 Test, test, test, test, check, check, check, check, microphone check, siblings, siblings, check, check. Yep. Is that there? Test. Okay. Test. Oh, it doesn't look like we have too big of a crowd this evening with it to be, since I just got back from the Adirondacks and came here and have to get Jane at the airport at midnight. It'd be nice if we don't go that long so I can have dinner in between. All right. And walk the puppy too. I'll make that a goal. All right. Well, I'm calling to order the August 6th, 2018 City Council meeting. And we are going to start with a Pledge of Allegiance. Do that. Do that. We'll do it. Go for it. Let's do it together. A Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic in which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay. One quickly. Yeah. Two certainly takes so long as nobody knew here, Tom. That's probably the best part of the whole meeting. All right. Hey, Tom, could you just speak to make sure that you're on? Yep. I can hear you. Okay. So Tom Chittenden is on the phone. Tom Chittenden is on the phone. All right. Very good. Item number two, we're going to have instructions on exiting the building in case of an emergency happening. Yes. Any emergency tonight? We'll exit out these side doors right here. And if these doors are blocked for any reason, we'll go out the front doors that you entered in the main entrance of the building. We'll meet out on the side lot. I will check the restrooms, make sure that those are clear. And hopefully there'll be no emergencies today because our guys have had one heck of a busy day over at the fire station. Because of fire. Including the fire. And a lot of ambulance calls, mainly because of the heat. Yeah. A tough day. So hopefully there'll be a quiet night over there for them tonight. Yeah. That's right. Item number three, agenda review. Does anybody have any additions, deletions or changes in the order of agenda items to suggest? Tom, do you? I do not. All right. Good to go. All right. Number four, comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda. And Barb's service is approaching the desk here. And I don't want to go to my dog parks. All right. Harvest service, summer woods. I just have a suggestion of thought that occurred to me the other day. I've attended the meetings about the library. I know there's a lot of discussion about the senior center. And I was relieved to hear that the room might have greater use than just a senior center. I think that would be more appealing to the community. To that extent, I would suggest calling it the Mac or some other creative name for that room, the multi-generational activity center. So for whatever it's worth, I think that that might be attractive to more people in the community. I think that as a senior center, there are going to be a lot of hours when it's not used. And we might as well market the fact that, I mean, I heard Holly Reese and Jennifer Coakman and Jennifer Murray all talk about other uses for that facility. So let's give it a name that's kind of catchy. It doesn't have to be the Mac. It's just that I thought as I listened to them and somebody talked about multi-generational activities in there, I thought, okay, well, I'll each come forward, suggest the Mac. You all can come up with something more creative. But at least it's a concept and I think it might have broader interest to the public as we go forward with the city center proposal. So it's a thought. Actually, at one of the last meetings we decided we weren't going to call it the senior center. Were you here? You must have been here. But there was conversation about that. But I did not get the sense that anybody was sort of jumping on that concept. So I thought I'm going to come forward and actually multi-generational activity center is not bad. It might be too much of a mouthful. Maybe Sobu activity center or something like that. Well, that's why I thought Mac would be sort of. It's not going to be the senior center. Okay. I just think I was I was relieved to at least here it was going to have some other uses. Absolutely. So I think it needs another name. It will have another name. It all ends up. Yeah. Thanks, Barb. Thank you, Barb. Okay. And Barb is our one audience member, Tom. So besides our trustworthy local press here, Judy Kerns. So we're going to go on to number five announcements and deputy city managers report. And that we'll start with him. I went to another Sobu night and I ate from the food trucks. And I was in the intense. They were good though. Like that. Yeah. And also attended the, attended the pension advisory board meeting last week. But I'll talk about that the next agenda item. I also took a tour of the airport parkway wastewater treatment plant as part of the clean water day in Vermont. And was absolutely amazed at the complexity of that system. And the professionalism of the people that administer it and minister to it. I also was amazed how by the end of the day, I could not get the smell out of my nose. I think it was in my hair. Well, once I'd taken a shower, it was okay. That was paranoid all day long thinking that I just smelled like, you know, they have this room called the stink room where it comes in fresh off the pipe and they screen it and remove the, you know, the things that can't be, you know, digested. And so that was pretty. Yeah. But it's full tour. We had the full tour. It was great. And Julia Moore from A&R was there and her system was there and we had some other important people. It was just really educational. I could have spent four hours there easily and had it all explained to me and still not knowing how it works. So I was appreciative of the time that they spent. I didn't make it to CWD unfortunately because I didn't have time. I just heard I read in the local press while I was away about the fire, the Williston waste. Yes. At the Murph. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if they knew the cause, but it sound like maybe there was a squished lithium ion battery in a, in a, in a bale of cardboard. Yeah. You know, and they, so they probably had a small refire and had a, you know, but I don't know how long it closed down the plant. Nobody knows anything about that. That concerned me because that thing can't stay down for too long because they have to separate everything, you know, right? They also notified everybody they're closing the reuse zones in September in all the CSWD drop off centers. Yeah. So no more. Yeah. No more. It's in the front porch forum. If you take a look at it. So I think probably people were leaving too much junk. Well, they cited a lack of, of, of available hours of their staff to deal with sorting through stuff and throwing away things that shouldn't be there. And, you know, what it takes to monitor activity there. Sometimes people would hang out there. They probably shouldn't hang out there. So this was, this was all in their late press release. So they have a big tent sign, you know, right in front of it on Pine Street saying closing September. How about the one on page? All of them. All of them are going to close too. Of course. They're quite understandable. Right. So get ready, Goodwill. You're going to get a deluge. Well, I'll have my daughter clear out her room before September then. But Will won't take it either. The things that they could take, they will. I've got nothing to add to that. Okay. All right. I'm going to goof off a few weeks versus fine. Yeah. I'm glad you goofed off. Me too. Me too. It's summer. You've got to do that. Yeah. A little. Yeah. That and reading about some serious stuff. But I, I just, I watched the meeting and I just wanted to share with you. I know we'll have a chance in August, but since we heard from all four of you. And I'm sorry, Tom. I'm going to stop myself and I'm going to let you speak first. I apologize. No worries. Can you hear me? Okay. Yeah. So three things really quick. I had a great meeting about the firefighters dinner. That's continuing to move forward Thursday, October 11th expect some RSVPs in the next month or so. Also had a couple of great meetings with both the rotary and also I presented to the park and rec committee. I'm sure you all heard, but the first night event that's been happening for 35 years is not happening this year for the first time in a long time. So looking at possibly having something at the university mall, Heather Trumbly is within those meetings and is open to discussing a community oriented event, something in the afternoon of New York's ease just to fill the vacuum that there will be this December 31st when a lot of families as well as performers don't have as many homes to go to or places to present. So we're looking at having a South Burlington piece of that at the university mall on New Year's Eve. So I'm excited about that. Oh, nice. The last thing I just want to say today, my wife and I are celebrating our 13th wedding anniversary and this meeting is getting me out of a very expensive meal. So I'm very happy to be online. Oh. Oh. Hey, you got your priorities screwed up for God's sake. You don't want to move something up in the agenda so you can get back. We have a quorum without him? Yes, we do. We had a lot of fun last week, so I'm happy to be online for this. Okay, Tom, can I ask you, because I know you put out the call for donations to the firefighters dinner. Are you still accepting them? In a way. So you'll be receiving an email with some details on that. Good. Because I always need a reminder. So I should wait for that email. That should be coming out in the next week or two. All right. Very good. All right. And just like Dave, I've been away. I have been, however, privy to Europe's environmental woes. And I just want to chime in a little bit with regard to the sober spaces as we look at prioritizing, you know, what we want to spend the taxpayer money on. And I really think that any investment in the future has to be an investment in our environmental health. And I mean, we can all say it's pointless, but I think if we all do, then it truly will be the end of our human species. So I just, I think that's something that I would add in addition to what I had said earlier about just having a building that, you know, what I would say, and I like this building quite a lot, but I think to ask people to spend millions of dollars on a building just like this building, we should stay here and we should build a nice library. So I think that if we're going to, you know, go ahead with a plan to invest in a building and ask people for, you know, millions of dollars that we should really make it a building that is very special and environmentally responsible. So I just wanted to add in those two cents two weeks later or three weeks later. And I think that that's basically all I have to say myself. So we're going to leave it up to the Deputy C Manager to enliven this group. Tom, away in Florida, has done more than any of us besides eating and playing around. Thanks, Megan. So Kevin's away on vacation through this week. He'll be back next Monday. Just a reminder on that. So anything you have, if you could direct it right to me. So you received a memo from me about the special meetings for next week. We've given Julia a heads up as well. So we're scheduled for a Monday night meeting at 6.30 here. This is all about facilities in city center and focus on Sobu spaces 2020. And then Wednesday at 5.30. And the reason we're starting earlier is because the grand opening of city center park is from four to five that day. So we figured we'd go there for those of you who can make it, come back and have a quick dinner upstairs and then come downstairs for a 5.30 meeting on Wednesday. That'll be a continuation of the Monday night discussion till we're finished up. Prepared for Monday the 20th, which is will be the next regular meeting of the council. Interesting discussions and decisions to make next week. When will we be receiving some materials? I know that Alana had an extensive meeting today with the design team. I'd say as soon this week as we can get them out to you in a packet ready to go, we'll get them to you. Okay. Yeah. And any update on the Snyder-Braverman concerns about the parking, the room? Just what I sent you from Justin. And that's all I've heard. I've not heard from them or anyone else and with any other information about that. It's good to know. If there's an update. I know Justin's out this week as well. So I'm not sure if that group is meeting or not, but. Will we know by Monday? We should. I'll make sure that somebody has an update for Monday for you. Yes. Yeah. And maybe we could touch base on if there are certain questions council has about that, that we can get answered. We'll make sure we get them answered. Okay. Okay. So I told Charlie we'd let him know. I think we have at least one extra meeting that we can have televised. Would you like them both? Well, it's going to be a continuing discussion. It's possible. It's probably good to. Yeah. So Charlie, I'll follow up with CCTV tomorrow and get those scheduled. Thank you. Remembering that Wednesday is 530 not 630. Correct. Can I just mention two more things? The intersection of Kennedy Drive and Kimball. The intersection of Aspen and Dorset Street. There have been some public arts work done. If you stop there, look around. I didn't notice the birch trees. They're beautiful. So kudos to your daughter. Really? And your wife. Oh, your wife includes. All right. I can't reveal who did the work. Sorry. Born to secrecy. That's fair. Good. Thanks. Did she do the ones in Burlington too? No. Okay. Okay. The secret painters. All over the place. Yes. Stealth. Timberlain and Kennedy. There are two boxes that were painted. One this year, one last year. And then Kennedy and Kimball. And then Dorset and Aspen. Remount Suites. I have a barn she's welcome to practice on too. Right. She prefers to use more than one color. That was a joke. He might be offering a mural. Yeah. I don't know. There's a building. I could suggest for a nice mural too. Well, there's as many colors as she'd like. If she'd like to paint my barn. Yeah. Lovely. All right. Is that all time? That's it. Yeah. That's all I had. All right. Very good. So I do have one question. I don't know if you're prepared, but I did ask, I don't know, over a month ago about the grant, the status of the grant for the mental health initiative. Community initiative. Did you receive word on? I know that Kevin has had conversations with the Howard Center. Yeah. And I've not seen anything yet as even a charge for fiscal year 18. So we're trying to get that resolved. I know that. I think Kevin announced we received the grant. And I think he's met with the group to inform them that we have the grant and then looking at what could be done along with lowering our contribution. Right. So I'll have Kevin prepared to speak to that. You want to add the special meeting or do you want to do that on the 20th? And an email even. Okay. Yeah. I mean, the public probably would like to know. So the special meeting is good too. Sure. Anything else? Or anybody? All right. So we have a consent agenda here with disbursements and lots of minutes, as well as a public hearing warning. I did note that many of the minutes did not include your edits. The final swoop did. I don't know. We can go. There's some misspelled names. There's just one sentence. But we can let it go. I just wanted to note that. Everything I sent was from my folder that had been edited. I'm sure. Yeah. I'm sure. So I can't speak for. I don't personally check what goes into the. But I don't know if there were other changes that people had suggested. I know what changes I had suggested, but I don't know if Dave or Tom, you suggested any changes or you made any changes that you would have wanted in there. Yeah. I make changes that I find, but if nobody else says anything, then they won't need the ones that I find to need to be changed, get changed. So I'll just tell you which minutes aren't edited. Okay. And somehow it got lost in the chain back to us. And then you can determine. So the May 21st minutes weren't changed. The I'm just having a page through them. The June 4th minutes weren't changed. The offer changes to those. I did offer changes to them. She didn't use the one because I definitely sent her the ones that. And if I was the only one who offered changes, then don't worry about it. No, no, no. Other people have a chance. The June 11th minutes service. Since she spoke tonight as S. I. R. V. I. I think that's it. I think the others all looked. Like. Your. Your edits had. May 25th. June 4th. May 21st. June 4th. And June 11. Looks like they. I think that's what you said. And I never say anything less as a substantive change because. I learned long ago as. Secretary of the. Of the Dorset Park skating association for 20 years. I think that's it. I think that's it. I think that's it. I think that's it. I think that's it. I think that's it. I think that the. The. Dorset finis. Dorset Park skate association for 20 years. If we fix every little thing would be fixing stuff forever. Right. So I only pay attention to. I didn't see. Substance. Yeah, but it's not a major thing. So I'm willing to let that go. So if there weren't any other substantive. We can go ahead and approve it. We need a motion to approve all the back minutes. The consent agenda. Oh, okay. Fine. I'm moving approved the consent agenda. All right, all in favor? Aye. Aye. All right, very good. So that passed. OK. So number seven is Counselor's Reports from Committee Assignments. That you had a pension advisory. Yeah, we had a pension advisory board meeting. And I had missed the first one, which was like the day after I was appointed to that position. So it was good to be able to attend this one. The highlights are that gentlemen from SEI presented the overall story about SEI's involvement and the pamphlet that spelled out all of the investments and what their fees were, the general fees. We talked about the expected rate of return and decided just to leave that alone for now. We also discussed the possibility of putting out to bid for that service for the actual management of the fund and also for the actuarial services. So that's under discussion right now. No action taken, right? Other than that, the market is good right now. We hope it stays that way. Nothing, it's exactly right. Is there anything else that you could think of that was highly from that? Our next quarterly meeting's in October. And they'll come back with an analysis of the fees and what's included in it. We asked a lot of questions. Discussion? Good. Off to a good start. Thank you, Tim. Tom, did you have a meeting, the newly elected chair of the Green Mountain Transit Board? We did, I chaired my first meeting and they didn't undo the vote, so I guess I'm still the chair. And we ratified the rural contract with our rural drivers. And we also are taking the month of August off, so I won't have much to record at our next meeting. But we are going to have our year long, day long retreat down in Montpelier to check to reserve the Montpelier metropolitan area for public transit. Very nice. Is that going to serve as a model here in the Chittenden County metropolitan area? Certainly good. The downtown transit center for the city of Burlington, which we're very excited about that opened last year, I think, is also inspiring some of our design ideas for the Montpelier proposal. But nothing is wrong with it. OK, very good. Anything else? I don't see anything. I don't think there's anything, right? All right. We have then a report. This is item number eight, report on activities of the Community Justice Center. And Lisa Bedinger is here, our director of the center. You can just approach him. Staying cool. Yeah, I can imagine there are more disputes when it's warm out, or you can not follow a trend. There's more stuff happening at the mall when it gets hot. I don't appear to have this report. Tom, she's eating stuff up with a port. She got it? I just took off. So Lisa is going to be showing us something on the screen. I don't know if it's a PowerPoint, but I don't know. Tom, if you're watching on the YouTube, or is it YouTube? I am. Hi, Tom. I am watching on YouTube, yes. Except for David, I'm Lisa Bedinger, I'm the director of the Community Justice Center. We are based in the police department. And I do currently report to Chief Whipple. I guess first the entire center is based on the concept of restorative justice. This is one definition of restorative justice. And I find the definition is evolving. A perspective that's just about repairing harm to how do you create a place? So it's becoming more proactive in setting or communities. So it's getting much more how do you develop relationships in community proactively so that less goes wrong in the first place. So this is the mission of the South Burlington Community Justice Center. And currently we have eight programs. There are three staff, around 20 volunteers, and about maybe seven or eight subcontractors to make this all happen. And so what I'll do is just give an update program by program and where we are. And some of these, there's some very new things going on. So the one that we're most known for is the restorative justice panels, which has been called Reparative Boards or Reparative Boards. And the language has changed over time to call it restorative justice panels instead. So this is the program that has been around the longest. Even if predates the official starting of the Community Justice Center, which was in April 2011, is when we started. So our first full year of data was fiscal year 2012. And we average around 168 cases a year. They're mostly referred directly from the police department or the state's attorney's office instead of going to court. We also do some cases that have been to court, have been convicted and are in addition to going to court. We're noticing a trend that cases are decreasing over time. And that is holding for other community justice centers in Chittenden County as well. We have lots of questions why, but only really speculation at this point, such as is crime in general decreasing, is it working? And it's actually, there are fewer people because it does reduce recidivism. So are people like they learn and they don't come back? We don't know. I think that would be. But you must have data on that. We don't have data on the actual cases. We don't know the why behind it because. But you have your own recidivism data, right? If people come back again? Actually, don't have recidivism data. It's actually, when we have done evaluation work, we've contracted with a crime research group to do that. It was something we needed external help to get recidivism data and to do it well. So any question about panels? Are you going to be able to take us through an anonymous example of what was done, how it was detected, how it was handed off, and what the process was, and what the resolution was? Just one example, I mean, because I have no contact with this system at all. Sure. One of the things we learned, actually, Kevin asked me how many cases happen at the University Mall. And at first I was just thinking retail theft because most of the cases we work with are retail theft. So I was just thinking of that. But then if I looked at actually looked at how many are at the mall, it turns out to be over 60% of the cases are at the mall. But it ranged much broader. Some of them are simple assault. Some of them are check fraud. So the range of cases was much bigger than I was thinking. So let's see. Let me do really your presentation if you need to keep going. Yeah, well, I'm just trying to think of can I give you an example of a case that I'm familiar enough to be specific, but it's not so familiar that it's identifying information. So a long time ago, I think it was probably 10 or 11 at the time a young man set a fire in the dumpster where he lived. So technically, it's a pretty high level crime. It's setting fires or arson. And so part of the work we did with him is to both attend to the potential to burn this place down was pretty high. So to attend to the