 I'm going to call the meeting's order. So the first thing is to review and approve the agenda. I think there are a couple of changes from the online version of the agenda. One is I don't think we're doing the item 12 to validation resolution. That's correct. So that's not on it today. And we maybe. I don't think we need to do the garage appeal. OK, yep. So there's no executive session, no garage appeal item at the end. Yeah, it's getting shorter all the time. OK, so any other changes to the agenda? Hey, hearing none, I'm going to assume that the agenda is approved without objection. So on to general business appearances. So this is a time for any member of the public to address the council on some item that is otherwise not on our agenda. And yeah, if you would say your name and where you're from and try to keep your comments at two minutes or less, unless you had spoke to me ahead of time. And that's also generally true for any comments that you make on any other agenda item. So any items to be brought up? Yes? I have a couple of items I'd like to raise. Call to your attention. First one I'll characterize as construction mismanagement. I have been photographing and inspecting and calling to some of your attention the issues with a cross on the Jacob's lot, adjoining the painting trust lot. DEW piled a huge pile of road base, the gray crushed particle stone and aggregate and sand mixed right against the river. I mean, literally a horizontal distance of maybe five feet. No silk fence. It continued to roll down the bank into the river. I called it to Bill's attention. The pile was quickly moved and the fencing stacked on where the pile was. The bank was not cleaned up. When I later asked the DEW foreman about it, he said, oh, no, that was just snow. He lied to my face. And I'm like, no, I have photos of the pile of road base. It is in the river. You can see it there. I've still got photos of it. It warrants an enforcement action. It warrants a fine. The fact that there was no silk fence in that location prior to the URB being stacked there is unconscionable. Yesterday morning, I discovered that they were putting fence across the driveway by drawing board. That single-lane driveway that I had asked earlier that you would consider expanding to a second lane so that I and others don't have to back out into Main Street backwards when they meet oncoming traffic. They moved the fence eight, nine feet from the building so there's a narrow pedestrian walkway further narrowed by the existence of the merchant stumpsters. They said that they had the right to do that. I asked at the police station. Police station, I see no street closure permits on my list. I called, left a message for Bill. Albichon's was given no notice that that drive would be closed. Capital copy was not aware of it. And I do business at both of those places. And it's outrageous that even when the M&M was being knocked down, there was inadequate dust control. The brick wall came down, crashed, and sent a flood of dust right into people's face who were on forklifts at the time. There is severe mismanagement of this construction. And I don't know how to fix it. But I remind you that I raised a caution about something called a traffic study during construction. And the construction impacts, it's getting from bad to worse. Right now, the trucks delivering to those merchants are having to double park in Main Street and drive forklifts out through the alley, which has big potholes. And there's not sightline clearance. So you drive a forklift with fork sticking out and people are walking down the sidewalk with their earbuds in. We're an accident waiting to happen. These are everyday occurrences, and it's just, it needs serious intervention. Again, I wish I had the solution for you, but that's why you all make the big bucks. I'm gonna change topics to Central Vermont Public Safety Authority. The agenda for tomorrow's meeting was notably more detailed than ever before, including the fact that there's only 30,000 remaining in the fund, and yet there's discussion of CVPSA bonding for a million dollar sole source radio system called simulcast. That may or may not be a good thing, but there's never been a plan that justifies that does it cost benefit analysis. I know we are one of two members or three if you count Capital Fire Mutual Aid, but there is a need for intervention by the city council to guide and steer and help evolve CVPSA to its next vision of itself. I believe that the current track thereon is a dead end. I've said this much and provided a transcript that we need to be designing for a resilient failover architecture. We need to consider all of the opportunities of PSAP and dispatch, uniform training statewide, et cetera. I won't go into more detail on that tonight, but just to alert you that I would rather, if the money runs out and the thing crashes completely, it's gonna be a long hard slog to restart it again, whereas re-steering it right now is an opportunity that shouldn't be missed. Similarly, it's not at all a sure thing that the garage will ever be built on the riverfront and the sooner we get a vision of a plan B into this discussion, the sooner we'll begin to heal the divide among Montpelier's business