the state government it would actually be more relevant to see how people rank the local government state government we really can't then can we take the whole question it's not really useful I mean do they are they trying to compare it across anyway one other thing so I had the same thought about adding climate to top issues also wondering about adding childcare or also vibrancy of the downtown what's that it might be a bad one the other thing this is not for this but again just so that you are aware I think I've told you this before there's also going to be it is online so that's a restriction but we're going to have a regular polling or surveying capacity for as much as we want so you can do things where you rank these and rank order there's all kinds of things so we will have the ability to send out other questions as we choose obviously the Elks Club and other projects just as things come up once people sign up they'll get them in the email and they'll be able to respond so you'll have a lot of opportunities for the public about things that are happening Donna I would prefer all of these be rank order because I might do 25% with the bridge and 25 with this and likewise issue facing Montaigne particularly if you're going to go to broad issues like climate change I'd really like to see again a numbered priority if we can otherwise you got to pick one I'm not sure why that's going to tell us other than 10% of the people think this is the most important issue in the city I'll check I suppose we probably could use a motion about that sure and what I wrote down was that you'd like to do the question about source of information and ideally in rank order you'd like to add climate change, childcare and downtown to the top issues also in rank order and then have the rate, the opportunities to participate and rate the community's website and ask them about the Native American oh yes but that was the questions to add but I will write that yes Jack I'm happy to have Bill just Bill's doing the interaction he's the point of contact with this company just take our feedback go with it okay no oh Don no I agree with that once you said vibrant downtown then I ideally went to parks and they're not here again I think there are a lot of questions about the parks and things we've got a chance to rank all of our services including city parks and things you know excellent good fair poor these are just the special questions that you're asking in addition to what's asked is your decision okay well that's fine but it's from when we get it all back and someone says how come you didn't ask about acts I mean I read over the other ones but it's so lengthy I couldn't tell you all the questions right now and obviously you're much more familiar with the whole so the way just so people know and the schedule is in here once we finalize this as you can see they'll be going out to the community in June early June and there are they do mailings and but the unlike the last time I was all mailing in a statistically significant there will also be an online accompaniment it won't be you know necessarily statistically significant people self-select but we'll at least be able to compare those responses to the mail in responses and see you know and they said quite frankly they're usually pretty close that you know even the self-selections match but they can't validate them like you can in an official survey so you just get more responses so so yeah the information from people all the data yay so do we don't need a motion then is that kind of what we're doing team okay great well let's move on then okay appointment to be live board previously so I did talk with my pillar alive and they there is nothing in their bylaws requires a city council member they said they like having one that it's been nice for continuity you know connection on the other hand you know they are right in our building and we have a lot of communication and the feedback was unless there's somebody who really wants to do it and Jay really wanted to do it and then we've had people just someone saying I'll do it because no one else will then you know they're fine but they obviously appreciate it when there's somebody who's really interested so I mean I think it was still a welcome group that was there. Donna go ahead. Did you happen to talk about in the past it was just being a eyes and ears you weren't allowed to vote when I was ready and yet in the notes said they wanted this person to be able to serve on one of their subcommittees several subcommittees and I thought wow that's a big obligation when you can't vote. Yeah I think you know I think Jay was really active and I think in fact I think he's going on their board as a resident well I was active too but again you couldn't vote. They were fine so if anyone want to join the board I'm not seeing anybody jumping up right now can I always do it later? Can I always do it later? Connor Connor we nominated you that's what it means okay I think we're moving on then yeah so the last thing is the summer schedule and we've got some proposed dates here couple dates with no meetings yeah typically we try to eliminate at least one summer meeting and give some space between meetings for people to take summer breaks when I put out my first schedule there were at least two people that already knew they had a conflict on July 13 so we're already starting with a five person board and then Donna had said she didn't have a specific conflict prefer to have the time off later in August so taking a look at that I said my thought was we will need something around July 13 to set the tax rate but we've done that by call in or zoom it takes two minutes it's a math calculations we'd have to have some sort of special who knows maybe a consent agenda or something some contracts approved but then have our regular meeting push it in between the normal July dates have one July meeting on the 20th and then basically not have another one for another month until the end of August 24 so we have kind of that whole from July 20, August 24 summer break off and if we needed a special meeting obviously there's time to do it and there's also the way the calendar falls there's three weeks between the 24 and the 14th so there is an August 31st September 7 if we needed we really felt we were back up to have some fall back so that was my thought based on the feedback and also given how loaded our meetings have been we have I think unless more comes up we've I think now spread the load out so that it's pretty manageable between now and then thoughts okay okay Donna what do you think? is okay? Carrie what do you think? look at me all the thumbs are up that's great so so we should have a motion we should have a motion so Lauren so moved and is there a second? second further discussion okay all in favor please say aye and opposed I really don't like to go too long between meetings I'll suck it up did you vote no? no you did not vote no okay thank you and so to council reports Donna are you ready to go? certainly I will be quick the stormwater committee sent out its RFQ for quotes on developing its policy it's been meeting with zoom and Zach has been very challenged with technical stuff but really pushing through the justice restorative committee is studying a little book of race and restorative