potential for harm, but also to look with him, is there some issues where he might be drawn to lighting fires? And is there something that needs to be looked at? So it turns out that Howard Center, after we did some research, has a program that's particularly for young people who may be drawn to lighting fires, connected him with that program. And so he got some 10-week therapeutic work to look at what are some of the issues that might be driving this behavior. Is there anything to be concerned about here long term? We worked with his family. His family was having some issues. So we look at both, what do you need to do to repair the actual damage? In this case, there wasn't a lot. It was more the fear and what could have happened. But also then to look at what needs to happen so this never happens again. And so with his case, it was really doing some work with the family around, does he have healthy activities to do that are safe? And Howard, his relationship with friends. And so to really look at the whole picture of what's gone into this situation. So that's one example. How do you accept the panels? Community members, and mostly word of mouth where people talk to somebody and say, this is an opportunity to volunteer in the community. And it's not addressing envelopes. You actually get to work with people and have a difference in actual people's lives. And sometimes we put postings on front porch forum and people come to us that way as well. Those have been the main two strategies. Yeah. And sometimes people just are like, who are you? What do you do? And then they're like, oh, OK, I want to get involved. We usually have four volunteers and a staff member. And so conflict assistance, case numbers are really low. We only do usually around 70 a year. One year we had 20, which was really unusual. And mostly this is noise. The vast majority of the time, it's people struggling within a building. The noise is traveling. Or it's dogs. Or it's often neighbors. And most of the time these referrals come from the police where somebody's calling and saying, hey, can you help? And the police officer says there's no crime. We actually can't do anything. And they refer to us. And then we reach out and say, we're not going to decide anything for you. But do you want to see what you can figure out with each other? And then we assist the process. So Offender Rienchi is a little bit newer program. We just started in 2016. And there's two major ways that we work with people coming out of jail. One of them is really long-term intensive support with circles of support and accountability. So we usually serve only three or four people a year. And we have a team of volunteers that meet with that person for the first year they're out once a week as a team. And then as people are ready, they get together one on one. So it might be like we both like fishing. So we're going to go fishing together. So a lot of people, especially people who have been in for five or more years, don't know anybody who's not involved in the criminal justice system, either socially or in their families. And so it's a way to connect people with, here's people who are functioning in the community in a healthy way to have role models and connection in the community. Because it's so intensive, the Department of Correction reserves that for people who are the highest risk of reoffense and try to really make that resource target the people that people are most worried about if they reoffend that the impact is going to be big. Use some human sex offenders? Yes. The resource navigation is more when people either don't qualify or don't need that level of support, but they still need some support. So somebody to have a regular touchstone with that's just somebody you can call and say, I am struggling at work. I'm afraid I'm going to lose my job. I just need someone to talk to. Or so the kinds of support tend to be sometimes parenting, sometimes one young man we're working with who's in college and really struggling with a math course. And he's like, how can I pass this class and can connect me with anybody? Sometimes people are like, I don't have a job right now. And I just need some clothes and we have goodwill vouchers. So some of it's very simple and some of it's a little bit more long term and help people get stuff set up. Sometimes people don't have a Social Security card, don't have their birth certificate, and how do I get my documentation in order so I can get a job, stuff like that. So we have had struggles getting enough referrals for this work. And just this past year it's gotten better and we've gotten more referrals. And that's gone better because we actually had more capacity than we had referrals for a while. But you wait for the Department of Corrections to refer to you for this, right? For the COSA for sure they need to approve those. For the resource navigation people can self refer. What if they left jail for New Hampshire and came to Vermont? Would they be eligible? Yeah, and they actually can be federal as well. Yeah, yeah. And it's better the closer it is as people have gotten out. Do you have any data that shows the people to get that service? Have a lower recidivism rate than people that don't get it? The research that's been done has been done on sex offenders. And the research that's been done is that lowers the recidivism rate 75% for sex offenders, like significant. Yeah, yeah. And the beauty of that having this team is when somebody starts to get off track and starts to have behaviors that are creating risk, you catch it so much earlier. And so the risk of the offense drops dramatically because people aren't isolated and alone. And there's a team of people in their lives who catch stuff. Is the probation officer part of your team? No, but there's a policy of no secrets. So there's no, like anything the volunteers learn, the staff person, they know that they need to tell the staff person. And then when it rises to the level, the probation officer also becomes involved. So we have one example of what could be considered a failure because a person didn't make it the whole year. I don't consider it a failure because the person was starting to have risky behaviors and we caught it and there was not another young person abused as a result and that person's now back in. So I actually consider that a success also as well as the people who stay out and stay and don't re-offend and stay out long term. With you for just one year? One year is the commitment that the offenders sign up for. Like they say, this is voluntary. So they say, yes, I want this. And the volunteers commit for a year. When things go well, often people stay together longer. That's very common, yeah, yeah. So victim services often are connected to our panel cases because we always reach out to whoever's impacted by a crime, ask them, how are you doing? What do you need? Do you want to be part of the process? And a newer part of this is parallel justice. So they're different. So the victim services, the cases come to us because the offender is sent to us and then we work with the victim as well. The parallel justice cases, we proactively reach out to victims of crime within like a week of the crime and check in, regardless of the offender is caught, identified, prosecuted. Right now the criminal justice system ties services for victims to where the offender is in the system. And so parallel justice attempts to break that and just meet the needs of victims regardless of where the offender is in the system. For example, there's victim advocates at the state's attorney's office, but somebody has to be brought to court to access those. There's victim advocates at department corrections, but somebody has to be convicted and incarcerated to access those. So this attempts to be like, it doesn't matter what happens to the offender, you get services. So the parallel justice program, we did startup work starting in January through May. We knew that money would end in June. So we were like, all right, we have some money to do the startup work. Started reaching out to victims in the end of May and then in June contacted 58 victims just proactively, how are you doing? Sorry, this happened, what do you need? And then we had three different funding sources that we thought one would come through to pick up in June. None of them did. So we have a gap. There's a grant that opens in October. So we've had to put that program on pause temporarily while we figure out funding. And it's been really great to work with the police officers on this because they're so excited to have more to offer victims and more services. So I'm excited to pick that back up. We have one lead that we're following to see if we can figure out this gap from now till October 1st so that we can pick that back up quicker. I truly love that program. I wanted to get going again. And the great thing is no matter when it starts back up we've done the groundwork to start up and we can just pick right back up. And one of the philosophies we have is that victims get to choose. If they're like, I'm great, thanks, I'm all set, fine. There's no obligation. Victims are like, I could use this or I don't want anything. And it's like they get to choose what makes sense for them regardless of which way we work with them. So here's a few quotes from victims that we've worked with. And one of the things we're finding that the biggest thing that most people need if they need anything is, one, I need to know somebody cares. Two, I want to tell you my story and if it's possible to repair what happened to me and get some reassurance it'll never happen to anybody else. Those are by far the biggest trends in terms of what victims ask for. Every once in a while somebody will, we haven't done this quite long enough yet but we did a couple of cases before the official startup and one person came and said, I'm about to go to court, what do I ask for? And it was great to be able to say, here's some options, what do you want? These are things you cannot ask for. And she decided to ask that it get written into the probation agreement that she got to talk to them. So they got referred to us for our panel process and then she got to sit down and talk with them and explain, here's what the last year's been like for my family, here's the impact that you've had, here's like the medical implications of what happened and got to really say like, you have no idea what you caused by this one night. Is the 10% adder on parking, on traffic tickets, that goes into the Victims Fund in Vermont, is that? I don't know. Do you know what I'm talking about? I know there's like another percentage on top. It might be talking about the Victims Compensation Fund at Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services. Yeah. Which- Do you have any connection with that at all? We will refer people to that fund when they qualify but there's very stringent rules about who qualifies and somebody has to make a report to the police and there has to be probable cause to qualify so it's one of those systems where it depends like can you access that or not? So yeah. And as we develop the Parallel Justice Program we would love to have a local South Burlington Victims Fund for unmet needs. For example, my windshield was broken and nobody was caught and there's a $500 deductible and that hits the victim unless somebody helps. So restorative practice in schools is also a newer piece of the work that we're doing and I work closely with John Kitta who's an independent consultant this work in the past three years in our training room at the police department. We've trained over 600 Vermont educators in what it means to use restorative practices within a school context. We just had the first training for South Burlington educators in this June which was very exciting. It was just a three hour introductory training and then also school house which is based in South Burlington as well just had an introductory training and because of this work and how much it's taking off my position just moved from 32 hours a week to full time on July one and the contracts of schools are paying for that increase. So yeah, so that's one of the other pieces of new news. Let's see. The Safe Driving program used to be run by probation and parole and the Department of Corrections and they asked for the community justice centers to take it over. So in July 2016, the Essex Community Justice Center and us partnered to cover all of Chittenden County and the curriculum was revised a little bit to be more in alignment with restorative philosophy and the feedback that we're getting is really, really positive. People come in expecting, people who have had DUI, distracted driving, careless and negligent operation or like excessive speed. So any kind of dangerous driving and they expect to be like, I think chastise and feel humiliated and instead they have an opportunity to self reflect and come out of it with like, here's what I'm gonna do differently and often find it way more useful and enjoyable process than they were expecting. So do all DUI offenders go through that program? Or just the ones that generally refers to that? Or do the person have to request it? No, I think it's required. It can be people, because the referrals come from both probation and directly from attorneys. So yeah, I think, if it's not all, it's close. Yeah. And this writing sign for my has existed well before it became part of the community justice center. So it's more, so they operate a writing expression and practice being in community and relationships within that group. And so they've been doing that for like seven or eight years. So they published one book of writing from women in the facility and they're now this next year, taking the next year and publishing their second book. And all of the writing is from incarcerated women. So, and the last program is community dialogue and education. This is mostly by request, where somebody is like, we need a convener for a process. So I think it's been like four or five years ago that community justice center partnered with the city council to have a series of conversations on how is opioid addiction impacting both crime and our community. And so we had a series of presentations on that. And then the last two years, we've had bigger community conversations mostly around the lockdown and threats of violence at the high school, the upheaval around the mascot change and the school budget being defeated twice. Like in that period, people were like, we have to talk. And so we convened a large conversation for that. And then a year later came back and had another conversation. From what I hear from people, there's a lot of interest in doing more regular and deeper conversations across, like with people they don't know and people they disagree with and that those, the annual ones are meeting some need but there's some people who are like, I really want to do this in a more regular and deeper way as well. And then as part of that, there's also been some conversations about if this is a restorative community, what does that mean? What would that look like? What would it look like for relationships to be at the core of how the municipality operates, how business operates, how nonprofits operate? Like what would that change for things to come from a relational perspective from the ground up? So that's been just a conversation that has started. It's very exploratory and what does this mean at this point? So those are the overview of the eight programs, kind of where we are currently. And I know that was very minimal on each one because I know we have a deadline here as well. I'm going to give Tom a chance to ask any questions he might have. I'll just say one thing, I'm familiar with the restorative justice panel my father served on them for many years and I know they save both money and livelihood. So it's not just about the economics of it, it's about how it really helps a lot of people. My one question for Lisa, are there certain crimes or offenses that could go through the restorative justice program that aren't, that we're exploring? There are ones that could and the exploration is sometimes it's more active and sometimes it's really, it's not a whole lot happening. So when the system of community justice centers was put in place and when restorative processes started being used for a crime in Vermont, I think there is understandably a little bit of like is this going to work? Like how much risk is involved? And so the way the system got put in place is with the lowest level crimes. And the research shows it's actually more effective with moderate to higher level crimes where there's more victim impact because it's really how it helps victims feel settled and healed. That is the true power of it. So it got put in place in a lower level. And so slowly there's more conversation about can this be expanded to be more moderate and high level crimes? There's currently a task force just got and put in place on the state level to look at can restorative practices play a role in domestic and sexual violence and how would that be done well if that does happen? And so I think they've had one meeting of this task force that was requested or approved by the legislature. And so it's a very large group of people who are going to look at that question and there's been ongoing conversation anyway in a more informal way. So, and I know one of the things I've talked about where I think blurry is a very possible crime that could have a restorative response, particularly if the offenders are juvenile or it's a first time offense. The impact on victims is so big that they often don't get their needs met to explain like, here's the impact you had on me by doing this. And often the offenders, not the ones who have made a habit of it over years and years, but the ones who like really aren't thinking don't understand how high the impact is from that crime. So that's one where I think it could be used more and is not used much. Good question. Anything else, Tom? Well, just to close that point, if you see an opportunity for the city council to help advocate for expanding this to other crimes, I'd love to hear those thoughts at some point in the future. Great, thank you. I thought that was excellent. I learned a lot in your short time. What did you study in order to be able to do all this? My master's is in mediation. And people come to it from all kinds of ways, some from social work, some from a legal background, some from criminal justice. So those are the most common. Everyone's from all counseling. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you very much. My one question was how many people go into doing all of this? So, how many of them? Yeah, right now, we had a couple of very part time people helping get the apparel justice program going. So they're currently on leave until we can figure that out. And they knew that was possible. So there's two, one, eight hour, one, 20 hour who are like on hold for the moment. And then there's three of us who are the core of it. So myself, a panel coordinator and a federal entry coordinator. All the rest are either, like for example, the mediation work, we have a mediator who's a consultant who handles all the conflict work. The safe driving program is consultants. The writing in Vermont, they have been consultants, they're gonna shift and be volunteers starting this year. And then we have the panel and the offender reentry volunteers who, I think we probably have maybe around 25 to 30 a team of volunteers who really make it all work. Thank you a lot too, Lisa, and thank you very much. I imagine this was interesting for the audience. I don't know if there are any questions from the audience. Great. Thank you, Lisa, for all you do for, oh yes. Residents of South Brompton that you work with? Or volunteers or the like offenders? Offenders or victims. The way the system works is if the crime is committed in our community. And people come to South Brompton to commit crimes from all over the place. Particularly at the mall. It's not repeat, that's favorite destination. So yes, so some are and some aren't, yes. When you get your data analyzed, we'd love to see a report of that about recidivism rates and things like that. Unfortunately, my understanding of how that data works, we don't have access to the data to do that, so we would need funding to hire somebody to actually do that. We do know the research that has been done was the University of Vermont did an evaluation of part of the Restore Justice Panels, but just the part of the people who are on probation, and this was part of their probation. So those are the higher level fences that we work with where I think the recidivism rate is going to be higher in general. And so that research showed it reduced recidivism 23%. But you just can't give a list of names to corrections and get back all the... Well, some of the people we work with are never in the system because we try to keep them, like for example, we get... But if they went in the system, the corrections would have that, right? True, but it depends on if you're using recidivism for another arrest or a conviction. So many of the people we have are never convicted that it becomes a hard thing to track because they don't get in the system and we don't want it to. And then, yeah, so we don't, yeah. Does corrections know about... So if somebody is referred to you instead of into punishment, right? It's some kind of penal situation. Does corrections log that in their database that this was done on these dates and... Yes, there's no way to know, like I won't even know if somebody worked with Essex Community Justice Center because we're not all in the same system, like we're on Valkor, but they're on Spillman. So we don't even know if somebody has done... Like we'll ask somebody, have you worked with the Community Justice Center before, but we don't actually have a way... But these must be all over the state, right? Yes. Shouldn't they all be in one system? And we are looking into a statewide database for that reason, but it's not up and running yet. Shouldn't corrections administer that? We don't wanna be on their database, it doesn't work very well. Yeah, yeah. And there's a little bit of a tricky thing about, like you have a 15 year old, you don't necessarily want corrections to know about them. So there's some, a little bit of like data separation and it's also tricky we're on victims too. And you don't necessarily, victims don't necessarily want corrections to know about them either. Yeah, so there's, we've definitely thought about it, but there's some tricky things to figuring out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm happy to talk more in depth about, here's where we've gotten stuck, yeah, yeah. All right, well, we're very fortunate to have you, Lisa. Thank you and all of your team. Thank you very much and I know... And I just wanna mention that... Yeah, so there's lots of committee members who are involved in what we do. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, sir. And we're moving on with another agenda item that has to do with justice and good service. And we have our city attorney, Andrew Bolduc, here who is gonna introduce to us his new colleague and our new staff person for legal services. And we all know Amanda Lafferty, but we'll let Andrew do the honors. Good evening, Andrew Bolduc, city attorney. Very thrilled to introduce our new deputy city attorney. As you said, Vangan, this is kind of an introduction that needs no introduction. Amanda has been with us for her been serving the city in some capacity as outside counsel for the last 18 years. She has a very in depth with the specialty in planning and zoning and land use regulation. She was involved in Jamgolf for a large part of... For a very long time. She's got a tattoo. Yeah, right. But yeah, we were absolutely thrilled. When we went out to, you know, looking for someone had no idea that this kind of the caliber that Amanda kind of brings. And yeah, thrilled to welcome her, so. First, we're very pleased to have you on our team, our city's team. And I think very highly of you. I can imagine that I'm not alone. And so I'm very, just, I feel very good for the city. The city's fortunate to have you working along with Andrew, so thank you. She's hit the ground running, that's for sure. I'm sure there's lots to do already, yeah. Do you have a bad statement of reviewing all the cases of the city's bed in the last 15 years? That you're most likely to do it. I actually could not do that. And we have two minutes on the agenda. Do you all need it now? Because I can do it. Maybe a 1030. I'm thinking of like a Billy Joel song, yeah. Jamgolf. Well, thank you. Good to see you all. Welcome. Thank you, Andrew. Yeah, thank you. I'm actually sticking around for the next agenda. All right. Very good. That was quick. Yeah, right. Moving on. To work. So much for the pleasantries. Yeah, right. So we're on to item number 10, the public information session on the duly warned primary election ballot article related to adding one cent of the South Wellington municipal tax rate and investing the accumulated funds in bike and pedestrian facilities. And this is the bike and pedestrian committee. I don't know if there's someone from the committee. Yes, here we have. Jamie Hart. Yeah. Tony. Dana Hart. Come on. Oh, I wasn't even. You're sitting in good company. You're sitting in good company. So confused folk. Yeah, so this is a part of our bonding requirement. And it's just a public information hearing. So within seven days before the vote itself, as you know, we have two warned, two ballot articles. One is to authorize the city authorized to levy an additional one penny on the annual city tax rate, the entire of the proceeds of which are to be deposited into a reserve fund established by you for the sole purpose of bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure improvements within the city. And the second ballot article is to bond up to the anticipated proceeds of that for that 10-year period. This is our statutory requirement. And if there's any. Do we have to make a motion to enter a public hearing? I would recommend, yeah, making a motion to enter. Salute. Second. Very good. All in favor? Aye. Still there, Tom? Aye. There you go. All right. We are all in a public hearing then. And did you want to add anything more to what you just said? Nothing more to add. If there are any questions about the legal aspect, I'm here for that. And if there's any questions about the project itself, we have by-compact committee here for the public. Are there any questions from the public about this particular ballot item? It's a 10-year. So 10 years of this tax increase of one penny, all right, to be put into a reserve fund to help pay for a bond that will be on the ballot in what's on the ballot. August 14th, it's already on the ballot. The coming election, unless you've already absentee voted, in which case you saw that green piece of paper that says yes or no, and then yes or no, right. So OK. So this is to close the gaps and pay for engineering as well as the construction, not for upkeep and maintenance unless there are some major renovations, a diverted route or some new infrastructure that's required. And it's really, I think, part of the city's goal and this council's goal to be a sustainable city and to take cars off the road. And I think there's also recreation and healthy bodies, healthy minds, but. Not to mention safety. And to make it much safer for that to happen, right, that there are paths in the city. But because of the way they were developed very generously and very, I think, you know, with some vision to have developments include these paths, we need to connect them in order to make a real network for people to get around. So can you clarify for me, I thought this was a bond and it says investing the accumulated funds. So is this a pay as we accumulate money or is this a bond and use the money to pay the bond back? Now I'm confused. Yeah, so article two talks about incurring the bonded debt for the anticipated revenue. So we would bond up to the amount of the 10-year fund. And pay it back out of that. And pay it back out of that, yeah. That's what I thought. Okay. Yeah. Will the amount bonded, are you shooting to achieve a zero balance reserve and fully paid off the bond after the 10-year period on the 11th year, whatever it is, is that the, when you take the bond out, you believe that whatever the interest rate is, you'll ask for the right, because the interest rate when you take it out is gonna be something perhaps a little different than right now, I mean. So is the plan to bond for exactly what it will be to be zero on the 11th year or, I mean. I assume so, I guess I deferred it, Tom. Pretty much, yeah. Okay. And I think the expectation is most of the money like the open space fund will be used in the short term, but the payments will still remain in the long term to pay off what we borrowed. Yeah. I think Dana probably has more on the list that she'd like to do in the committee than what we'll be able to do, but this will at least make a nice dent in it should it pass. And it's also intended to leverage grants, grant monies, federal dollars that would be incoming, so it would be a way for a project to be ready, you know, yes, for the matching amount. So it's a good project, hopefully. What's your favorite dead end in the city? My favorite dead end in the city? Well, on the SBBT community one. I don't know if I have a favorite, so I wanted a question. Ace, Ace, some people might say the city council. Sidewalk just goes boom, right? There were some pictures on the SBBT community watch page recently about that sidewalk along Williston Road that just like it stops at both ends. I mean, there are a lot of favorite spots that need attention or just missing links, you know. So there's a lot of opportunity here and they've all been outlined by bike and ped. Well, I will say that I'm glad to see that there are crosswalks across Williston Road. That's a really hard road to get across. There could be more, but I know that already getting these things done will make a big difference, yeah. I'm just trying to get one pothole fixed. It's been over a month and it's not the city's fault. Is it in a road? Yeah. Well ride your bike, then you won't have to worry about it. That's how I hit it. That's how I hit the pothole was on my bike. Any other comments from the public? I see you built the bike there, then you won't have to be on the road. That was a good question, thank you. No questions? All right, all is silent. Tom, did you want to ask any questions before we close the public hearing? Nothing to add, but I'm gonna definitely vote yes on this bond. All right, all right. Will you be back in time? I will. Okay, so I'll entertain a motion to close the public hearing. So moved. Second. And all in favor? Aye. Aye. Tom. All right, fingers crossed for positive outcome on Tuesday. Thank you for coming. 18% turn out is probably gonna happen, right? Yeah. What's up? You like this election? Oh, yeah. Pass. Very good. No, I'm just saying you probably won't get more than 20% to be able to turn for this election. No, it depends on the weather. Exactly, it could be hot. Are they gonna be air conditioned? The polling sites? Maybe we should say that now. All right, we're gonna go on to item number 11. We'll work on the air conditioning another time. Consider possible ballot article relating to the Kennedy Drive Stormwater Project and the Clean Water State Revolving Fund. And Andrew, you'll be leading our discussion here. So this is more of an FYI and kind of a heads up. And we're currently working with the state and have been working with the state for several months now on a, what we're calling a companion project to the Bartlett Bay Wastewater Treatment vote that we did that project and vote that we did to bond for it back in the March election. If you recall, the state has been working and through the Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund to identify additional projects that can be done. And one of them is a Kennedy Drive Stormwater Project that's kind of been on the city's radar for a while as a high impact project. And one of the thoughts was the way the Revolving Fund typically works is you need, because it's a loan fund, you need to follow the letter of the law, you need to bond for it. And there needs to be a bond vote for it. Late in the legislative session last year, the governor signed a bill that basically says that if the project is taken in partnership with another project that has been bonded for, like the Bartlett Bay Project, then you won't need to get separate voter approval for the companion project. And so we're currently awaiting state confirmation that this kind of meets that requirement. It's the first project that this really come up for. So there's some question whether or not. So just in case, there may be something that we're asking you to warn for a new November ballot item at the next, at the August 20th meeting when we come forward with the rest of the ballot articles at that time. So there's probably a small likelihood but wanted you to be aware. Do you know what the technical details of the stormwater work are? I don't. And yeah, Tom DePietro is the, obviously the lead on the project. I mean, they just, it did all that work over by Timberlane. And the other side, I mean, when they redid all of the embankments and stuff back in 2008, was seven, whatever it was. Remember that? I mean, so there are little stormwater ponds, you know, as you, as you're approaching Timberlane on the right, right? And then they cascade into that marshy area. I'm just curious what work, what remaining work needs to be done or whether it's even there, maybe it's somewhere. Yeah, I don't have the details. Yeah, I know it's from a financing standpoint. It really works more like a grant than a loan. So, you know, we get the money from the Revolving Loan Fund and we immediately, it's immediately forgiven in another form, so. So more to come on whether or not. Potentially, yeah, potentially. Any other questions? Tom, did you have any questions? No, not here. Okay, so nothing else. We'll move on to item number 12, presentation on proposed indoor recreation facility. And we have our recreation and parks director, Hallie Reese, and the chair of our recreation and parks committee, Jennifer Colkman, are here to lead us in that discussion. We're ahead of schedule. Can you just like stall for 10 minutes or a little while? No. Why isn't it? You guys got up after, just after 9.30 last week. Last year, wasn't it? Thank you for inviting us to do this presentation. I would first like to acknowledge the recreation and parks committee people and staff who are here, if you would stand up or raise your hand if you feel more comfortable raising your hand. Yeah, thank you, Brett. I wanna start out by saying that on our, on our August 13th meeting already on the agenda, there is a very dedicated group of people who have requested that recreation and parks offer them pickleball courts. They like to play pickleball and there is no place to play pickleball in South Burlington. And so, but they are invited to make that request anyway. And so what we're going to be looking at tonight is means of trying to address these kinds of requests that we simply can't fill because we don't have the facility. So I'd like to just start with a PowerPoint presentation that has the main points of this. I wanna clarify, Jennifer, that this is, we're speaking of indoor space, not outdoor space. This is correct. That is indoor, this is indoor recreation facility. That is correct. So our mission is to provide opportunities that enhance healthy community connections, community connections by providing quality, active passive recreation space and programs for the community to play, grow and learn. And our three pillars of recreation are conservation, social equity, health and wellness. And the staff developed the list of values that you see there. Go ahead. I was just gonna say, I think we do the absolute best job with the resources that we have as we've been in front of you before saying we are very land-rich facility poor. So we're just gonna run through a little bit of the history and then hopefully jump into a potential solution. So the first full-time director for the department was hired in 71 and all during that time there has been no formal programmable indoor space other than this, the very small exercise space that is located behind the offices for recreation and parks department. Most of the programming when we can do it is done in other kinds of facilities where we have to schedule around other people's priorities. Schools and other kinds of spaces. And that is very limiting in what we can offer to the community. So this is an ongoing chronic problem that I've been on this committee for 10, 11 years and it's been a goal of our committee ever since I've been on this to try to address this long-standing need. I would just share that we work in partnership with our schools and have always done that well. As you know, we're a very active community and now we have very active PTOs and active school personnel. So space in schools is harder and harder to come by. We have a deadline for a brochure in two weeks that will require us securing space for our basketball program. And at this point we can't confirm that we've secured that space. So we're really in a crisis in terms of it's great that a community is growing and as vibrant as our community is, but with that comes its own issues. So to be able to do what we currently do, we do need indoor spacing to be able to enrich those programs and make them more robust and meet the needs of the community. We certainly need that. So one of the goals right up front in the Complan is to create an affordable and community strong community, creating a robust sense of place and opportunity for our residents and visitors. And under that provide quality, public safety, infrastructure, health, wellness, and recreation services. And the second part that we accepted was from the TIF district application. The three items that were included in the TIF application were build a city hall, including an auditorium, build a library, including reading and lecture rooms, and build a recreation center. So all of those have been goals that have been accepted by city council and stated in the Complan and the TIF application. Holly White, you go ahead. So this is just a little more in-depth of what we were just addressing. Currently we offer around 380 programs. They do serve a variety of ages. I'm currently within these boundaries of this room that we're in, certainly not necessarily designed for some of the physical activities that we do run out of here. But we do what we can with the space that we're provided. So we use this space, and as Jennifer noted, the small space toward the back of the building, certainly share space. We've rented space when needed, and renting of that space comes at a premium, and then we have to pass that on to the residents and that outsources or outprices some of the offerings that we would like to be able to do. The space in here comes secondary to obviously city business. And so there are frequently times where we can't program the space on a consistent cycle that we would like to do. And certainly during the summer months, when it's everyone's time to play in those precious times in Vermont, where we have to have a location inside because of pop-up thunderstorms, the schools are very limited because they have their own financial constraints and custodians are not available after hours in the summertime. So we're fairly limited by what we can access, although we do use that as much as possible. And these are some of the requests that we get for programming. People come to us and say they would like these kinds of things, and at this point, we'd love to be able to offer them, but we don't have the facility that would allow these. And especially we have a long winter and people like to stay active in the winter, not everybody can do winter sports, so it would be nice to be able to offer people athletic activities in the wintertime. And I would say this is certainly is not comprehensive to what we could offer. These are just a reflection of things that people have called in, written in, emailed, or shared on social media, things that they'd like to see. So I think that we have talked about these three points at numerous meetings at Planning Commission and for city council, create program and indoor recreation facilities, including appropriate office space for department staff, expand support staff appropriately to meet the needs of increased indoor space and expand program offerings to better serve the community. Those are overriding goals for the department and the committee. And we presented, I think it was in June, our summary of the NRPA standards. It is a comparison of our community with other communities in this country of similar density and just some excerpts from that summary. The square footage of operated buildings here at 6,550 square feet is well below at least 75% of respondents and that is program space of all kinds. And so we are in the bottom 25%, the bottom quarter of what we can offer in terms of indoor space. The capital budget for the next five years, which includes CIP projections for new facilities, South Burlington would still be lower than more than 50% of other respondents. The expenditures per capita at 42.34, South Burlington is lower than almost 75% of respondents. And at the time that we wrote this, it was a number of full-time employees at five. What is the number now? Well, currently right now, we'll get up to the five. We're gonna get up to five. Okay. So on that report is just a reflection of what other similar communities our size have in terms of facility, indoor facility space. So we listed currently what we're using, which we've reviewed. And then that second listing is dedicated space. So not shared of recreation center, community center, senior center, teen center, fitness center, gym, stadium, indoor track, as well as some of those below. So ta-da. So here we have a very cost-effective solution. It is a possibility of developing offices for the staff, locker rooms, and an indoor facility. And Holly, would you like to go through this? So, I'll just orient everybody. So we're talking about Dorset Street, just right down the road, less than a mile. You'll see the biggest square box at the top, overlaying Champlain Oil. So there's currently a building there. It's a brick-facing building, much of that is garage storage. So we would be thinking of keeping that front-facing brick outside of the box as an entryway and rehab that into a welcome center, registration desk, locker room, space, bathrooms. And then the black square would be an indoor recreation facility. And we'll show pictures next of what we hope that that might look like in a very affordable way. The red box down below would be utilized for parking. So we'd be flattened and made for that. And then, beside that, to the right, you can see an office space building. And the proposal would be to lease a space in there for recreation staff offices, and potentially some program space, to be more of a space for us as well. I wanna thank Kevin and Tom for working very hard. Tom could give us a little bit more history on being able to acquire possibility of acquiring this site for us. So thank you very much. Thanks for what we're looking at. So this is a inflatable dome structure. The first picture kind of shows what it looks like when it's attached to a bricks and mortar kind of entryway, which is why we included it. But the really important component, and Tom, I'm sorry that you can't see this, but I think you have the PowerPoint is the inside. So we would be looking at a facility that would support three basketball courts or three sizes of a basketball court side by side. And we'd really be looking to do this in a multipurpose way. So looking at flooring that's conducive to the wear and tear of tables and chairs for events, and also the flexibility to do pickleball, to have basketball, potentially volleyball, dance kind of things. So a really durable surface. And you can see how on the top right hand corner, they've got several tennis courts lined up. We would have multiple lines for multiple activities, but you can see how this would end up around the perimeter. And so there would be able to be multiple things going on at once, but also the flexibility to open it up for bigger events. And when I say bigger events, potentially we would be able to house off season farmers markets in there, other kind of trade show things, as well as our ever-popular recreation community events. So these are the cost estimates. And I would say when we go down to the surface component, so that's based on kind of an acrylic surface, we would love to investigate and we'll be investigating some prices for have a more spongy surface that would be more conducive to a little bit higher and more frequent impact of physical activity. Questions on that one? And then projected funding sources. It is TIFF-eligible. And we've talked with Tom and Kevin about utilizing city-center reserve funds and impact fees. We certainly have a exciting development with the Recreation Foundation. And so far they've identified their sole goal as fundraising efforts for an indoor recreation facility. So certainly looking to formalize that foundation so we can get those efforts off the ground. And we're just in the beginning stages of the project. So certainly we need to gather further details about the land negotiations and those negotiations are in the works right now. And Tom and Kevin are working on those. We need to review with the Planning Commission and recommendations to counsel potentially amend the form-based code and certainly engage the public in the public process. So lots of work to be done and certainly at the beginning stages of what we think is a really exciting potential project and hopefully targeted toward a March 19 vote. So our Recreation and Parks Committee did adopt a resolution on August 1st whereas the Recreation and Parks Committee has long sought dedicated indoor recreation space for the citizens of our community and whereas the Recreation and Parks Committee and the city have engaged in numerous conversations and other methods to gather community wants, needs, desires, and whereas these conversations, surveys, and requests from citizens over many years have contributed to ideas that have been taken into consideration in the current plans and whereas the Recreation and Parks Committee and the Recreation Parks Director will work diligently with city staff and architects to further develop the current design and plans for a new indoor recreation facility that will contain active recreation space, locker rooms, and Recreation and Parks Department staff space, and whereas this new indoor recreation facility concept supports the Recreation and Parks Department and Committee mission to provide opportunities that enhance healthy community connections by providing quality active passive recreation space and programs for the community to play, learn, and grow, and whereas the Recreation and Parks Committee and Department staff are confident that the current design plan is appropriately sized and designed to support the amenities and programs for a community of our size and makeup and that the space is sufficient and appropriate for the future growth of our community. Now therefore, let it be resolved that the Recreation and Parks Committee endorses the current concept and programmatic plan for a new South Burlington Recreation and Parks Department indoor recreation facility and we urge the city council to adopt the same. And so I will give you this slide. Jennifer. That concludes. We would love to be able to answer any questions that you have. Go back to any slides of review. Tom, it might be beneficial for the folks that are sitting here probably don't know or may not know how it came to pass that the Champlain Oil Property