community, citizens, pro and against. If we again wait for it to come to a complete lack of a pulse, it will be much harder to start that conversation. I was surprised that Bill was not aware of the other drawings that had been done for the pit that included a boutique hotel up alongside the Pavilion. That architectural work had been done and it merits discussion. I do not think it's out of the question that Union Mutual and the State of Vermont and the federal government would work cooperatively together towards that as a possible solution, but the sooner we get plan B on the discussion of the business community, the sooner we will not have the, I'll try not to use it, a national analogy there. The shelter closed, I told that to your attention two meetings ago. We now have a lot of folks that are living down along the riverbank, parking with their shopping carts. I'll note, and this was even discussed in the legislative committees, that we treat our homeless humans with less dignity and respect than we treat our lost pets. And that is unconscionable. I suggested at a conversation with Bill and a conversation with Lauren that we, the city council should step in and begin to do absurd oversight over the hundreds of thousands of dollars that comes to central Vermont for those and begin to put an integrated plan together in a delicate way that doesn't step on good Samaritan's feelings, but that works with the available resources, works with the health department on smoking cessation. Try to give these people a leg up rather than sweep them out like yesterday's trash. I unusually got a $50 ticket for parking in an area that many others, including Cat Stone, insulation and others have been parking on Baldwin Street. What meter enforcement agents doing on Baldwin Street at all when there's no meters? To me, smells of selective enforcement. I do not wanna have to dig into other tickets issued along that street and frequency of, but I believe it was clearly selective enforcement. I intend to challenge that. That's enough for tonight. I'm yet happy to make myself available separately if y'all wanna get into some nitty-fitty details on any of those topics. Thanks. Thank you, Stephen. I just wanted you to know that Stephen had asked me ahead of time if he could have more than two minutes because he had lots of items. I thought that was okay, so thank you for arranging that halftime. Okay, anyone else? Okay, so on to the consent agenda. Is there a motion regarding the consent agenda? Move the consent agenda. Second. Further discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, so the consent agenda passes. All right, so we have a number of appointments to make. So we'll take these in order. I do believe we are gonna go into executive session to discuss the appointments, even if there's fewer people than the number of seats, just so we can do them all together. But we're gonna take them in order. So development review board appointments. So I think we have at least one, if not two people who are here for that. So if you are applying for the development review board, why don't you come introduce yourself? Almost two years now, but on the development review board since last summer, it was a one-year term, but the recharge was renewed and I think now we're on track to a little bit shorter. But I've got a background in land surveying and I went to the University of Maine, got a bachelor's degree and currently work at a wastewater and land surveying firm based in Heinsberg, a covered area from kind of Rutland to the Canadian border and two offices and do subdivisions and land surveying and wastewater. And so that's what I do every day. So it relates to stuff we see on the board every other week and we'll serve another year. If you so choose, thank you. I need questions for Rob. Okay, great, thank you. Welcome. Good evening, Hayden DeBlois. I'm also applying to be on the development review board. I've lived in Montpelier nearly two years now and worked for the state. I've previously served group in Manchester, Vermont where I served on the planning commission. So worked closely with their development review board when I lived there and did a lot of work on their town plan revitalization going on in their downtown. Went to Middlebury College. Again, now work for the state. A lot of my work deals closely with land use and economic development issues. And just very interested in living and staying in Montpelier and ensuring we have a great community in a vibrant downtown and would love to be a part of that. And thank you very much for your consideration. I need questions for Hayden. Okay, thank you. All right, anyone else for the development review board? Okay. All right, so on to the energy committee appointments. I think there were a number of people who applied for that. Is anyone here for the energy committee if you would come introduce yourself? My name is Peter Lux. My profession is a content strategist that is marketing and communication strategy. I work mostly with big companies and also small companies on helping them figure out how to tell their story, not just about themselves but also about the people they serve. And I think there's a lot of parallels with what the board needs to be doing in terms