justice it's a short book but I highly recommend it I'll actually bring it to the next meeting and show it to you it's very dense but very good and the park has put out a survey that I would hope council as well as the public will go and it's a flyer talking about all these walks in Hubbard park so we've had all this wonderful expansion and there's just several days in May and several days in June where you can go in a group and see various sections of the park so I encourage people to go online and get this schedule and also just a heads up that Bill and I attended a zoom meeting with the pallet shelters staff and we shared that information with the homelessness task force this morning and so you'll see that coming up in the future and that the complete streets and Montpellier transportation infrastructure committee is moving ahead with the bike path lane the bike lane on Berry Street so you'll see that going up in June thank you it would be really great if we could make sure we're providing lots of advanced notice to the folks on Berry Street before that goes in yes it is definitely make sure that Cory's touching base with our yes yes I'll remind Cory but it has come up every time we've talked about it I'm going to go to Carrie next thank you I just have an announcement for District 3 residents or anyone else is interested there's a proposed development that's being worked on and some of the neighbors have called are getting together to talk about it and the developers of that proposed development are hosting a meeting an informational meeting tomorrow at four o'clock at the end of Isabel Circle and so if folks are you know from the neighborhood are interested in learning more about it they can attend that meeting if anyone wants any more detailed information about it they can contact me and I'm happy to put them in touch with the appropriate people that's it thank you Jennifer I don't have any committee things to touch on but it is warming up and people are getting outside and I just wanted to remind everybody to please try to walk gently on the earth right now she's very fragile so when you're going out and picnicking or camping or just getting away please remember to clean up after yourselves pack out and if you see any extra stuff on the ground please pick that up as well and be safe out there thank you I wanted to mention John Snell posted this on Facebook and people may or may not know about it but Urban and Community Forest Program is celebrating Arbor Day this month and issuing awards for Monterey Steward awards including one the Unsung Hero award to Montpelier zone John Aculage from the Montpelier Tree Board and the citation goes on to talk about how John started studying and preparing for addressing the Emerald Ash Board infestation back in 2012 and he's been taking the lead on Montpelier, preparing Montpelier to respond to that for 10 years now and it's a well deserved recognition yeah thank you Lauren thanks the only thing on my mind that hasn't already been brought up from Linda Berger earlier about the Water Resource Recovery Facility it was just reminding me and I've had a couple conversations with constituents wondering what's going on with the leachate issue and I was expecting the permit was supposed to be out in January or so and we still haven't seen it and so I'm really curious what's happening and I think there have been some delays which could impact what's going on in the timeline that we thought was going to happen for getting the pilot project for filtration in place so either inviting A&R in for an update just do it together as a work update if there's space on the agenda or get them in soon great I just have a couple of things today I got to go to the Vermont Municipal Equipment Show in Field Day and Barry that was very cool actually it was really fun to see all the equipment and there were snowplow driving competitions and they had to try to knock over cones as they went through this course it was fascinating it was great and I just want to recognize that we had some of our staff there who were actually helping to run some of the programming there so just want to shout out to them and thank them for doing that and some of our former staff and former staff yes so that was one thing the other thing is that this last Friday I announced that I am running for Senate to represent the Washington County Senate District and I'm planning on remaining here as mayor until I get if I get elected and so we'll see how it goes but I'm grateful to be here so for me Sean Odom are you here you are go ahead taxes are due Monday taxes, taxes, taxes one of two things in life that are certain don't forget thank you sorry I'm all you're there since you weren't here physically do we have warrants to sign at the police department there are very few and I haven't confirmed this with finance I don't know any reason why they can't wait till next time thanks you already said yes we need to go somewhere no we said they could wait okay and Bill so we're continuing to work on the Elks Club we hope to have for the next meeting at the very least at least a recommendation for some funding to start the project management you may have a draft RFP we are getting some feedback now from MEAC about the energy position ding the two council member or the council member the mayor who had been involved with MEAC to get their feedback and I appreciated that and now MEAC has it so we'll look for that and get that thing moving legislature hasn't completed yet but I think it looks as though there's funding for dispatch for regional dispatch so hopefully some part some are all of the equipment the televate study will be funded so that was good the way that came out it ain't over till it's over but the conference committee has agreed on that part so that looks good can I just add Maggie the lobbyist was very helpful very helpful and also we it looks like we're going to successfully get some additional language in about TIF which will take a lot of pressure off of us without getting into too much inside baseball I've been really concerned that we have a reappraisal coming and you know you set your base TIF when you set it you create a tax increment finance district you create the district and then you say here's the tax the values that are in that district and then a new increment is what pays for improvements well if you have a reappraisal increases in value and so my concern was that was all going to go into a TIF district and not help the general tax payers and there's nothing really in statute or the rules that address that so they're going to basically they've drafted and we worked with the auditor's office and it looks well I'm pretty sure it's going to pass there's a little exemption for us to allow us to reset our it's called OTV original taxable value after we complete the reappraisal so that we start because we haven't issued any debt we haven't done any projects so it's not like we're already paying using that increment so we're kind of in a unique spot so that I've been really concerned that we might have to actually scrap our TIF district because of this and start all over again but it looks like we're going to get a one-time fix all right well I think that is it so without objection consider the meeting adjourned 8.53 all right