is what is falling into place to make this thing a reality. We created, I'm chair of the Recreation Foundation and we started that. We're still waiting for our 501C3. That'd be another few weeks I understand. But we created that with the sole purpose initially of raising private money to support this project and supplement any tip funding, city money, et cetera so that money from the taxpayers would be nominal at best. And then we kind of started thinking where might this place go? And certainly we wanted it in this city center TIF district the most advantageous and you can take it from there as to how the Champlain Oil Property has come to pass and explain just briefly how that happened. Sure and a lot of conversation still happening with Tony and Brian Cairns. And I wanna be careful about what I can say and what I can't say at this point. Brian I think is in the process of getting married. So things are on hold for a couple of weeks while he's getting married and off on his honeymoon. But conversations with Tony and Brian actually started a little over a year ago about their space. We were looking for alternative land within the TIF district that might be a little less expensive than what we would pay along Market and Garden Street. And we approached Tony with the idea initially and he was receptive to it. He said he'd been approached by a number of different enterprises looking to utilize that piece of land which as you can see from the photo it's open all the way from Dorset Street to San Remo Drive and it's a good size piece of property. Over the course of late fall and the winter we didn't hear much from Tony and Brian and we're getting kind of concerned. Until we found out this spring that they'd been working very hard to sell Champlain Oil Company and that's recently been completed I believe as of July 17th. In the news. Yeah. And so they are retaining the ownership of this property as well as several others locally but the majority of their assets have been sold and so we're working with them even more diligently now. They're very excited about this concept and very willing to work with us as a partner and trying to come to an agreement on what a deal would look like for that property. I believe the intent of the office building itself is for them to retain that. It's currently two stories and they have a permit an original permit for the building that can take that as high as four stories. So one of their real estate goals is to figure out what they want to do with the rest of that building but they have contemplated us possibly utilizing the whole first floor for recreation department staff offices and additional program space that really wouldn't be suitable for the indoor center could be like a yoga class or jazz or size things that the room here is really too small for but could be designed into that space. So those conversations are continuing and we hope that probably within the next month we'll have a final agreement with them that we can make more public. The details of what that looks like. The only thing I'd add to that as discussions in the recreation foundation have moved along is that I've known Tony for quite some time as many of you know he was the chief benefactor for the Cairns Recreation Centers up in the park and his initial contribution was half a million dollars to get that project moving which is extremely generous and that project as most of you know has been a smashing success over the years of public-private partnership. So Tony has done his fair share and then some for recreation in South Burlington and I dare say he could get more money looking at a commercial venture for this property but he is while we pay him for gas on a regular basis at all his gas stations he's an extremely generous individual and wants to do what's best for the community and this is a one-time opportunity to pull this off and I find it very exciting that this could finally generate the indoor recreation space that the community is needed and it's just a really neat concept because the dome is so much more affordable and they've come such a long way from I mean I'm older but you know remember those cheesy tennis domes you know if you had a snowstorm they deflated et cetera they've come a long long way they're high quality and would give us the opportunity to deliver high quality recreational facilities and services to the residents of the town for the first time and I find that very exciting which is why I'm willing to take the recreation foundation forward and raise you know we're gonna look for a major donor or donors to get this thing moving and see if we can put it in place pretty quickly so that's just an added piece as to why this is such a great opportunity right now and we can't afford to mess it and these guys just have to finish putting together the deal. Yes so the idea tonight was really to present this is a concept and we still get a lot of work to do. The immediate short term goal for you folks is to come back to the planning commission next week so that they can see the same conceptual design for the first time and then kind of outline a process for us that would need to be followed as we have a couple of moving parts right to try to secure the deal with the land and to work with the planning commission in terms of what might be necessary to meet the form-based code and then look at the finance operation of the facility and you might say it's likely to be a convoluted type of an arrangement as far as the land and the building and the use and who owns what, that's everything that still has to be worked out but that's in process. So more to come but I know the committee's very excited I know that we're very excited to have something like this as an option that we could look at so. Thank you for your work. Thank you. I wanna just say a couple of things so I'm really excited about this, right? This is something that's been sought after for a long time and pieces are starting to fall together. I just, and I'm sort of excited about the concept of an inflatable building. I just wanna make sure we don't forget our due diligence and find out what the costs are for a standard butler building which would be steel and it probably have more longevity. We need to understand what those cost comparisons are. I think it's important too and I think it just comes to mind too. I don't know what the maintenance of this building is or it's inflatable so are there fans, high powered fans so thinking about our sustainability goals just I think we need to really tie it to all of the goals that we have set out here on the council to meet. I can tell you it's a 20 year facility, the way that they're built now. To put a steel structure in there would definitely increase access. I mean that would not fit into the, with what's being proposed within the city right now which is why we're looking at other alternatives to find out how could we still provide for some indoor recreational space. I have a steel building to call its own. Never mind I can do it. 150 by 240 is 36,000 square feet times, it's about a half a million bucks is just about. In other words, if I take, what did I say, 22,000? 36,000 and in a steel building fit up like that right about now is about, I'm gonna go with $15 a square foot. So hold on, 36, just cause you asked, times. Oh the tariffs probably made it worse. It's about $540,000. The tariffs have increased the price of steel 25% in the last 90 days. We'll get those costs for you. Yeah, absolutely. We need to consider alternatives just so we can educate ourselves about the advantages and disadvantages of inflatable versus steel structures and whatnot. Staff and the committees still have a good amount of work to do. But again, for tonight it was just to present it as a concept and kind of get it out there publicly for the first time. I'm also excited because this redevelops land that's right on Dorset Street in the Tiff district and that's sort of what isn't, I think that's part of the intention, right? Is redevelopment as opposed to new development? So it kind of partners with the green grass concept of a library, senior center, city hall versus redevelopment of existing. And there are some properties along Dorset Street that are less enticing than others because they're industrial based and they happen there for years and years and years. This will be an excellent example of something being replaced that is real asset for the city. So I'm excited that we're gonna go down this road. Yeah, because that whole San Remo Dorset corridor is due just like Wilson Road is due. Just like the corner of Fayette and Sheldon Road was due, you know. We have some comments from the public. I did, John, I saw your hand first. Five dollars a square foot, it's an interesting concept. One thing you said was your land rich already. And I think an economic development look at this might tell you that the redevelopment of this land and the taxation on it is worth more to the city than putting this up at Dorset Park, pick one of our land rich locations and potentially getting that money to flow into other tip projects. So I understand the concept of wanting it downtown but it is a recreation site. It would fit beautifully up on Dorset Park. And I just would suggest that you should look at this from all the economic aspect because you're losing taxation by doing this. Sandy Dooley and John Wilking, I don't know if you introduced yourself but not Sandy Dooley. Maybe I didn't. Is there any plan for a swimming pool? Not at the moment. We wouldn't have. And I was also thinking about classrooms like for cooking lessons. That we're anticipating will be in the senior center space in the city hall library recreation senior center space in the city center at the moment. There's a program space in that building. And the land cost is not, I guess a lot of, it would be a lease or a capital lease. And what's a capital lease? It means that you pay in to own at the end. We're still negotiating then fairly early stages. So just conceptual design at this point, conceptual plan. Is that for the one building or for the both buildings, the capital lease? So I would just like to reiterate that there's not a final deal. So this is really if we're talking about a land purchase, this is executive session stuff right now, Sandy. We really hope to have this finalized within a month. And as soon as we can share it publicly, we will. We're anxious to do that. And we need to know what that final figure is too to enable us to really put the additional cost of this together. So. I think you could, what are the, are we talking about two parcels? It's one parcel. And how many acres? Two points. So it's the area sort of around where the black rectangle is. And the red. The black rectangle and the red. The one with the higher parcel right here. Oh, okay. So not just the red parcel, but I mean the red rectangle, but to the right of that parcel. Correct. So the right of the red box. Is the existing office building that's there, the brick building. And the garage is where the big black square is right now. Most of that would be coming down. And what's in the red? The red is, it's like an old storage building along the front of Dorsey Street. The proposal would be to remove that at additional parking in there. And I'm sorry, how many acres did you say? You can get that. I think it's a little over two acres. Well, I think it's great to get the public thinking about this. I hope the public can respect, like we have to, that there are things that aren't ready yet for public. Yes, we're all anxious to have these questions answered. Just in response to John Wilking, there is a timeframe in which we're operating in order to collect the TIF money, right? And so there are lots to be balanced. What will draw more development to an area that as counselor Barrett said, needed development has needed development for a while. So that's something to balance in as well as having TIF contribute 30% of the cost of public infrastructure here. So that's also something for us to balance. We're, this is a big kitchen table for South Burlington. This is never, you know, fun and games here. So we're trying to make big decisions that will be palatable to the voter and that will serve us well. But I take your point. It's well taken. Sure, yes, I mean substantial tax based. That would subsidize all sorts of other things. So I only bring it up because somebody should do the economic development analysis to say, these are the numbers. Because it wouldn't be just regular taxes. It would be TIF tax. Yes, it would be TIF tax, which are much more valuable. So there's, we've talked about the economic development concept of a committee before and this is exactly something that they should do. And we are interviewing tonight for the economic development committee. So they're going to hit the ground running, I guess. All right. Anything else from the public about this? All right. This is just the beginning of a conversation. So thank you very much for doing the unveiling. Thank you. Yeah. What's called the unveiling of a party? All right, well, we're going to keep going. We have now our interviews of applicants. And we have 18 people to interview tonight. Can we get you a phone? Can we get you a phone? No, I'm not without you. You can do that somewhere out there. Just drop. It's all right. I have a list of all the people. OK. Thank you. Yes. It'll be easier for me to. So I don't need to. All the August 6th ones are in red across the bottom. Say that again. All the August 6th part of the meeting. Oh, OK. I actually typed them into a document. So I'm just drawing up my document. All right. Here we go. All right. So I am looking for Valerie Carzello for the Affordable Housing Committee. Yes, please come up and introduce yourself. Hi, I'm Valerie Carzello. I work at the Bailey Hall Library over at UVM. I'm a military spouse. My husband is in the air guard. I'm also running for Vermont State Senate for Chittenden County. I'm interested in being on the Affordable Housing Committee because I've lived in South Burlington for about 10 years. And my husband and I, even though we both work full time, have been priced out of three different places. And when people retire from the base, they actually leave because they can't afford the area anymore. And I work with students. And they get priced out when they graduate. So I'd like to be a part of a community that helps to try to solve this problem. Do you have prepared questions? Tom or Tim or Dave? No, Tom's got a question. Where do you live before this? I lived in Washington County before this. Oh, Washington County? Yeah. And then I moved up here about 10 years ago to get work. So I worked at the library. I worked at the St. Michael's Library before the UVM library. Tom, would you want to ask you the question? And then I'm happy to ask questions that I have to. To move things along, I will refrain from asking the repetitive question. But I'd love to know from each candidate if they are familiar with the meeting pattern and if they've attended any of the meetings of each of the committees they're applying for. But other than that, I'll just listen. I haven't attended any committees yet. I used to work nights at the library. So I hadn't had an opportunity. I used to work until 2 AM. So now I work a normal schedule, 8 to 4. So. Welcome to the evening meeting circuit then. Yeah, exactly. So I miss a lot of community events because of my previous work schedule. It's public service, so I had to do it when I had to do it. But I am familiar with city council meetings. I've been to a few in Burlington when they did the refugees welcome. And I am on staff council at UVM. So I know Robert's rules of order as well. What type of housing do you think we are most in need of? Of course, affordable. But specifically the different types of housing that you would recommend as a young couple. Right. Well, I just got a townhouse. We're really lucky we were able to finally get into one. It's a fixer upper, but I think it was 230,000. I felt like I shouldn't have to get a fixer upper at that price. But it's a nice neighborhood. It's right in Stonehenge, and I love our townhouse. So that kind of housing, if we could make it a little bit more affordable, would be great. And I think we definitely need more student housing. And we need, I have a feeling that we're going to be having a explosion of baby boomers who are wanting to downsize. So I think the students and the baby movers trying to downsize are probably going to be competing for housing in our area soon. So I think in general, we probably need more condos, more townhouses, probably not single-family homes at this time. It's just a theory, though. I have no proof of that. Yeah. Have you been, librarians know a lot of stuff about that, I know. I've read a lot of articles on the subject, but I don't have proof that baby boomers are going to do that. I just know that's what my parents did. A lot of people that I work with that are retiring are downsizing from their homes. And do you have experience working with these various agencies? You talked about the refugee resettlement program. I did some work for Amnesty International. Yep. And like I said, I'm on staff council. I'm on the compensation benefits and budget committee. I'm trying to get higher wages for UVM members. Tried to get a union, but we did not get it for staff members, unfortunately. And I'm trying to join the Lake Champlain Committee as well. Are you familiar with the Champlain Housing Trust? Or yes. Yes, I did some volunteer work for them recently. And what kind of skills do you think that you would bring to this committee? I think I'm a really good people person. And I have listening skills. I have a degree in psychology. And as a candidate for state senate, I've been going around in door knocking and listening to voters. And their main issues are a cleaner Lake Champlain and affordable housing. So I just think the fact that I'm willing to go around and listen to people. I've worked retail. And I think that retail has prepared me for government work adequately. The amount of, like, actually, this has been easier than working retail and food service. I have a lot of patients with people. And I do, like my psych degree definitely helps me. I also went to Emerge Vermont. I believe that you were a part of that, right? That's very good. So you should put that in any application. Yeah. OK. May I just want to? The committee meets, in spite of what it says in the other paper, and I don't think it's going to change. This is Sandy Doyle, Vice Chair, twice a month. And we do not meet at night. Now, that doesn't mean we could never change. But the daytime meetings are compatible with the current membership. So I just, would that be a problem? Not at UVM at this time. I just wanted to share it. No, that's really nice. That's funny, because we don't have the rotation. It always says in the paper, it meets monthly. We meet twice a month. That's good to know. No, UVM is really good about allowing people to participate in local government. Luckily. Just information. No, thank you. You're welcome. Oops. I don't need to knock over your whole table, though, You weren't even close. This is solid stuff. All right. Any other questions? That was good. We good? Thank you, Valerie. It's nice to finally meet you, because I emailed you before about emerging Vermont. Oh, very good. Nice to meet you, too. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you for your interest. That's what the city depends on. Volunteers and interests. Stuart Mays. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. Do we hang around up there? Oh, I should announce that. Sorry. So we likely will not be making appointments tonight. So right now, we are taking information. And our next meeting is August 20th. And you might hear something after that point. All right. Thank you, Valerie. Thank you. Stuart Mays. Also for the housing. Does Sloan Lynch produce a lot of balance? What does that mean? All right. How many openings are there on this committee? A number of people needed five. No, two. Sorry. It helps to read. Yeah, because I don't want to bump somebody off. You're not. No. No. OK. Valerie. No, but that's a nice statement for you to say. All right. So we have a sec question here from Councillor Chittenden, who's on the phone about whether or not you've attended meetings in the past or read the minutes. And if you're aware of the meeting times and schedule. No, I moved here a little over a year ago to be closer to my daughter who's in Burlington. I wondered today if I looked up Housing Committee South Burlington what I would find. And I found a 2013 document about a recommendation which then laid down the committee. So I guess the committee has resurrected since then. But I don't know too much about. I can help you. If you go under committees, meetings, and agendas, it will take you to a clerk base. And that will take you to a list of all the agendas and minutes. It is something to get used to as any organization is. But there should be that available online. OK. But the two times a month and during the work day as opposed to the evenings, that sounds doable. And I have a set list of questions myself. So what type of housing do you think we're most in need of, in addition to affordable? Well, I don't know. But my real interest in housing is not just that it's affordable, but that it be almost community creating. So instead of isolated castles, they are connected. And people have a community where they help each other, where they aren't separated from each other. Have you seen a neighborhood here in the city that you would offer up as a similar kind of site for communities? No, because I haven't been here that long. But I have worked with people who live in buildings where there's help for low income people. And some of them have community activities or community rooms. And often it's based on the people who are interested instead of the staff there to run it. So are you familiar with any organizations or agencies like CHT, the Schifrin House? I've looked up some of them, but I haven't really been involved. And skills that you would bring to the committee? I like to analyze and problem solve. And I also have compassion for those who have needs. Your questions are just right on. Kind of asking for all of us. Thank you, Mr. Mays. And like I told you, we'll be probably discussing this at our August 20th meeting. All right. Have a good evening. And welcome to our community over a year. So Rayal Gagnan, who is applying also to the Affordable Housing but also to the Burlington International Airport Commission. Hi. Very good. How are you? Good. Very good. So my name's Rayal Gagnan. Born and raised in South Burlington. I grew up on Spear Street, my grandfather owned a farm. We moved when I was about 15 over to Butler Farms off Hinesburg Road. And yeah, I'm just product of South Burlington really. Graduated from Rice, Champlain College. I did get my MBA at RIT. I was at the airport for a number of years with heritage aviation. And I took a job out of state with another company doing the same enterprise. I led me to New Jersey and Boston. And as my son was approaching entering first grade, I have two children, four and seven. And as my son was entering first grade, before he was about to enter first grade, my wife and I decided that we wanted to get back to home, which is South Burlington, and raise our children. So I've been back. We've been back here almost two years. And we took over our family house and living with my dad. So he's making up for a lost time. So it's great. Welcome back to you too. And we have Councilor Chittenden's question about your awareness of the meeting schedule and your availability. Yeah, availability and the schedule. I have never attended any of the meetings. I've read minutes. But that's to the extent of that. The Affordable Housing Committee. OK. The chairperson really is the current? Commissioner. Airport commissioner. Was that a temporary appointment or a permanent for the term? What is the term? Do you even