of bringing the whole community along in the story of becoming a net zero community. I also have, earlier in my career, I worked as an interim education director for the Cascade Bicycle Club in Seattle, which is the biggest advocacy group for bicyclists in the country. And they've done tremendous work in doing things like making sure that people can get to downtown by bike, connecting bike trails, a lot of effort into bicycle education in the schools, et cetera. And I believe making Montpelier more walkable, more bikeable is one of the ways that we'll make this a more vibrant and thriving community. Great, thank you. Any questions? Okay, thanks. And what else for the energy committee? Okay, so then on to historic preservation. So for that, I think we had, yeah, welcome. Good evening. My name is Joe Strain. My wife, Whitney, and I live in the Meadow. Although we're recent transplants from Middlebury, we've lived in Vermont for about three years. I brought a stack of resumes to test around. I am a 30-year law student about to graduate in May, but my undergraduate degree is in history. And I grew up in a place that didn't really have a sense of its history. It didn't really have the kind of historical structures and historical sense of itself that Montpelier does. Moving here, I really came to value that and I really thought that was an amazing aspect to this town. And every day when I walk to work, I walk past the Elm Street Cemetery and it's just a really, really vibrant sense of the community and I'd like to help protect that. So that's the reason why I'm applying. Thank you all for your interest. Great, thank you. For your concerns. Any questions? Okay, great, thank you. Okay, and the Transportation Infrastructure Committee I think is the last one. And I don't, I only had one application with that and I don't see Michael here. Okay, so do we have a motion to go into executive session? I move we go into executive session pursuant to one VSA section 313A3 for the purpose of discussing the appointment or employment of a public officer or employee. Second. For the discussion. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? All right, we will be right back. Is there a motion to come out of executive session? So moved. Second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. All right, so I'm gonna do this all at once. I move that we appoint to the Development Review Board Rob Goodwin to a full seat. Claire Rock and Michael Azorchak to the two alternate seats. To the Energy Advisory Board, Diana Chase, Dan Jones, Kenneth Jones, Jose Domingo Aguayo, Sarah Keier, and Peter Lux. To the Historic Preservation Commission, Joseph Strain. Right, and we appreciate all of the applications from everyone who took the time to apply. Everyone was very well qualified and we encourage everyone to continue to participate and come to all the meetings, regardless of whether you're appointed or not, it's a lot of fun to hang out and participate. So thank you very much to all the applicants. Second. Further discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay, thank you again to everyone who applied and thank you for your work and hope that, yeah, just reiterating with Glenn's, I hope that if you were not appointed, that you'll still attend the public meetings. All right, so on to the Greenup Day and Mayfest report. Welcome. Do make sure to pull the microphone down. I don't know. We'll see. Dan Grover, Executive Director of Monterey Alive. And Nate Hausman, I'm on the board of Monterey Alive and helped coordinate the Greenup Day efforts. Thanks, brother. You're the best president, too, yeah. Yeah. So we wanted to give you a quick update, no more than five minutes, I promise, about Mayfest and Greenup Day, both of which are happening not just next weekend, May 3rd to 5th. So Mayfest is a really exciting weekend. It's sort of the Monterey start of spring. It feels like a little bit. And it's weekend where there's about almost two dozen events that happened in Monterey on one weekend. And Monterey Alive takes a lead in sort of coordinating the promotional effort. So most of these events are independently organized, but Monterey Alive puts a lot of resources behind promoting them. We're doing newspaper, radio, and art restaurants. And earlier, I can say that correctly, about the three counties have rooms, birthday party, I knew we were outdoors, bike swap, there's the first outdoor farmer's market on the state street. There's an art walk that's organized by Monterey Alive that's on Friday night from 4 to 8. We have 30 venues this time, which is close to a record number. Excuse me, Dan. I just got a message from someone saying it's super hard to hear. Having this weekend, this one weekend, May 30th, and we're very excited to coordinate the efforts and to get people to downtown, you can learn more at Monterey Alive. Volunteer Green Update Coordinator is part of our efforts to keep downtown beautiful. And Nate's gonna talk a little bit about France Day this year. Great, thanks, Dan. And I'll speak up, hopefully you can hear me. And I hope you all are familiar with Green Update. It's the annual statewide effort to remove litter from Vermont's roadways. And it's coordinated on a town-by-town basis, but Monterey's efforts are particularly robust. And I wanna share with you a little bit about what we're doing this year for two reasons. One, of course, we love you to volunteer and participate and pick up litter, but also we encourage you to encourage your neighbors and friends to also participate and to volunteer too. So if you do wanna volunteer, you can come to Monterey Alive's Green Update Table at the farmer's market. That's the one Dan mentioned. The first outdoor one on Saturday, May 4th, between nine and one. And we'll provide gloves and bags and recycling bags and help you adopt an area to green up. And I'll talk a little bit more about that. We'll also have coupons for volunteers that can be redeemed at local shops. And volunteers helping to green up Montere can leave their bags curbside within city limits. The Department of Public Works has offered to pick up those bags and the good crew from the fire department is helping and has agreed to assist with disposing of hazardous materials and needles that are found. And they're also helping with the green up efforts too. But if you're not able to make it to the farmer's market, you can also grab bags from the city clerk's office. And we wanna encourage folks to, Montpilers is a little bit unique in that we have our own online mapping tool. And that allows us to coordinate volunteer efforts in real time so you can claim a roadway and other people can see those roadways. And it allows people to see what still needs to be done in real time. So more information about that mapping tool is on the flyer and including the URLs on that flyer I passed around. And you'll hear more about it on Front Forge Forum and through other venues in the days to come. But I just thought I'd see if there's any questions about green up day. I don't have any questions, but I am psyched that it's happening. Glenn, did you have a question? A small question on behalf of my partner, Kate Stevenson. How many bags are we allowed to take because she fills lots of them? That's great. Yeah, I'm actually picking up more bags from the green up Vermont office tomorrow because we do such a good job. You can take whatever you think you can fill and we'll have those recycling bags available too. And the more the merrier, the more you're willing to take on the better. So there'll be plenty. Thanks. Great. I do want to just give a, I meant to give a shout out to Nick Flores of Stone Environmental and Code BVT for his help developing that online mapping tool. He did that on a volunteer basis, so it's really cool. That's very cool. I just wanted to thank you for writing this out. This is very helpful. Great. Super. Further questions? Great. Well, thank you both for your work. May is very exciting. Do you have a comment? I would, it's kind of a segue. It's something that I didn't pack into my earlier. I have done a full circumnavigation of the Shaw's property at the confluence of the river and I've been being watchful for decades of that confluence in bank. That is a unique problem because it's too steep and hazardous for green up volunteers to manage, but yet there are literally hundreds of pounds of garbage and insulation and damaged racks that are falling into the river. I've left several messages for the general store manager. I would ask you to consider council vote to direct the city manager to write him a letter to take advantage of cleanup day and get ahead of this before it becomes an enforcement action, but I've got plenty of photos to share, but not tonight. Hopefully it'll all be clean in a week or two. Yes. That's my suggestion. Well, thank you. Okay, so we are moving on to the five home farm way property discussion, which is actually a quasi judicial proceeding. So it's a little bit different than our regular items. So this is not strictly speaking of public hearing, though the public can comment, but it'll be, if there were members of the public who wanted to testify, it would be more like testifying rather than just coming up to speak, you would be asked to be under oath, which I will have the city clerk administer. I'm gonna, just to tee this up, I'm gonna turn it over to you, Bill. Yes, so this is being conducted under our nuisance ordinance. We had a complaint that's been investigated and the police chief, excuse me, the fire chief and building inspector have made findings and recommended that the building be considered a public hazard. So under our ordinance, this is considered, as the mayor mentioned, a quasi judicial hearing. It's solely for the purpose of determining whether the condition of the building constitutes a public nuisance. And testimony can come from the owner or tenant of the property, city officials and employees and the public, relating to the condition of the premises. Anybody who has information about the condition of the premises and whether it is or isn't a public hazard or public nuisance could offer testimony under oath. The fire chief and building inspector will present the airport and findings. They can answer questions. Anyone else who wishes to speak can be sworn in. Any testimony would have to be accepted as evidence. After the record is closed, the council will issue a decision with formal findings. They can try to do