know? My memory, and we'll have to discuss this because I don't know that we should discuss this without Helen present, was that we had determined, in spite of my opinion, that a counselor was more appropriate for an airport commissioner. And what is your term? It's a three-year term. So four-year term. Because Andy's got the institutional memory here. Yeah. Are we at liberty to get the person who declines or resigns from that position, then we have to reappoint, right? Yes. Yeah. But you can certainly speak to that. This is just some background. Our usual chair, I am the acting chair tonight. Our chair is on vacation. And she is our current commissioner. So but you can certainly speak to your interest. That's. Well, I had both committees interest me. I mean, obviously my background for the last 20 years has been aviation. I'm intimately familiar with the Burlington International Airport having worked there since I started in 2000, November of 2000, as a fueler. And then working my way up to a vice president within heritage aviation. So the complexity between Burlington's assets within South Burlington's municipality and that dynamic and all the opportunities and kind of challenges that presents. Of course, affordable housing also touches me as well. Currently, I'm a realtor with Hickok and Boardman in Burlington. And having grown up in South Burlington on Spear Street, I saw firsthand the development that took place with the development of Overlook and the houses between Spear and Dorset down to Allen Road. So and of course, as a father and family man, the affordable housing touches everybody, the economic aspect, so. And have you kind of thought about what type of affordable housing we most need here in South Burlington? Yeah, well, I would agree that continuing to make South Burlington connected and walkable is really maximizing the land that's available for highest and best use. Definitely seeing different, I would say, philosophies having lived in Morristown, New Jersey, Basking Ridge, New Jersey, Kloster, Mass, Boston Mass. So definitely the different philosophies that and then having grown up in South Burlington, that other places take, I would say there's definitely opportunities for that connectedness, that community. I would agree that townhomes' condos are definitely popular and going to be continuing on the rise, I would say, between millennials and people rightsizing, possibly downsizing. So ease of care, yeah. And are you familiar, besides the Cochrane Boardman, are you familiar with other entities that work within the housing world, such as Champlain Housing Trust or other agencies and organizations? Yeah, I've never worked with them directly, but I am aware of the Housing Trust and the Fordwell Housing entities within Vermont. There's a lot of puzzle pieces to put together. And skills that you would bring to the committee? And you can speak to both committees there, if you'd like to. Obviously spoke about your aviation experience, but. Sure, honesty, hardworking, being able to empathize and identify with all parties or all stakeholders within a certain equation is important in something that I think that I can bring to the table. I enjoy the irony of the suggestion of the Air Force Commission working followed by the Fordwell Housing Committee. If you get my drift. I do. OK. Well, maybe that'll stick out for me. Hopefully in a good way. Enough said. We'll say anything else. I appreciate that. All right. Thank you very much. Well, thank you for your time. Thank you for your interest. We are now to Rosemary Egert. No, OK. Catherine Dolbeck for bike and pet. Thank you, Catherine. Let me just find my bike and pet questions. Councillor Chittenden's questions with regard to your familiarity with the committee's work. Have you attended any meetings? Read the minutes familiar with the meeting schedule? Sure. My name is Katie Dolbeck. And I am actually new to town as well. I moved about two months ago. And so I have not had the opportunity as well to read any minutes or attend any meetings yet. I just got really inspired by the post on Front Forge Forum as a new beat of town. Just a little background, I'm a very avid cyclist and runner. And I have two very young children, two and a half years old and six months old. I do a lot of biking and running with both of them in town. I live off of Route 7. And to find safe places to take them has been challenging so far. I've found a couple of great neighborhoods and bike paths. But I would love to have more. I'm really excited about the Pennies for Paths project. I feel like it's a great time to be trying to enter this committee. But no, I come in completely green about everything city government and everything that's been done to date. And I'm excited to just learn about it and be able to contribute. My other background is I'm also an ER doctor at UVM. Been there for almost two years. You're an ER doctor? Yeah. So I see all the consequences of having unsafe pedestrian and bicycle access. And I feel like that also really puts me in a good position to be able to help. So no, I've not attended anything and I'm completely green. And given your schedule with the ER, you feel comfortable going out for evening meetings? I do. As long as I know, far and of advance, when the committee is going to meet, I actually make our group schedule. So I am very much able to tailor my schedule to the meeting schedule. You're trying to sway us with your t-shirt? Well, I am also Kelly Brush's sister-in-law. So my brother is married to Kelly. So I also have that connection as well. So sure, I decided I was like, I could wear a dress or I can wear a very authentic dress. Oh, there's like eight of them on the top of my drawer. It's sort of everything on my apparel. So yes, I also am an advocate for everybody being able to get out and access safe cycling and other safe activities. Those who need adaptive equipment, those who have strollers and bike trailers, and those who are just out for a walk. So I very much want everyone to have that access. And I think if anything, folks with hand cycles and lower profile recumbent bikes are even more at risk of being struck for sure. So let's talk about being struck. And you obviously know that you come out of a really exciting time, especially if this vote passes Tuesday. And there will be decision making to be done at that point as to what should be done with priority and the federal grants that are available. So just thinking about your vision, what would you suggest needs to be done to improve our network, which isn't yet a network. We're trying to make it a network, but for the safety especially. Well, and I think that's the cool part about right now also is that not only is this referendum up, but also we're creating city center. And so it just seems to me like a perfect opportunity to be connecting. I heard a lot of the housing folks say that they're really looking for interconnected communities. And I think this really speaks to that. I think a neighborhood or a community is going to be more cohesive, more amenable to neighborhood gatherings, things like that, if they're safe pedestrian and cycling access. Basically, what I would see is that the city wraps out in spokes from that city center and that you have access from all directions to get on almost anywhere you live and be able to come into city center and to make that easier and more safe. So I think crossing route seven, if there's a big deal, I think Spear Street needs cycling lanes on both sides. I think there's probably lots of other niches and neighborhoods that I haven't discovered yet that also could use some more robust pathways. I want to make some good progress if we get this vote passed. It would make some really big progress. I agree. I think my priority is two months. Two months. You didn't want to register to vote, right? I'm going to sign my to-do list. I'm planning to come vote. Same day voting. Same day voting. That's my plan. I'm bringing both kids in tow because I'll have them both that day. It's on my calendar. From your house, you have to cross Shelburne Road. Cross Shelburne Road. I'm out and drive all the scripts. Can you get on their rec path onto the woods to get onto, was it Kearney Drive or to get up to Overlook? Oh, Carrie Lane. I can get to Overlook. If I go CrossFit 7 and take the sidewalk to Unos and I go up in the neighborhood behind there, I can get up to Samansky Park. There's a path across. And it's great for pushing and drawing as long as I can get across at CrossFit 7 Safe. There are a couple of spots, but they are not. I mean, to be honest, anyone turning right out of any? They don't look. So you have to stop. You have to make eye contact. You have to know they're there. A flashing light system that senses pedestrian, something more than that white flashing you can cross. That I do. You should see me light up. Because I bike to work every day also. I commute by bicycle to work, but Crossing Road 7 is just as dangerous on a bike as it is pushing a stroller. So that's exactly how I get to work. I cross over. I go up through the parks. I go to Samansky Park, then down to Ferrell Park across behind by Rice and then up South Prospect. And that's very safe once you get up there. Cross, then you have to cross Route 2. But that's a story. A lot. Yeah, I've run into lots of other cyclists and runners. You've got a giant new apartment, well, two new apartment buildings in the last two years. And there's construction ongoing down there as well. I think there's a lot of opportunities from down there. I know less about the potential around the rest of city. But I think coming into the City Center project, we need to have that access to City Center in a safe and outdoor and environmentally-friendly way. How would you sell commuting by bike? How would I sell it? That is so hard. I think the freedom, the mind clearing of being able to bike to a busy ER shift, and the mind clearing of being able to get on my bicycle at 2, 3, 4 AM and roll home is uncomparable. The decompression, the processing, I feel the same way about running. I mean, getting on my shoes the next day and running through everything I did, what I would do differently, who I need to follow up with. Just to me, that mental processing time is so critical. It keeps me awake. What if you're going home at 5 PM or 6 PM? Yeah, it actually takes me less time to get to work at 5 PM or get home at 5 PM than it does to drive. Because Route 7 is my only option where I live. And I can do it more quickly on bike. And do you have peace of mind in our city? I am very lit up. It depends on the time of day. Yeah, if I can stay off of Route 7, I feel pretty safe. Just having to cross it is over decades of biking and running, I've learned that making eye contact with the driver is the most important thing. Knowing that they know that you are there, I think I could feel safer. The other added piece is my husband's actually a bicycle mechanic at SkiRack. So we have his perspective as well on all the stuff he sees. And you've talked a lot about our parks. Is there a picturesque kind of we have, of course, the lake? I mean, Spear Street is the epitome of our picturesque cyclist heaven up there. I mean, you just see road cyclists heading in and out of there all day. Saturday and Sunday, it's a highway for cyclists up there. I would love to see some more mountain bike type terrain. I'm not myself a mountain biker, but my husband's been wanting to poke around a little bit up there in the park's neighborhoods. But I think if we could have some kind of, and I don't know where I'd put it, but I think if we could have some more off-road opportunities, trail opportunities for both pedestrians and cyclists, that would be a big win for the city as well, and being a whole another demographic. Good. All right, thank you very much. Thank you, and thank you for saving lives. I had to put my kids to death for me, so I didn't have the time. Yes, another time. Yes, thank you very much. Thank you. William Wooden, bike and ped. I knew you were a bike and ped guy. I know, I did bike here, so I felt like if I didn't, it would be wrong. Yeah, for me, I'm Bill Wooden. I go by Bill. I grew up in Vermont with UVM. And then after that, I've lived in South Burlington now, owned a condo, Eastwood Commons, behind Shaw's for six years now. And basically once I'm home from work, I bike everywhere. My goal is once I want to put my car down and just be everywhere in that sense. So that's one of the things for the last six years that I've really enjoyed that part of being that close to Burlington, but also surrounding areas to be able to go to Dorset Street or Essex. And so I'm very much aware of all the routing options. And sometimes they're trail, sometimes they're not. Sometimes they're past. So that's what I'd like to, that was what appealed to me was what got me intrigued in doing this was I saw the master plan proposed. And I was like, oh, I like a lot of where we're seeing some of these things on Wilson Road, some of the Spear Street stuff. And even up Swift Street, I was like, oh, I like where we're going with this. And so I'd like to get involved more if I could. To answer, I think, Tom's question here, I haven't been to any of the meetings. It was really just something I saw a few weeks ago that I said I'd like to learn more about. I am the president of my HOA, so I'm familiar with kind of the whole process of monthly meetings or of voting, of passing and making amendments, kind of just following a lot of procedures. So that's something that I'm very familiar with. And what about that? What vision do you think you would bring to this master plan, which you're familiar with? So what would you? Yeah, I like things that are either sustainable. And when I say environment, minimal impact, but also getting people out into the natural areas. One of my favorite bike paths is through Feral Street, that Feral Street park where you go up and you go through. It's amazing the fall when the leaves are starting to change. And that's when there's some beautiful bridges there. And I love that kind of stuff, but we can find more of that. But definitely connecting a lot of areas, even at this point, I still have to navigate through neighborhoods and find my own connections. And there's some streets where people will say, like Route 7, I refuse to go on Shelburne Road as much as I can. I will go out around it because it doesn't feel safe. The sides are very narrow. The cars are incredibly fast. They don't give you enough room. So trying to make wider lanes there, very pronounced lanes, very obvious lanes. Are you at all into curbing? Yes. I am. No, I will. That's the only spot I'll do it, just because, yeah. But I mean, no, actually building some kind of physical barrier. I don't even know where I'm going to do it. Yes, no, absolutely, yes. I love that idea. Because we're planning on that for Williston Road. And they know the connection between Spearsree and Dorset, that whole wide lane, or what they're doing, they did at North Ave. I'm all for it. I love that idea. And as a commuter, I commute as much as I can. So I'm always thinking, how can I use those avenues? So, yeah. Good. And how would you advocate for commuting to work by bike, getting your cars off the road? As she said, one, it's a health thing. It's amazing when you can, for me, that I can get exercise in something I'm already going to do anyway. I'm already going to have to get to work anyway. If I can bike there, that's just the last time I need to find more time to exercise. And people, as we're already busy, people using that to your advantage. And two, it's just, it is very liberating to your mind to not be tied to traffic. I go by when I'm biking, and I see people sitting in cars, and I'm just going to ride by, and I'm going to go, one, I probably can be there quicker. And two, it's just you don't feel so constrained to the system or the traffic. You're not part of traffic. You're not creating more traffic. And it's just, it's incredibly liberating. And that would be one of my big pushes is to really try to get people to be more aware of commuting to work or biking as a means for commuting versus just recreationally. And I love recreationally, but it frees up spaces down in town. It frees up parking. It frees up just people and having to deal with that. I love that idea of trying to push for that more. So. And you've already talked about Farrell Park and picturesque. So. Yeah. All right. What town did you grow up in? I grew up in St. Albans till I was 12. Then I moved to Colchester, graduated high school there. Then went to UVM. And then I worked a couple of places. I moved out of the state for about a year and a half to South Carolina. Then I came back. What was your major at UVM? Engineering, mechanical. That's good to know, too. That would be very advantageous. Yeah, it definitely I think would bring a different perspective. I think as far as problem solving, that's just a different mindset than many people have. So it's. Good. And once again, you picked the t-shirt for the pedestrian. I know it's. Like this one, no. Yeah, marathon. Yep, that's it. OK, so. I appreciate that. Why not? No, it's great. Yeah. And I know that I used to live in the Eastwood neighborhood. Yeah. On the other side of the joy drive. OK. All those bike paths. It's amazing. I mean, that actually was one of the reasons why I started biking more. Because we have the. I call it the UVM bike path. I don't know if that's what it's officially one. And then you have the Farrell want and Ferrisley. Then you go down to Oakledge. I mean, this is how I get around town. It's just going between all these different ways. And it's amazing. Thank you, Bill. You're welcome. Thank you. Robin Cruz, dog park committee. Hi, Robin. I'm from far away. I did not wear a t-shirt. No. It's my interest. But I know she has a dog. Yes. It's not a requirement. That's good. And my name is Robin Cruz. I do have a dog. And I have never been on any committees outside of my job. I'm a special ed teacher in Burlington High School. What kind of teacher? Special ed. Special ed. And I just happened to be here the other day to get my card to get into all the parks for free now. And I asked about being on the committee. So they gave me a form to fill out. And so I'm new to all of this. But I've been thinking about it for a while. We had the beautiful dog park that opened on Patchham Road. I was so excited because I could walk there. And it was nice. And then it closed down. And I was visiting a friend in Maine. And they have the most amazing dog park in Bath Mane that makes you want to move there because it is on the water. It's beautiful and gigantic. So I thought about getting involved and getting on the committee. And maybe just maybe making some things happen. I do understand. I feel like just from being in the dog parks, I know a lot about the physical environment. What happens when it's a certain size and you have a lot of dogs. So I feel like just from experience, I have insight to that. And it's also, I've met a lot of people in the neighborhood because I mean, I lived in my neighborhood for 14 years. And I don't know too many people. So if you don't have little kids for meeting people, I feel like this is one way of meeting more people in the area. And also in the dog park, you meet people and talk to your neighbors more. So it's a real community. It's a little community there. So I miss it. I used to go to the one over by the airport a lot also. Are you familiar with the mission statement and all that came back to you? No. And I don't even know when the committee meets. It's a new committee. It's brand new. And so you would really be establishing something. There has been a task force, but this is really going to be getting something off the ground here. Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah. So but yeah, so you'll get, if you're a part of the committee, you'll get to schedule all of that. So you're familiar with? It won't just be me. I won't be the whole committee. No. No. There have been other applicants. No. That would be an irresponsible idea. Yeah. So now we've had three other applicants so far. So yeah, and they've been on the task force. It's a good company. So yeah, they've been hard workers. And so that leads me to my questions. And do you have experience writing fact sheets or grants? Experience writing fact sheets or grants. So this would be really OK. And how do you approach problems or issues? Uh, thinking about it, doing research, talking to other people. I'm always open minded to hear other people's. You learn a lot from other people. It's like about anything in life. And yeah, so I think working as a group, I feel like there are certain things, certain aspects of it that I know. And then I also felt that like South Burlington has a big dog park and like. Burlington? You mean Burlington has one? Yeah. Star Farm has two big dog parks, one on the waterfront and one at Star Farm, which is, you know, drive to go there. I don't go there, so I thought it'd be nice to, I think we should have one in South Burlington. I feel like we have the land. So I don't really understand, you know, all of those pieces and. But there are some problems with the one on Tharrow Street. I mean, and I guess there's problems with the one on Patchin Road. There were problems or whatever, so. We'll also have, yeah, some problem solving, to be sure. And that might include time for site visits, but also online research to find out best practices. Are you familiar with that kind of? Yeah, I mean, I have to do a lot of problem solving. I have my job over the years, so. And with other people, all kinds of people. So I feel like I'm a team player and a respectful person. And I feel like I have knowledge to bring, but then I don't have all the knowledge and other people, I mean, would have some knowledge. And you didn't expect all this? I just tell you, I feel a little nervous because I just, I didn't, I've never done this before. So I didn't realize that, you know, the whole committee. I've gone to school board meetings and that's the most similar. This is much more exciting. She lives two houses down from me, so you can't be too scared, right? She saved my daughter even. All right, yes. Your lovely daughter. She loves you too. So that was just time with regard to the site visits. I mean, you know, my job is involved, but I don't know how, I mean, I assume that, I don't know how many hours outside of that there would be. It's new, so they don't, we don't know either. Right, yeah. So the committee will have to figure it out. So 100 hours a week? But on the weekends, for instance, if you were to have a meeting to just have people check out a site, do you think you could find time to do that kind of thing? You're not traveling with your job, I don't think, but... Yeah, no, and I was already thinking like, oh, maybe we might have to do some kind of, create some fundraising, because I know that usually for the dog parks, there are fundraising pieces and what could we do and maybe we could have some kind of festival or something. So I'm a newbie, I'm coming to this kind of green and not knowing how these type of committees work. I have been on many other committees, just more work oriented. Okay, well, this is gonna be work oriented, so that's very good. Okay, all right, anything else? Move it, it's nine o'clock. Yes. Thanks, Robin. Thank you, Robin. Okay, thank you. Yeah, so we had a bell here, so we're gonna take a five minute recess and come back. We have some more people to interview, so it would just be a little break for our notetaker, but five minutes and we'll seventh inning stretch. Turned off the Red Sox game after the eighth inning last night, I should have watched the ninth. You should have watched the tenth. Oh, and the tenth? Yeah, I didn't see it, but I heard all about it, so. I could have easily stayed up, and I thought four to one, this is gonna be a tough comeback. It sucked them, man, four games, now they're like eight or nine and a half. Nine and a half, gotta love it, right? And