that tonight or they can go into deliberative session, make a decision and release findings later. If they do find it as a public nuisance, it will direct the owner to produce a plan for remediation and abatement and they can set a deadline. It has to be at least 10 days. Can be as long as they wish, but at some point they'll set a deadline by which the remediation plan has to be in place. My recommendation to the council will be that given the complexities of this property, specifically the ownership, that any condition of a remediation plan include one, that a demonstration that the party who's submitting the plan has the right and authority to complete any work on the property, that they can't just go on somebody else's land and do this, that within five days, the property be made safe from immediate danger so that there'd be immediate boarding up or whatever is required, and that they provide demonstration of the financial means to complete a full plan within whatever time they propose to do so. But that is something obviously that council can consider in deliberative session. So with that, I urge the mayor to open the hearing and take the testimony from the staff. And I think we'll probably do the swearing in of everyone all at the same time. Sure. So I'm gonna officially open this public hearing or the proceedings. And John, do you wanna, so if you're intending to testify, now's gonna be the time, so I'm gonna turn that over to John. Anybody else? Yeah, right, great. So I only swear or affirm that the testimony you shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so I'll help you guide her under the pains and penalties of perjury. I do. Okay. So I'm gonna turn it over to you. You all first. So March 18th, we've formed. Just identify yourselves for the record. What's that? You identify yourselves for the record. Chris Lumber, the city building inspector. Thank you. On March 18th, we performed an inspection of the property by Home Farm Way in response to a complaint from a citizen. And we did find quite a bit of evidence that it is not in compliance with the city's nuisance ordinance. The council members have probably seen the photos and we'll copy the report. And are you offering those photos and report into evidence? Yes, yes I am. So I can accept all the evidence at the end together. Okay, I'm gonna do that later. Okay. So the violations we found, this is article seven of the city ordinance and section seven dash 701 for definitions of what constitutes a nuisance ordinance in violation of bullet points B and E under that section. The numerous window or openings that are ordered over, the lanes are missing, the building interior is pretty easily accessible in the condition of buildings. Obviously this is a concern. Anybody could get in there and start a fire or get out of there. It's a pretty secluded property. So someone could be in there for a while and not detect it. Bullet point H of the same section. Exteriors, unsightly, badly peeling paint. Several sections here, this is D, E, and H. Portions of the roof are badly sagging. Utilities have been disconnected. Plumbing and heating systems have been removed from the building. Floors are sagging badly in several locations. There's a lot of framing deficiencies, several locations throughout the building. And there are some framing members missing, some are rotted, some have been repaired poorly or incorrectly. And they're undersized. There's overloaded members throughout the building. One specific post in the basement looks like it's holding up the whole building. Got a crazy bow in it. Kind of get nervous standing next to it. The foundation shows some evidence of moderate and severe, fairly recent movement. Obviously in this condition, the building's on stake for human habitation. Anything to add? You have a gallon's fire cheek. The only thing I would like to add is the building, if there were to be a fire in that building, that would be very dangerous and a huge undertaking. There's no sheet rock anywhere in that building. There's all the plaster's been removed. So it's pretty much just a wide open wooden structure that would become rapidly consumed in fire. It would be very dangerous. Okay, any questions from the council? For these folks. Jack. Would you say that the photographs that you submitted are a fair and accurate representation of the condition of the building on the day that you examined it? Thank you. And did you notice any settling or anything like that when you were walking around in the building? Yes. Floors are sagging and settling in various locations. You could feel it. Okay. All right, well, thank you. I don't know if you want to hang out here or not, either way, comments or testimony from the public. Yes, who raised their hand. So yeah, welcome. Yeah, if you would say your name. And I'm Chair of the Historic Preservation Commission. And I know this isn't exactly pertinent to your discussion, but I do want to constantly be aware that that is historic building. Commission discussed it last night. It's built on property of the son of founder Montpelier. It was built in the 1840s. Great, thank you. Steven Whitaker. Do you not know the current status of the prior real property owner interest? I know both Joseph and Martin Kemple for many years. I understand food works has been dissolved. And so the title, property, interest, responsibility, liability is unclear to me right now. But in light of it being such a historic building and an important piece of Montpelier's history, I would like to just raise a few issues. A nuisance versus a hazard is unclear to me. The report from the building code, cloud of supplies it as a class two hazard index. And an attractive nuisance is something I've heard about before. But apparently, am I allowed to ask a question? Was there any evidence that anyone has been squatting or any personal habitation or fire evidence of bird trash or anything in the building? I think it's a fair question. Maybe the public's not supposed to ask a question, but there was no evidence submitted of any of that. I think you should be offering testimony about whether you have information that says this is or is not a nuisance. I guess whether it is or is not a nuisance. I guess it depends on who you ask. If you're living right next door or if you have a commercial or potential profit interest in the land or yes, it could be a nuisance to the person living next door. It also has great potential to the city, both as a historic building restored or even as a shelter for some of the folks that are currently living in tents out on the river bank. I know it would take some investment to make that happen. But I think we should be moving carefully and deliberately to preserve our unique history. It has good bones, so to speak. It needs lots of investment, TLC. I would be acquiring a habitat or other organizations that might take on such a project, provided clear title, the city. I haven't heard that it's been proposed for demolition or condemnation or eminent domain. So if I may, just to help you and others who may be willing to test interest in testimony, the process is that the council hears evidence on whether it is or not in bad shape. Is it a nuisance? If they determine that it's not, then things just continue as is. If they determine that it is, then they will seek a remediation plan from the owner. Now, unfortunately, there's no owners owned by food works who doesn't exist. So that's a complicated factor. So presumably any number of folks that you've mentioned would have the opportunity to present as long as they could show that they have legally authorized to do so a remediation plan. City council can then determine if that's sufficient, whether there's enough finances behind it, whether it's gonna solve the problem. And then they will make a decision of whether it would be targeted for demolition or any other such thing. So this is the beginning of a process to determine the future of the project. So, and I just wanted to apologize. I had meant to emphasize that part or really to make it clear that that remediation plan, if we decide that it is a nuisance, that will come later. And so we're gonna try to keep the conversation relatively focused on whether or not it constitutes a nuisance as defined in the ordinance. And further discussion about remediation can happen at a later time, should we decide that that is in fact the case? I hope that clarifies the order of things. Yeah. Yeah, that was my comments. It's not a nuisance to me. It's a treasure, it's a mob failure. If there are no people living in a squatting and risking burning it down, that should be carefully calculated and these are domestic measures to potentially set something on the road to demolition or acquisition by a private interest that may have motivated this action in the first place. So I'm willing to assist through corresponding with Martin and Joseph and or help warding it up or whatever the team necessary. Good evening. My name is Jamie Duggan. I'm Vice-Chair of the Historic Preservation Commission. I'm also a practicing preservation professional. I've been involved with the property as a volunteer and a paid professional for over 10 years. I've worked on that house with a number of students at the high school, got a grant from the History Channel many years ago and did a timber frame project, the timber frame structure that's out in the agricultural area was one that a number of Monterey High School students worked on over April vacation many years ago. With the clarity you just provided, I have a lot to say, but I'll keep it simply too. It is a historic structure. I think there is a lot of intrinsic value there. It absolutely is in need of attention. I think we all know that it's had suffered a number of circumstances which has not helped its situation. I will say that I personally have been in discussion with the Preservation Trust of Vermont and the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, who both hold easements on the property, with an interest in if the ownership and some of the current assessment mortgage note that is currently held by the Vermont Community Fund can be dealt with, there's a group of folks who have interest in starting a nonprofit and perhaps taking over ownership and restoring that building. There's a lot to do in order to get to that place, so I would simply ask for your willingness to allow the process to proceed appropriately and to give it your due consideration. I