that thing will... 15 minute break, as much as we try. And we're here with Mr. Altman, and we're gonna start with Councilor Chittenden's question with regard to, have you attended planning commission meetings? Have you looked at minutes? Are you familiar with the meeting schedules? I'm in my New York position down in Whitewood Junction. I live here in South Brownington. I believe the meetings are either first and third Tuesday or the second and fourth Tuesday. It's a Tuesday. But I've been at some of the meetings, and it's interesting, and I actually just found out the council doesn't have a mayor, but I'm willing to start with the planning commission, if the position of mayor is not... You'll have to get onto the charter review committee to work that. Okay, and I should also say I did vote for the penny, but I just found out I read it wrong. I thought you guys just wanted a penny. Oh! Not joking. But I think I'll be good for the planning commission. I come up with solutions. Not pretty much, you know, I'm a good listener, although I do talk a lot, and I think it'll be a good thing. I do have a couple of questions. Let me just find it. And what main interest draws you to apply to the planning commission? They're actually planning a development right across from my house, and I've been prevy to some of the things. I know one of the builders who is friends with one of my friends, and it's been quite interesting, and I find it a whole interesting facet because my dad was a contractor, and I've known what he's done. Right now I see a lot of arguing going on, and I think being a part of the planning commission, I see a more proactive way that things can get moved ahead better for both parties in the future. If that makes any sense. Are you detail-oriented or a big picture thinker? Both. And have you followed any of the recent planning discussions in the city? So yes, you have because you... Yeah, you've got Kennedy Airport, and you have the Center City on, I've only been here a year, is it Center City or City Center or City Square? But yeah, been following that. And in the planning commission, have you been able to catch kind of what they're working on right now? Yeah, I've seen some of the DRB, I've seen some of the planning commission, and it's a lot of learning process. I think the planning commission has a little bit more of an interest just because of how they see the future and what they plan, and I think it's more interesting to me. What stuck out in your mind in their discussion? Just how you want to, how people foresee what Vermont's gonna look like in maybe 10 or 20 years. And what are your thoughts on that? I think once I get in it, I think you wanna really know what other people's thoughts are, but I wanna see what people are gonna do as far as energy conservation, how we are building in the future, what our carbon footprint is gonna be for each individual household and how we're gonna look at things. And I think with technology today, I think Vermont has a great chance of being a state on the forefront of really showing how communities and cities can be built in a better way and developed in a better way. You're doing a great job at covering the essentials. All right. How am I doing with the answering? You're doing reasonably well except for the one cent. Yeah, it was gonna be like, why didn't you make it a dollar? I just found that it would've lost like $20,000 or so. Yeah, but think what your property value is gonna do. All right, well, thank you very much, Mr. Altman. And make it cooler soon. Take care everybody. Yeah. All right, Bernie, Bernard Gagnon. Okay. Well, all right, good evening Bernie Gagnon. Good evening. Gagnon, thank you. You're already on the committee side. And you are, of course, returning. You've been on the planning commission for a number of years. Yes, I've been on the planning commission for two terms. And so I'm seeking a third term. I'm currently vice chair of the planning commission. So I've been doing it for a while and really enjoy it. I think we've got a good, diverse group. So it's something I'm pretty good about. I'll ask you since you know about the meeting schedule and all of that good stuff, and you obviously have taken part in many discussions. But what do you see as some real challenges for the planning commission? And I think that it's looking at a lot of things on the agenda, right? Right. And having to bring it to something that moves forward efficiently. It's trying to agree on policy moving forward and there's I think currently a lot of challenges with respect to how we develop or if we develop open space in the city. And there's several proposals throughout the city for development and how to do that wisely as a challenge. How do we do that wisely? Well, you've got to take public input. I think we've been pretty good about listening to public input. And like I said, we've got a really diverse group on the planning commission. So a lot of different experiences that people bring to the table. And it's really just working through things and trying to come up with a consensus on what we think is going to work the best. There have been some quorum issues that we've become aware of. And do you have recommendations for how the council's decision might make that less of a problem? Well, you know, one of the things to do is and you're doing it as you're interviewing people tonight is ask people what their availability is. Another thing is Tom's calling in tonight to your meeting, making it available so that people can call in remotely. I'm not sure if you knew, but I was actually out of state for five months and Paul Conner set it up with the go-to meeting. And I actually attended all the planning commission meetings remotely through go-to meeting. So I think using tools and technology that are available and encouraging people to use those helps with kind of the quorum issues. But we did have some unique situations. As you know, our chair broke both legs skiing this winter and so she was out of pocket for a while. And then that automatically you're down a person. So that makes it all the more important for everybody else to try to make it. So. I was glad to see her on camera in July. Yep, she's doing quite well. So yeah. Okay, anything? Is it a diverse background? It's been a lot of time in Alaska. It's just things I didn't know before. So I appreciate that. Alaska for a while and I've been on Myers Court for almost 20 years. It's a great street. It is. It's a really, we have great neighbors. A lot of authors on Frontporks Forum are on Myers Court. So yeah, very active street. It is, it's a great street. It keeps me there. Yeah. Yeah. All right, very good. Well thank you for all that you've done over the past two terms and. Great. Well thank you for considering me for another term. Appreciate it. We appreciate your stamina, right? It's a big job. We know the planning commission's a big job. So we're very, we're very grateful. It all boils down to the people. And like I said, it's a good group. So it's good to go and enjoy it. Good. Thank you very much. James Langan. And you are applying to the GRB and the planning commission. Yes. All right. And you've been here long enough to hear the first question, right? Yes. No, the answer to that one. And you can feel free to introduce yourself. Sure, yeah. And I'm, go by Jim, Jim Langan. I'm an attorney at Dinssey Nap and McAndrew in Burlington. I've been, my wife and I moved here with our young kids just over two years ago to South Burlington. We've lived in Burlington for about 10 years before that and chose South Burlington to be where we'd have our kids go to school and hopefully graduate from South Burlington High School. So I haven't been to either, I guess I should say, South Burlington, a DRB or planning commission meeting. My youngest just getting to the age where I'm not as essential for bedtime. So haven't done that, but while my wife and I were deciding to come in to move to South Burlington, that was sort of a way to sort of see what was coming down the pike. So I, and because of just my general professional interest, I have looked at the DRB minutes and the planning commission minutes going back many years and also occasionally have to do so for my job. What area of law do you work in? I'm in the business and real estate groups and so I do quite a bit of land use work and just some leasing work and then just general business, general business advising. I know you're with the refusal process if ever there's a- Yes, exactly, yeah. So then just the question is like how, what percentage of applications do you think you might have to recognize yourself? I don't think it would be very many. I don't myself represent sort of a developer per se in South Burlington, that's been in South Burlington. I don't really have those types of- You need to talk to any of those. No, that I don't myself. I mean there could be sort of conflicts from, I mean I've been at Densey for four years, there could be other conflicts that I'm not aware of. It's a 30 attorney firm. So I mean what I know another attorney in our firm is on Burlington's DRB and every couple weeks there's an email about what's coming before the board for a conflict check. And so I mean I don't anticipate it being if I was on either that I would have to recuse myself all the time. I've represent land owners and land use issues. Most of them are not, I've only done one thing that it was actually in South Burlington. So I don't anticipate that being a huge issue. You know there are already two lawyers in the community? I did not know that. That would be three. Three lawyers. And then we'll leave the building. Yeah, probably 17 hours straight arguing. Yeah. So I'm not a litigator, sorry, I'm not. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gores or something like that, you know? So. Just so you know. All right, yeah, I'm not a contentious, more person. Lawyers like each other, that's the thing. They have a lot to talk about. I do and some don't. If he said he's not a litigator. You're safe. When there was one lawyer on the board and an applicant was here last time, I said, are you wearing this? Yeah, yeah, no, it's more of a warning for the other people than it is for me. And what interest draws you to both of these, to consider both of these boards? I just, it's more my background and my skill set and interest, so those were the two where I felt like I could be of most help to the city. My, I feel like it's important to contribute. I was on a few different commissions and committees when I was in Burlington, the neighborhood planning assemblies, and when the redistricting was happening, and CDBG grant committee. So I really feel it's important to be involved. At this point in my practice, I've done a lot more land-juice work and feel like I would have that skill set to help on either of those committees. How about building design? If you're going to look at either of these committees, too, it's really thinking about how the building will look, how it will be experienced. Is that? Yeah, I mean, it's something I'm certainly interested in. It's not something that I have a training in, but as far as, I mean, for the DRB, sort of applying the rules to what is being proposed, I'm comfortable with that. I mean, as far, I mean, beyond aesthetics, which is personal. I mean, I'm definitely interested in, I mean, I know it's been talked about with the potential new city hall and city center, like different people have different ideas about what something should look like or should feel like. But it's not my training, but it's definitely something I feel I'd be invested in and involved in. How would you advise an applicant to the DRB if you see potential conflicts between adjacent properties? How would I advise the applicant if there's a potential conflict of conflict of uses or conflict of, OK. I mean, I think the first idea with sort of any neighbor situation is really that it should be addressed early. That, I mean, by the time it would actually get, I mean, we could get sort of preliminary information before the DRB. But I think once that landowner is approaching the city planning and zoning office, they really need to start looking at what that conflict might be and trying to come up with solutions early for how to deal with that, and not sort of look for a sneaky surprise way to get something through, but to approach it head on quickly. Have you followed any of the recent planning discussions in the city? And so you've talked a little bit about city center, but I'd be curious to know. Yeah, I mean, I know there's a work list sort of looking what's coming up for an exercise, which is large. So I know that there's a lot of sort of different areas that they're looking at. So I mean, just as a citizen, I mean, there's a lot going on. I know, I mean, there's airport issues, city center issues. I know there's Southeast Quadrant pressure issues. So there's a lot to sort of dig your teeth into. Do you have any thoughts on one of those issues that? I mean, yeah, I have thoughts on it. I mean, generally, yeah, I mean, I Here we're in a planning. If I was in a planning mode, I want to preserve the valuable regional airport. And I also want to preserve the community that's there around it that's been there for decades. And I think city centers will be a good thing for the city of South Burlington. And I mean, I think the Southeast, I think we need to plan ahead for open space. And Southeast Quadrant does have a lot of what's left. But I also believe in property rights of people who own property, not being robbed of those. So that's what a good planning process should try to accomplish is try to get both of those things done. Good answers. Good answers. Good background. DRB first, Planning Commission second? That's probably where I'd rank them. But I'd be happy to open to either. Just have a quick question. It's not possible to put you in either of those in your land use background. Do you have experience with conservation easements at all? Some. I mean, I know there's another attorney in my firm who does a lot of them. So I would have somebody to rely on. But I mean, I'm definitely familiar with them, yeah. Very much. Thank you. Smart people in this city. I'll tell you that. I know. We're pretty lucky. Matthew Kota, you are already on the DRB and you have served. And so you can dig, right? Haven't you? Yeah, yeah. OK. I thought we won't. Yeah, if it's open seats and people. Yeah. Yeah, if there are more applicants than people. I see. Yeah. We were both mixed up on that. Clarifies. Fine. Plus, it's just nice to see who's on the DRB among these other commissioners in time and time, too. Hi, Megan, David, Tim, Tom. Hi. Thank you for your work. Thank you for your service. We don't know if Tom's still there or not. I'm going to assume he's not here. You know, you should have gone out to that dinner. So just a way as a background, I've been on the development review board for three years. I moved to South Burlington five years ago. I live in the Cider Mill neighborhood. I've been vice chair of the DRB ever since Tim was two years ago. So I've been the vice chair for two years, just about two years. But my background, before I moved to South Burlington five years ago, I lived in Plainfield, Vermont, where I served as a planning commissioner for four years. Before that, I lived in Santa Barbara, California. But I grew up in West Coast, Vermont, which is here, Brad Burlton, William County. I've worked as a journalist for 12 years. I've worked as a school teacher. And I currently run a nonprofit trade association of businesses comprised of the Energy Services Energy Delivery Business. And you've learned a lot over these past three years. So give us some insights into, I mean, we're not going to talk about particulars, of course, but give us some insights into some of the challenges that you see for just the planning and zoning in general in South Burlington and potentially what could make your job easier as someone who's trying to make the code fit the applicant, right? Yeah, well, one of the reasons that I made the decision to come before the City Council three years ago and volunteer is that I think the greatest way to understand your community and know your community is to volunteer and to go to these meetings as a journalist. You would learn stories by going to city council meetings and by planning commission and DRBs. And that's more than anything what I wanted to do. But it's also the passion. That's the intellectual itch that I have. I've got my master's degree in public policy with a focus on urban planning from Cal State Northridge precisely because the way we design our communities, not just here in South Burlington, but everywhere is critically important for future generations, for land use, energy use, for community development, economic development. The decisions that we make and the meetings that we attend may seem boring, may seem long. But they're critically important. I mean, what we do on the Development Review Board every night, and I'm proud to serve with the six other individuals on the board, which are from a diverse background and careers. But we're doing education. We're doing mediation. We're doing negotiation. We're talking with applicants that are someone trying to put an addition on their deck to someone building a 500-unit housing complex. We're talking to a simple restaurateur who doesn't know the process of how do you get an addition put on to your diner to someone that is a well-skilled lawyer, that is challenging our basic tenets of our land development regulations and how to adjust in one night from one to the other, I think, is a challenge. But it's an interesting challenge, one that I enjoy for taking in. Most important thing that I think the Development Review Board, one of the most challenges it faces, is facing the question that we get from constituents, from residents, who wonder when is that stop? Or when do we reexamine that on some of the things that we're doing? I believe that we need to preserve open space while creating more dense urban cores. I really do believe in our land development regulations. I'm proud of the management and the foresight that the people that came before me had. But these are the questions that citizens have to ask us and ask, what's the future of South Burlington? How much more can we build? And these are the questions, I think, that are valuable and that deserve time. And I think the Development Review Board has really made a consistent effort to listen to the concerns of the community, to remind them what our overall goal is. And people sit in these chairs and they're fearful. They're fearful of change or they're confused. They don't understand how it happens. And I think part of our responsibility is to communicate that and communicate what the broader goals of the city and the people that run the city are trying to accomplish for the good of everyone. You're here. Well stated. Yep. That's all I have. You used to live, you grew up in Westminster West, or you used to just? Born and raised, yes. Is that right? Do you ski? Yes. Where do you grow up skiing? I used to run mouse now. There aren't a whole lot of people up here who used to live down there. And a lot of people down there don't even know that up here exists. Right? That's a truism. When they're down there, they go to Springfield to do their shopping, Springfield, Mass, or they don't come up here. Prada bro. You? Yeah. Is that right? For three years. So I just found that fascinating. Good part of the state. Any other questions? Thank you very much. Thank you for all wiping the tear from her eye. That's why we do this. That's as he stated exactly why we do this. Yeah. All right. Jacob West, and you have three possibilities here. Planning Commission, DRB, and Economic Development Committee. Figured I would give options, because I've never been on the community on a board in the community. So I figured it would be best to throw out there my skill set and things that I enjoy doing, and maybe leave it to you fine folks to look at where that might fit in. Do you ever combine any two, or simply one of the three? I would certainly combine. And I would say my interests are more on the development side, on the planning side, than they are on maybe, so I would say maybe DRB is the least favorite of those three choices. But at work I do a lot. We're a growing company, and we do a lot in a lot of different states. So I've had the opportunity to work with a lot of different folks from a lot of different backgrounds, and some really fast growing communities, Greenville, South Carolina, Charlotte, North Carolina, some places that have really exploded. And it's interesting to spend time there and see how that affects the people that live there. And I see South Burlington kind of obviously on a smaller scale, but also growing and adapting to some of those community changes that are already present, or looking at some challenges that I see there, and how I might be able to offer some input to curb some of those before they become a South Burlington challenge. So those are some things that interest me, getting involved, and becoming a bigger contributor to the community. To answer Tom's question, I've attended a couple meetings, and I'm an avid catcher of her. Of the Planning Commission, the DRB post? Oh, sorry, the Planning Commission, yep. And the Economic is a new committee. So that one's kind of of an interest to me as well. And I'm an avid, I would say I keep up with events in the other paper. That's my go-to, I can religiously read the notes in the minutes, because it interests me. Something I find very interesting. All right, so we'll move on to, are you more of a big picture or a detail-oriented thinker? So I am a big picture thinker, but I pay attention to the details. So there's a lot of times where you have to look at how a lot of different factors will affect the outcome, and all those details, how they affect each other. With construction projects that we work on, I'm in charge of the kitchens and restaurants. And there's always a way that anything you change will affect another part of the business or another part of the building. So that's kind of a mindset that I always go into that planning stage with. Oh, we want to move this wall. Well, what's that wall doing to some other, you know, the flow of traffic or the guest experience? So there's a lot of different factors that obviously you have to consider. So being open-minded about that, I think, is important. But also detailed into those minute little goings-ons, but also looking at the big picture, hey, it has to function. And it needs to open on time and paying attention to those big goals at the same time. Tell me about the main interest that drew you to apply to all three of these. I mean, you talked a little bit about the planning side, but can you get more into that? And you've attended a couple of planning commission meetings. So perhaps you can talk about it. So I think I've been a resident of South Burlington for about probably nine or 10 years now. I've lived over on White Street in the airport neighborhood. And I currently reside up in Oak Creek Village. So I've kind of seen a couple different sides of the city. And so I'm familiar with navigating the city. I know a lot of the challenges, I think, that South Burlington's faced with from a traffic standpoint, from the recreational trails and bike trails. I'm not a biker myself, but I do support the bike. Penny's the trippin' up on the name. We haven't made that a litmus test, I hope. Penny's for pads. Penny for the pad. Either way, I think it's a great idea. And I fully support it because I would feel safer as a motorist if the bikers were more protected. You know, I feel like there's not enough protection for them. I think the barrier is a great idea that gives them a safe space to bike in. I think it's mutually beneficial. So yeah, yeah, I know there's snow removal. I could see how somebody that isn't a biker, you know, might be opposed to that. But that's kind of the way I approach things. It's not something that I'm interested in, but I can see the other points of view, how people are interested in what it means to them and look past my own interests to see what's best for the community or for a group of people. Do you work from home? I don't work from home. So I do travel quite a bit for work, but I am responsible for my schedule. So, you know, when meetings are scheduled, you know, they're on the same night. And so that would go into my schedule. I was just trying to get a sense of, you know, from your business experience, how much of it was actually in the city? Because, I mean, you cover it's New England, right? Whatever your area is. So from an economic development committee point of view, right, what perspective would you have from the city, even though you don't really have a business in the city, right, but your business is everywhere. So I can bring that with you. I'm just curious, you know, if you have an appreciation for some of the challenges that the businesses around here have. I do, because, you know, I live in shopping south Burlington. You know, I frequent businesses here. And, you know, I can see the, you know, the challenge with the diner renovation. That there's things that I think we can improve upon you know, I think there's some challenges for sure in the community that we can work on. So I do see those struggles, you know, and it's more from living here than being a business member in South Burlington. And as both a member of the community and a business, I don't know, associate, I guess, how does city centers development impact the business community in your view? So I think it's positive. I think it brings more people into the community. You know, I think that there are some development projects that I've seen in some of those other cities that I think remind me a little bit of the city center. And basically some ideas I think I could, you know, bring forward, but they, you know, it's like it includes shopping and residential, you know, and it's more of a community that people are looking to go to as a destination. So it attracts a clientele of a destination, but it also has people that live there. And so they frequent the shops and the neighborhood. And it includes green space. It includes very safe pedestrian traffic, but also includes, you know, easy accessibility for motorists. Or bikers? Yeah, and bikers, of course. All right, all right, good. With three committees that adds up to a lot of questions that I have, I don't know if you all see what you want to hear about. I'm fine. I didn't ask all nine, so. You don't have to. All right. All right, well, thank you very much. Thank you for your interest. You've come before us, right? I did, yeah, I did apply before. I just want to recognize you for that. Okay, yeah, this speaks to my tenacity a little bit. If you don't succeed at first, try again. But I think that, you know, it was a different place. There's probably some different applicants in the pool. Certainly there's, you know, I admit that there's probably people that come before you that are a little more qualified or they've, you know, been on another committee before. So obviously you're doing what's best for the city and you're, you know, you're looking to fill those positions wisely, which I certainly understand. So I can appreciate that, you know, maybe I didn't make sense before and maybe I do now, which is obviously my hope. But, yeah, so that's kind of. Just as far as the fact that you were here before, so. Yeah. Right. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. All right, well thank you very much. Have a great night. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Well, there's not much of it left. What are you talking about? This is like an hour and, oh, you mean till midnight? Yeah, okay. All right, Mr. Wilking, John Wilking, please. DRB and Economic Development Committee. And you have served on the DRB, I believe, two terms. Is that right? Not in a little bit. I filled in for somebody on the way out and so I had four years, four years and six months or something like that. Okay. And you were else? And I have gone by, it's surprising, actually. It's scary. None of us are getting younger. I don't think Dave knows me for my history, but I've lived in South Burlington since 93, so a fairly long time, long enough that Dorset Street of the time had inconsistent power, cows, no pizza delivery, no water, no sewer. No plywood, no water, no sewer. That's about when we fixed it, somewhere around there. That is, it was a couple years later, actually. Yeah, good. I do have water and sewer now. We do have water and sewer now, yeah. We approved the project, I think, in 85, if I'm not mistaken. So, you know, I've lived through a fair amount of development and I have a development starting in my backyard right now. So, I've enjoyed it. I find it intellectually interesting. I have had to recuse myself a fair number of times over the years, which will be less so now because I've recently sold my business. I do still own property in town, but I have less client relationships at this point. I think I bring to it an operational experience that nobody else on the board has. I've run a management company that had 4.3 million square feet of space in five states and I've been doing property management for 36 years. So, I know I bring to the board more knowledge of what actually has to happen with parking, what actually has to happen with internal and external flow and so forth. And that's the kind of thing that I tend to bring to that board. It's a great board and the current configuration is wonderful. Brian Sullivan, I shouldn't speak specifically, but both attorneys that are on the board are interesting and bring different points of view. We have an architect who's been there forever, solar financer. There's a good range, yeah. Good, good. And do you feel that planning and zoning in general is making the work on the committee? Oh, you know, Ray and Marla have been phenomenal. I mean the code, I don't mean the actual staff. The code is tougher. I mean, I think if there's one thing we could really, now there's several things we could improve on, I'm sure, but if we could, if we could get together with planning, the Planning Commission, more than once a year, it would be helpful. I can't tell you, well, every single meeting we talk about something that our hands are tied. We can't do this. And often we want to. Often there are places where a little bit of bending would make huge amounts of sense. But a shallow is a shallow, a may is a may, and we follow those rules right down the letter. So we're pretty careful. But there, you know, Frank Cokman has a whole series of things that he thinks we need to fix. And he and I don't agree on a lot of the end results, but we almost always agree on the rules. And I think we all agree on the rules. It's, the LDRs are what we live by and they're generally excellent. It's just a few little areas that make it tricky. Should we talk about the Economic Development Committee? Sure. So I'm one of the founders of South Burlington Business Association and the Economic Development Committee, I know, came from you all and came from all, from us at the same time, more or less. It was, I wouldn't say it was my baby, but it was our baby. And I was one of the instigators of it from the SBBA side. We've heard, one of the things we've heard a lot of in SBBAs is how did they come to that decision? You know, what happens if we shrink the road on Williston Road? Has anybody thought about the economic impact? What happens if the lights aren't on Shelburne Road because we're letting every other light go out because it's cheaper? What happens to business with that? If you add a bike lane, does that bring more business or does it hurt business? There is an economic impact on almost anything that the city council does. And we talked about one earlier tonight. I'm not, as I said to Tom at the break, doing that, doing those numbers may often give you a better story to tell the community. You know, David, I'm not against putting this over here. I think that's a great idea for a whole lot of reasons. I know Tom and I were talking about it. But the story would be better told if you could answer the question. Why there versus on a piece of land that the city hardly owns? And just saying because it's in the TIF is not a good enough answer because the TIF will give you 30% of a million five. The taxes could give you all of that right back. So that's not a good enough answer. We have to have the answer. That's a very good point too. So I think I'd love to be on it just because I think it's up my alley. I have more time free at this point. And I think it's something I enjoy doing. Can you tell us your vision for how this committee would work with our other standing committees and the types of projects in particular? Well, this is always the big... This is really a question of where you invite us in, I think at some level because how we interact with other committees is really how, when we're invited to produce information and when that information is important. Whether it be city center or an economic development committee would have been great about two and a half, three years ago on city center. So the story was better today. I'm not saying that it's not a great idea. We don't know the economic impacts with enough clarity to say that, yes, putting the library there is positive because it's going to bring X, even if it's a guess. We don't have a guess at this, or at least I haven't seen a guess. We've asked for it. So you would see the committee taking that project on? I think it's a little late. No, but I mean for a similar... But yes, that type of project. I think the perfect example is what came up tonight. I think that's doing an economic development analysis of the indoor, whatever you wanna call it, rec center is a perfect example of a spot where it makes sense. Pennies for Pats actually makes sense. I just came back from Madison, Wisconsin and their infrastructure is stunning how great it is. Every roundabout you know two blocks ahead which lane you need to be in. Yeah, but the bike paths there and through Chicago, I went right up Sheridan Road and the bike paths were phenomenal. And we don't, of course they have a bigger economic machine to build these things, but yeah, we could be a lot better. Oh, that's good. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thanks. Thanks for sticking around. Okay. We still have more. So we have more people to thank. Samuel Handy, Michael Siminoe, Andrew Chalnic, Timothy Perron and Tammy Zilka. Now they're not all here, but... No, they're not. Oh, he did. That's it, nope, they're cut, that's it. Oh, sure, why not, Mike? Yeah, thank you. Who's next? Sam, Samuel Handy. Oh, he's... No more dog park people, right? No more dog park people. No, I try to bunch them by a committee. Let's do another one here. All right, we have Michael Siminoe as the next economic developer. Go to the next one after that, go to the next one after that. All right, Andrew Chalnic, energy. Michael's gonna be happy. All right, thank you for coming, Mr. Chalnic. I'm sorry? If you're stamina. Yeah, well, I don't know, we've got peaches, homegrown peaches to keep us going here. It's a dog. We jumped ahead, Mike, I'm sorry. Okay, so we have a first question from Councillor Chittenden about... I'm a brand new resident. Okay. And a week ago. Oh, wow. Where do you live? We're on Nolan Farm Road, 670, from Short Hills, New Jersey. I know that there's an energy committee August 16th because I've been in touch with one of the members, but I anticipate being fine with the schedule, but I don't know exactly when it is. Okay, very good, very good. And you could tell us a little bit about your interest. That's basically are you a self-starter because it really, our committees are, they're self-starters in our committees. They're people who make things happen and it requires a lot of time and I think passion, I think that's the word that was stated earlier in order to... So I'll tell you a bit about myself. Let me start with first like the civic aspects. I was the chair of my green team in the town I came from and in that position got our town certified in the New Jersey State program, sustainable Jersey. I was on environmental commission and I chaired our first Green Fair, which was actually a novel, we did a novel kind of setup and won an award from the governor at the time for the... So I'm very passionate about the environment and passionate about protecting our environment. So part of the reason why we moved from New Jersey is my wife and I and our kids. I kind of love the outdoors and love nature in the environment and I think New Jersey kind of loved itself to death and it was just not as much outdoor space and I was looking at an old map and it used to be a pond near my house and now it's just houses where we used to live. It was like, and so the kids wound up staying inside and playing computer games because there's like nowhere to go outside, right? Do that around here too. Well, hopefully not as much. So that's kind of my personal passions in the environment. I'm an active member of the Citizens Climate Lobby. I've been to DC a bunch of time, talked to our congressional representative and active member of lots of environmental organizations in New Jersey. I hope to be in Vermont as well. I'm good friends with the president of New Jersey, the conservation voters. So I've done a lot in those areas. So those are my hobbies I suppose. Professionally, I run global tax planning for J.P. Morgan. So as you can imagine, that position requires a lot of self-starting, very complicated issues and requires bringing together a lot of diverse perspectives in the organization to solve problems, very difficult problems. And I've been doing that for 10 years. I've been with J.P. Morgan for 10 years before that as a kind of tax lawyer in the group. My educational background is pretty diverse. I think you'll see that it's kind of, I was an engineer and I have a law degree and a finance degree. So a lot of kind of training and be able to think things through. Very good, very good. I would say if I have other questions for the energy. Sorry, my three devices here. And are you familiar with the state's energy and conservation goals? I know you just moved here, but. Look, I've been following it. I've been a member of Vermont Public Interest Research Group for a bit. And I've been following it. I mean, you know, 80% by 2050 now, 100% I'm not sure exactly. I've got to get further up to speed on the Vermont specific initiatives. But, you know, I know Green Mountain Power locally has terrific programs. They helped me put solar on my roof and power walls in my garage. So I have personal familiarity. How about public outreach? That's something that our energy committee does regularly. They constantly communicating with the public and they've had a lot of success with the residents. And so. Yeah, no, like, yeah, I mean, that's, like I said, so I ran this Green Fair and what it was was we got about a thousand people and we had stations in a local algorithm or 20 stations and each station you learn something, right? So like one station was energy audits. The next station was how to do solar. The next station was, you know, reusable bottles instead of, you know, throw away plastic wall bottles. And so that was, you know, a massive kind of public outreach event that I chaired. So I'm very familiar with that. Great, okay. Those are my questions. Oh, I think we're. Nolan Farm as you must back up to the golf course. On the other side. I got you. Yeah. It's a pretty nice spot to be. It's really beautiful. We got really lucky with that house. Really, really beautiful. Welcome. Thank you so much. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's all the questions. Yeah. Yeah, I like your energy experience. That's for sure. Yeah. He's got 50 solar panels, electric car. Yeah. Tesla is probably in the garage on the wall. Right. Exactly. I'm trying. You know, energy is the key to our future. Right. If we use the right energy in the right way, the kids will have a future. If we don't, they won't. Simple as that. That's right. So you have some friends you're that meter with or? No, actually, I've been giving a lot of free energy back to my neighbors because we haven't been using nearly all the power. We have not been. You have not been. But now we anticipate using more with the car. Right. And living there. Exactly. So we'll, you know, hopefully we'll use most of it, but it's a power plant on the roof. The thing really cranks. It really cranks. Yeah. It's great. So. Thank you for your interest. Thank you for your time tonight. I know it's late. So I'm going to keep moving along. We have a few more people out there. Have we lost Sam? Sam Handy? I guess so. All right. Well, thank you, Mr. Simona. Yes, it's your turn. Yes. We can get him back for August 20th. Yes. Okay. This working? All right. Yes. And Economic Development Committee. Okay. So. I as well as John SBBA kind of, you know, helped get that off the ground. And, you know, a number of us had talked about, you know, the usefulness of helping the city see things through an economic development lens. And it was great when the council responded and had a meeting and hosted us. And I think that was a catalyst for the council saying, yeah, sure, you know, we'll move ahead with this. And so I, I mean, I serve on a couple of other committees. So just getting real here. I enjoy serving. I wanted to make sure that the Economic Development Committee was adequately populated when it got started. I mean, I, you know, you'd hate to see, well, we want to have a committee of seven or nine and maybe only have four applicants. That would be unfortunate, you know. So I want that other than, you know, having an inherent interest in economic development and wanting to promote conversation. And I will say you sit through a couple of hours of, you know, the interviews, maybe not quite a couple of hours, but you realize how everything is interconnected. And that there are, you can achieve more by having, you know, collaboration, good communication, anticipate rather than react. You can go on and on and on and on. And I think economic development was a lens, maybe that, you know, people weren't looking through with the same focus or passion as some of the other committees and groups that there are. And it's not like a win-lose. You've got to find ways of adding value. And I think the addition of economic development will be an asset for the city. And I am interested in serving, though. You know, if there were a dozen applicants, you know, the idea of serving on three committees is a little daunting. I mean, two is challenging at times itself. So I'm just being candid about that. But I enjoy the subject material of the committee. I'm pretty invested in the challenges that our community faces. And I think that I enjoy offering my thoughts and working together with people, finding solutions to do things. So I know I've kind of rambled a little bit. No, you didn't. That was pretty good. Yeah. That's 10 out of 10. Yeah. So any other specific questions? I think I'm up for renewal on Reckon Parks, too. Just, okay, so before you excuse me, if there's an eye to a dot or a tee to cross with a, you know, a statement there. Sure. I would like to do that, too. Yes, go ahead. Yeah. I'm going to start with you on a formal housing. Parks and Recks, you want to get an economic? Like I said, I want to make sure I feel that it's important that economic development gets off the ground and that the committee is adequately populated. And I don't volunteer to do something without being committed to doing it. It's rare when I miss any meeting for either one of the committees that we have. And so if my services are desired, I expect to have the same commitment with economic development, even though it increases the workload a little bit. Back to Reckon Parks. I've enjoyed my service on that committee. It's, I will say when I joined that committee initially, I was recruited by Maggie and kind of the force of her personality was as responsible for recruiting me as any passion that I might have had for Reckon Parks specifically. My, you know, my interest in Reckon Parks is probably not as driven by I want to make sure we got a program for this guy or that guy, but, you know, it's open space. It's land resource utilization. It's the politics of trying to get people to agree on how resources are used, making judgments about needs versus wants. And I think that I've been able to add a little bit of value. We've got a great chair who, you know, is very passionate and, you know, so her commitment is inspiring. And, you know, so the rest of the people, including myself on our committee, you know, attempt to do our share. For the benefit of discussion and just exchange, there's, again, there's nothing behind this question. How would you respond to what Mr. Wilking said regarding the placement of the Recreation Center? I think John makes a great point that it's actually a great opportunity, I think, to demonstrate to the community, you know, maybe that we can do a level of due diligence with that. I mean, as a Rec and Park member, I'm extremely committed and enthusiastic about the opportunity for an indoor recreation facility to get off the ground and find a way, you know, of happening for our city. And, you know, near the city center, it's accessibility, that's good. But we ought to be able to make an economic development. And we really shouldn't be afraid either if, you know, even if you can look and sort of say, well, you know, don't let perfect be the enemy of good or whatever you call it. You know, you try to do your best. But that's definitely an opportunity for us to kind of take a look at it. Sometimes you even surprise yourself, you know, as I think as John said, you know, you're under the impression. And so am I at this point in time. Hey, the TIF, you know, that's an asset here. We got 30% coming at us. That's really the main thing. How so the people bringing people to a place that we want businesses to locate? Absolutely. I mean, there are some, you know, there's some objective metrics that you can put into the conversation. And then there are some that are more subjective in nature that are a little hard to quantify. And so you got to try to find a way of, you know, putting them into the conversation. And, you know, decision making isn't always driven by one or the other. There's a combination. And so, but I think that would be an exercise that would be useful. Anything else? No. Okay. Are there any other conversations you're involved in besides these committees outside the city? Well, Howard Center is a big one. He's on board. He's on board. No, I guess not. Unfortunately, I've got a very successful wife. And I mean, a lot of people would say this, you know, but I mean, you know, she's great at what she does and her commitment to what she does and the people that she serves keep coming back to that word service. You know, if you're into serving, good things will happen to you. That's, I tell my son and daughter that same thing. Thank you, Mike. Thank you. Two more. I thank you both for this late evening just to keep going with energy. It was kind of alphabetical. So I'm sorry though for the late evening. Mr. Perron, is that how you say it? Timothy Perron and then Tammy. Where are you from? Tammy in the Chicago area. I grew up in Lombard. So I was very curious reading your background. Okay. Mr. Perron. Good evening. Good evening. Tim Perron. You've seen yourself in the last three months, although my wife is a long-term resident and we actually just bought her child at home. So things are coming full circle. Wow. Before that, spent about a decade in Burlington and then another five years in Vermont before going back to my college days at Middlebury. So tell us about your interest in the energy committee and same similar questions about whether or not you've been aware of them. You've attended a meeting. You've aware of their meeting schedule, all that good stuff. Yeah. So for the last 12 years, I've been with Vermont Energy Investment Corporation. We provide for renewables and energy efficiency consulting here in the state as well as internationally. And the majority of my work has been on our efficiency Vermont contract. And I've been engaged with the city staff as well as the energy committee here in South Burlington for the last seven or eight years, helping identify and implement energy efficiency projects within city buildings, street lighting, wastewater treatment facilities and are looking at ways to do things in the transportation and thermal space more effectively. So I've attended energy committee meetings probably twice a year on average through the past six, seven years of the energy committee kind of being formalized and then helping support them on a variety of projects, whether it be the municipal street lighting initiative or pursuing the Georgetown prize or trying to identify where the city can save some costs and energy bills across city buildings. All right. Cell starter. A lot of my role in my day job is we're given goals and metrics and sometimes those metrics can kind of put us at odds with perhaps the easiest path forward. So our role in this business development and having an account management team is really trying to figure out the most effective and efficient way of being able to hit some of our energy savings cost reduction targets on behalf of our customers. So there's a lot of creative problem solving and kind of active pursuit of trying to figure out new ways to be able to solve what are really challenging problems. Great. Thank you. And public outreach, that would be something that you would be doing on this committee. Absolutely. Do you have background in that or just a sense of comfort with that? Definitely a sense of comfort with that, for sure. I view with some of the sustainable energy policies stalled at the national level, the importance of community engagement, being able to work together as a cohesive unit and have leaders across the community being able to inspire folks to be able to just make one simple change in their life that can lead to a real positive impact that can aggregate and lead to a real difference as being really incredibly important and perhaps the best path forward in terms of being able to reach some of the state's energy goals as well as more broadly. So the community is a conduit for being able to engage folks, being able to inspire folks and being able to educate folks as to how they can make a meaningful difference. It goes a long way. I assume that you knew the state's energy goals like the back of your hand. Can you remind us of those? Sure. 90% renewable by 2050. A series of milestones that have been set both in the electricity sector as well as improving things from a thermal energy side and really trying to tackle the challenging knot of sustainable transportation. Trying to get off of fossil fuels in the transportation realm. Go ahead. Have you worked with Bob at the rinks at all? Bob, luckily, I figured it was when you said the efficiency from on piece and that's been terrific for us over the years. I've worked with Bob for a number of years. I'm actually managing a team of five at the office and one of the members of my team is working with Bob more consistently now on the lighting project that just recently happened. Well, we thank you for that. It's made a difference in certainly our expenditures big time. Fantastic. That's the idea. It's worked. So, if you were on the committee today and you were thinking about the city, do you have a particular idea for what do you think is the number one waste that we have? Or what is it that we are being most wasteful with? It doesn't have to be energy. It can be anything. I mean, focusing on energy is basically it's a euphemism for just efficiency. Just trying not to throw stuff away that you shouldn't have to throw away. So it could be water, because I just visited the Waste Bar Treatment Plan and they have lower inflows proportionally or per capita because of new construction, lower flow shower heads. And some of the energy committee have contributed to low flow shower heads at the saving hot water, but she's also saving water, right? But I mean, do you have any pet peas where you say, you know, I'd like to be able to make a difference in this one thing because it bothers me. Do you have any of those at all? Although it's outside of what I'm working on day in, day out. I'm focused more on the building side of things and predominantly electrical efficiency. I feel like the transportation challenge and being able to make transportation more sustainable from the fuel that we're using, so making the switch over to electricity as opposed to running on fossil fuels. The idling that happens across lots of parking lots and even when dropping off kids at schools, it's one of those things that has bothered me through the years. I feel like that's just a tremendous waste for no direct benefit that's there. And being able to encourage carpooling and ride sharing and figuring out creative ways to transport individuals and goods around the city that doesn't necessarily rely on single passenger vehicles as perhaps the biggest source of waste that exists for resources. So do you see that the energy committee might have a broader perspective on the city's wasteful? It's not that the city's wasteful. It's just that human behavior and their infrastructure they've developed over time has created some problems. So traffic then creates idling at stop lights and parking lots on highways and whatnot. So would you see that the energy committee could take on more of a role in trying to identify gross inefficiencies, not only in transportation, but outside of just energy itself within the city and something that you think they should take on? So energy is certainly a cross-cutting issue. I've heard it come up in a variety of responses as part of the interviews tonight. On things that have nothing to do with the energy committee. So there is that connection between using less water within your home and pumping energy, the energy to heat that water and being able to look at other ways of using scarce resources more wisely. I think is perhaps what you're getting at are other ways that we can apply some of the learnings of what the energy committee has done well from the engagement aspect with understanding what the overall pie is and then figuring out what aspects of that are things that can be prioritized, targeted in an action plan being developed that could apply across a lot of ways that we are using or perhaps misusing resources. All right. Well, thank you very much. Thanks. Thank you again, Mr. President. Yes, and here we are. This is why my sons had names that started in A. It was actually recreation and parks. That's the last committee in all of dog park, energy, DRB, bike and pet. It wasn't anything with Zilka even. Well, sometimes it is, and that's why they have A's in their names. They have the benefit of the doubt if they get to go back first. Next year we'll swap it. There you go. It was before. No. I've been in South Burlington since September. My husband and I moved here. We sold our house and moved to a walkable city in Chicago before we made the decision that we're moving to Vermont for a change of life. Finally settled in South Burlington and now that we've been here, I'm like I need to get back involved because that's kind of who I am and what I do. So my first career I was a systems analyst so I would look at the big picture, write the program and focus on the details. But then as life changed and things happened, I became like a community person. I got involved in health and wellness. I've been in the fitness industry managing a fitness center for Illinois Parks and Recs for a park district there for 15 years and just said this kind of suits me. It's a small community. There's a lot on our plate. I should probably start getting involved. So I went to play pickleball one day because I started that in our park district and I missed it. I thought I'm going to get back out there and I met Celine and I said, oh, I just applied for this volunteer position not knowing that she worked here. So it's a funny way how the community works here. So some of the things that I only put down Parks and Recs because I thought that was my background and that would be the most suited. But the other one that I thought about applying for was the bike and pedestrian. You had been at the top of the list. Yeah, okay, there we go. After affordable housing. That's something else that I've always had a passion and I taught a bunch of women how to safely ride outside. We had organized rides for five years in a row in Chicago. We did a women's only bike ride that raised money for a scholarship charity. I haven't ridden much here because I really don't know where to go. I do run a lot with a group of women and I've learned the bike path system. I've learned where I don't want to be by myself but I'm not quite comfortable enough getting out on my road bike in some of the areas maybe more in the islands because it's a little bit less congested. So everything that everybody has said tonight is like, oh yeah, I've experienced that. I've seen that already in the few months we've been here and I just feel it's time to get involved and see how I can help use the resources that I have and the experience I have to help my new community. So we should add the bike and ped to you. You could, definitely. I didn't wear any shirt to indicate anything so I missed that one too. Well, we look beyond shirts too. So what's interesting is when we sold our house and decided to move to a walkable community that was one of the reasons we did it before we moved here was like, is this what we want? Do we want to be downtown Berlin when we can walk everywhere? What we found was that we met more people, we got more exercise, we were happier because we could put our backpack on and walk to the grocery store and it was a half mile there and a half mile back. Who cares? You just didn't buy a gallon of milk. You bought a half a gallon. But you actually experienced your community in a different way. You saw different things and so as we were kind of bouncing around here in different rentals looking for places we did end up over by Arrow Street and that area is so walkable. We had a car and we hardly ever drove it because you can go anywhere from there. So the excitement about the city center is also very exciting because being in health and wellness that's what your goal is to get people to move and to strengthen the spirit of your community was kind of what we used in the fitness center is our kind of tagline because that's what a community center does. It brings everyone together for activities and the kids would do things, the parents would do things and it just strengthens the people in your community and makes them a little more excited to be part of that community and I think that's ultimately what I'm gathering from reading everything is what we want to do here in South Burlington. So I'd like to be part of that in some capacity. That's not this time, it's next time. So I don't know. So I told you I see the big picture but detail oriented, service oriented. I do have a full-time job but it's flexible so days or evening meetings would probably work fine. I actually have also tutor that's been another passion of mine so I actually work for a reading software company which kind of ties my service and orientation and training back into educators which are back into the community. So I kind of go full circle. I'm pretty much an open book. If a position of note taker is available on the recreation and parks committee are you a good note taker? Well, so part of my responsibilities when I started working for the park district was I was instructing fitness classes and they needed someone, the executive director needed someone to take notes so I started going to all the board meetings and the executive sessions and the task force meetings and every meeting imaginable and was the recording secretary for a lot of years as we were going through some very large referendums and spending a lot of time and committees and meetings organizing all of that detail so we had everything in place for those referendums. So yes, maybe I could go back to that. It's been a while since I've done it but I've been pretty much involved in the workings of a park district from the ground floor all the way up. You also heard we don't really have a facility so is that kind of challenged something that... Oh, it would be so exciting to work on that. One of the referendums that we worked on at our park district that we were, there were seven full-time employees so we were small that we all were involved and was a $3.4 million referendum to redo our pool and it was very exciting because I'm not a pool person but it's recreation, it's fitness like I was all in that and it's very exciting to be involved in something like that. There's so much that you can learn from. We worked with three or four other park districts to give us their insight because they had already gone through that so working throughout the community is perfect for things like that. Great. I run usually in the morning, like at 5 a.m. it's going to be a short night but it's getting dark now. Between 5 and 6.30 I usually run. I don't walk as much right now but that was kind of one of the things that we were looking for here. Up here it's not as easy to walk to the grocery store. We're Heather Field. So it's very close. It's walkable but I'm not a fan of walking on the sidewalk. I want to walk in the community houses where the streets are nice and you can look at the homes or you can be on the bike path. So I don't walk as much here. I do my errands to and from work but we do need a little more walkability from some of those communities. The bike paths definitely. Everything that's been said, it's all the same. I think we're all here for the same reasons. Have you attended any of the meetings? Like two days before the deadline I'm like, oh my gosh, this sounds like I should get involved. The timing is perfect. I haven't been to any of the meetings but I've been to enough over the years. I think I have a pretty good idea what happens at most of them. The committee meetings, yeah. I know it was late. Do you guys have any other questions? You had all the answers because you've been listening for so long. I've been listening for so long. Yeah, two hours. You could skip your run tomorrow. I might. Maybe not at five. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. It's stamina. All right. Mr. Conner is. Item number 14. Aren't you going to employ the city? Don't you spend enough time here? You don't want to be on a committee. We're done with that. Gosh. 18 people with a 15 minute break. That was quite a run. That's Paul. Truly impressed by the quality of volunteers in the area. It's not a street. Yeah, they're great. Excellent. The quality of volunteers we have across the board here. Yeah. All right. So item 14. Consider and possibly approve appointing Paul Conner as zoning administrative officer, code officer and telecommunications officer. We're supposed to do anything else first or we just take care of it. There we go. She pretty much said it. I moved it. It was in our packets. All right. All right. All in favor. Tom, are you still? There you go. Tom, man. All right. Paul is still with us. He's our night owl apparently on the staff. He doesn't mind these agenda items. Consider and possibly approve a resolution recognizing the surface of Ray Belair. Raymond Belair to be. He's not with us tonight yet. We'll read this. Only an hour off here. I know. 18 people. I know. All right. And I am. Yeah, I just a few words about Mr. Belair. He was probably the first person I met in among city staff. Yeah. And so that was a while ago that's probably says here but at least 30 years. Yeah, close to it. Yeah. So he is I'm sure someone that many people in the city know. So even more than the city manager I think so. Mr. Belair resolution 2018 relating to zoning administrative officer Raymond J. Belair. Whereas the members of the South Burlington City Council are celebrating the legislative committee before that. And whereas in addition to serving as the city zoning administrative officer Raymond J. Belair. And whereas Mr. Belair serve the people of South Burlington for more than 30 years. And whereas in addition to serving as the city zoning administrative officer Mr. Belair adroitly perform the duties of code enforcement officer and telecommunications officer. And whereas Mr. Belair has issued and tracked permits for nearly 3,000 dwelling units in the city representing nearly a third of all of the units existing today in the city. And whereas and perhaps the busiest of all of the city zoning officers and 7,000 zoning permits and thousands of certificates of compliance certificates of occupancy and sign permits he knows a lot of us. And whereas Mr. Belair has worked tirelessly on behalf of the citizens of South Burlington to provide fair responsive and courteous permitting assistance. And whereas Mr. Belair performed his duties with the highest level of integrity professionalism therefore let it be resolved that on behalf of the residents of the city of South Burlington the city council does hereby recognize and extend its deepest appreciation for Raymond J. Belair service and dedication to the residents and businesses of the city. All of whom are the better for his years of service and that Mr. Belair exemplified the commitment to fairness that leads to making a true difference in a community. And let it be further resolved that a signed copy of this resolution shall be presented to Raymond J. Belair and that this resolution will be inserted in its entirety in the minutes of the South Burlington City Council meeting dated August 6th, 2018. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. but also just to see and witness everything that was described in there, but also to see the outpouring that he's received since people have heard of his retirement, whether it was Welles here or even in the last week of people saying he's retired. I genuinely say I need to take a minute and just to think of that this is the person that you're coming to get permits from is really, and that he really touched thousands of people's lives in this community and really felt that their government was here to serve them, which is what we're all striving to do. His door was always open. He'll be missed for sure. Big shoes to fill. Yeah, yeah. Well happy 10th year anniversary too. Don't go anywhere. Please. So we will sign. Oh, so moved. Second. All right. Is this not even necessary, but all those in favor? I guess we all got to use the same pen, huh? Oh, it's a Davis Studio one. So, all right. They're unique paintbrush pen. All right. Practice with that one. I'm going to bring this back and let you sign. We're going to wait for Helen to sign it too. And Tom, so you better leave the pen with Tom. I can get another Davis Studio pen. I would have grabbed a different pen. There's two? Yeah, you can sign this one. One will actually be given to Ray and the other copies. You're going to frame the one that's given to you? I wish this were the beginning of the meeting and we had him here and we could take a picture and have a little reception for him. No Ray better than that. But that's what I wish. We got no other business, right? We better not have any other business. Yeah. Well, I really appreciate Ray's patience with me when I was chair of the DLB because when I became chair, he has had a meeting with me every, you know, it was like Thursday Friday to go over the next week agenda. And it's, they're complex things, you know, so I really appreciate the time that he took to teach me, you know, that process and then educate me about certain aspects of certain applications and just bear with, you know, the whole process. So I was really appreciative of that. I took a couple of trips with him down in Montpelier and we went to some VLCT presentations on land use or, you know, DRB type things. So it's good, but he's going to be working part-time for a while, right? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Raymond J. Belair. Yeah, tell me something. Well, I think we're next to the other business and Dave has already determined that we have none. You did a stellar job managing this this evening and even though we're an hour late, it was fascinating to listen to everybody who's so highly qualified and interested. That was really cool. Thanks. Item 17, I need a motion for us to convene as the South Brownington Liquor Control Board. I moved, so moved. Second. All right. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. The one application, the rotisserie restaurant for outside consumption. I move that we approve the liquor application for rotisserie. Second. Okay, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. All right, very good. I need a motion to come out of the liquor control board. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. All right, and now I need a motion for us to go into an executive session. Second. Second. I don't, you know, I don't know what the executive said. I just said that the reason why we're going to go into executive session is for all of these things here. Fine. All right. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. All right. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. All those in favor? Aye. And oh, we're going with Tom Hubbard, Andrew Boulder. Oh, we're not there yet. That was, this is the first motion. Oh, okay. All right. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Having so found, I now move the council enter into executive session for the purpose of discussing, negotiating or securing a real estate purchase or lease options, confidential attorney, client communications, meet with the purpose of providing professional legal services to the council regarding pending or probable litigation, and appointments to city boards, commissions, and committees. And we're inviting Tom Hubbard, Paul Conner, Andrew Bulldog. Amanda's not here in the executive session with us. She's here. Okay. All right. Just one comment. I don't know if we want to come out to a point. I think that Helen, I talked. I would rather that she be here for appointments, but the only committee that she wondered if we should have moved forward was the economic development committee. Now we heard tonight that it's not necessarily for city center, it would be for the rec center. So I don't know. Tonight rather than wait. That was her recommendation. Not for city center. We're in no hurry. That's how I feel as well. All right. The library board has asked Nancy, the last meeting, but not appointed, and they were asking if she could meet. Nancy Falling, she interviewed back on July 16th. She's the UVM. Oh, okay. We're in the middle of a motion. So can we do that when we're entering into executive session, however? Yes. Okay. So all in favor? Aye. Aye. All right. We're officially in executive session, but can we have a motion to appoint Nancy Rowley to the library board of trustees? Sure. So moved. Second. Let me find her name. Is she on this? She's on the sheet. I don't see her name. We interviewed her tonight. No. Oh, it's back on July 16th. That was when I was on the phone. I don't find her on the sheet. Oh, she's on the other sheet, maybe. Oh, my gosh. Oh, you can't read. The other sheet is a little bit small. But I think she's on that one. Have you found her for her? Yes. Is it Nancy Rowley? Folly. Folly. Okay, yeah. Yeah. Folly. All right. So we have a motion and a second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Very good. And we will therefore adjourn following our executive session. And do you want me to take you up for the executive session? Do you want to stay here? Okay. Do you want to stay here? No. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. Thank you.