think it is a really important and unique structure. It has a great history and it would be a shame to lose it. It's stood for over 200 years and I hope that we can put some attention towards it to have it for everyone to enjoy it for a few hundred more. So that's all I just wanted to, thank you for your time. Thank you. And I think there was one more if you want to. Fred Connor from Connor Brothers, Montpelier Armory, LLC, as was mentioned by a previous speaker, I'm the guy next door. We have been neighbors of the Food Works property for about 20 years. It's been vacant that entire time. It's been abandoned for at least a half a dozen. And our concern is that we have a substantial investment next door, easy call for the city council to determine that it is a nuisance and see where it goes from there. In the interest of disclosure, as Mr. Dugan mentioned, we hold a 99 year rate of first refusal on the property. So I have also had discussions with Vermont Housing Conservation Board and Preservation Trust Vermont about what happens if they do not proceed with the project as very publicly announced or presented by Food Works. They had a $2.5 million capital campaign. They raised $800,000 including $250,000 from a widow. I don't see more than about $100,000 worth of work there that's been done. And it would have been better if no one had shown up. It's just severe structural mistakes that have been made that we believe render the property not feasible to bring back. It's in the hundreds if not $1,000 a foot, 10 times what would be feasible for any kind of private enterprise. So I would respect the request if you determine it to be a nuisance and see where that, see where it goes from there. I did have one question. I'm wondering if any city officials actually reached the owner because I understand this is a discussion between the city and the owner. And the owner is delisted by the secretary of state's office but has a contact person in Waterbury that I provided to the city. And just curious whether that, whether anyone was able to reach the owner. The owners, the corporation all said that they were no longer involved with. Pardon? The owners, the former corporate members all said that they were no longer involved with this property and had no longer had interest in it. So who will the city communicate with then since this is directed at the owner? I didn't do it personally so I'll get back to you on that. Pardon? I didn't do that personally, I'll get back to you on that. You reached out to staff. Yeah, the name, just for people's information, the name that I provided is listed in the secretary of state's office as the member for continuing correspondence post-dissolution. So there is a party that's supposed to be, I guess, answerable through the secretary of state's office. And you provided that to the city? Did you send that as an email? I'm not sure I... I could provide that. Okay. And Jack. That would be Cindy Senning who's listed on the secretary of state's page. A Waterbird PO? Yes. Yes. As business point of contact following dissolution for withdrawal for purpose of service of process. That's correct. Okay, thank you. Jack, can you just tell me what is that document? I'm sorry. Knowing this was coming up, I went to the secretary of state's webpage to look up the corporation and this is a record from the secretary of state's page. Shows that the corporation was dissolved and the last year it filed an annual report was 2014. And the registered agent was Martin Kemple with Cindy Senning or Lucinda Senning of Waterbury listed as the point of contact for post-dissolution action. And that's about it. Okay. Yes, Ryan. Just like the happen in Jack's comments, I believe, I'm not an attorney, but I believe under the public trust doctrine, they actually cannot fully dissolve, they may have dissolved in the eyes of the secretary of state's office, but they cannot completely disband without the transfer of this asset. That's what I've been told multiple times. And just to clarify, Fred, the document that you sent to the city, you're also submitting as evidence. Pardon? The document that you sent to the city, you're also submitting as evidence. That's correct. Anyone have anything further to add? Okay. Yeah, go ahead. Just an observation, I've learned recently that nonprofits, which I know Fulverge was under tax law, cannot transfer assets to commercial interest only to other similarity-purpose nonprofits. So that may have some bearing on how this gets proceeded with. Thank you. I just confirm that the notice is for this, we're sent to that address in Waterbury. Okay. Sorry, I couldn't hear what- I said confirming for the record that all notices about this proceeding were sent to that address in Waterbury, the post-dissolution address, and we received no correspondence back from anybody related. We also spoke with the, I believe the former chair of the board, Scott Cameron, who was himself an attorney who said they had nothing to do with it, that they were done and out of it. Jack. Just checking the notice in addition to food works at the post office box we have, went to the Community Loan Fund, the Housing Conservation Board, and the Preservation Trust of Vermont. Was there any response from any of them? The only response we received in writing was from the Housing Conservation Board, saying they wouldn't be attending tonight, but hope something could work out. I'm paraphrasing. And do we assume that some or all of these entities have mortgage liens on the property? I didn't check. So, well, you can get sworn in. Can we get John in your mind? So I only swear a form that the testimony should give the truth, the whole truth and nothing, but the truth should help you God or under the pain and penalties of torture. I do. The letter did go to the person that Fred Connor was asking about, and in fact, excuse me, we spoke with that woman directly as well. We also did speak with Scott Cameron from Food Works, who was a former chairman. We sent the letter to everyone who has any sort of an easement, a historical or a conservation easement on that property as well. The city did not try to determine ownership. We tried to reach out to everybody who has some piece of the property or some legal piece of the property, and have asked them to spread the word as well. And did we get confirmation back that the certified mail that we sent out was delivered? Yes, and we've actually spoken with everybody on that list several times since the piece went out, including Preservation Trust. We sat down with all those players around the table on multiple occasions, and we'll continue to do so. And the certified mail receipts are in the record. I work for the Preservation Trust and have been working on this project. Resolved the issue, as Bill said so well, is a number of issues, legal issues that can't be resolved before this really goes anywhere. So again, I'll focus the hearing. The hearing today is to determine whether the building as it exists is a public nuisance. It's not here to determine the legal wranglings amongst the various parties. I think as the city we've attempted to stay out of that to the extent possible. And we'll accept any testimony about the condition of the building. As you said, if the council makes a determined nation that it's a nuisance, then the owner or someone who can demonstrate that they have the ability and the authorization to do this work and provide a mitigation plan that the council can consider that plan. And hopefully involved parties will collaborate on doing that if it gets there. But at this point, that is really not, that's beyond the scope of this particular hearing. And we have one more. Would you like to be sworn in, sir? Yeah, do you mind? Is there anyone else who would like to be sworn in? No, okay, just checking. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you shall give should be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God or under the pains and penalties of burgeoning? I do. Hi, I'm Paul Hill. I'm the director of housing and community facilities programs at the Vermont Community Alumni Fund. We're currently the first mortgage holder on the property along with the mortgage that's existing with the Vermont Housing Conservation Board. Their mortgage is actually supporting it to us. But the covenants they hold are those that we have supported in our position today. I just wanted to let the record show that we currently have a mortgage balance outstanding of about $90,000 in the program. We worked with the organization that works and the two of our Center for Sustainability, I believe, is what they, we are the record lean holder. We are not the title owner. We have not exercised our rights or remedies under the mortgage deal. We would again establish our willingness and flexibility to see this property put back into community service. Thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, anything further? Okay, so I'm going to accept as evidence all of the attachments that were submitted to the city that are available online as well as the document referenced by Fred Connor. And I think that constitutes everything. And I'm gonna close the record on this and then also close the hearing. So at this point, well, at least as far as this process goes, the council will need to enter into a deliberative session on which we could do tonight, but we don't have to do it tonight. It might just depend on, yeah, it might be later. But then I think we have a certain amount of time in which we are obligated to issue a decision. And so we will, I'm not sure what the time is on that, but we'll find that out and be within it. And I think that's it for now and we'll see where we're at after the decision is made through deliberative session. Okay, fair enough. Thank you, Jack. When you say deliberative session, are you saying executive session? You're not, right? I'm not saying executive session. You're just saying at some point from now or at any time in the future, we could choose to enter into a deliberative session. Yes. I suggest we do it now. Well, you could maybe do it at the end of the meeting. That's what I'm talking to. Yeah, I would suggest, assuming that we end relatively early and we're not all falling asleep, then tonight would be great. Let's aim to do that. Great, thank you so much. Okay. All right, so we're on to the ordinance amendments. How are you doing, team? Do you need a break? Are you doing okay? Move forward. What do you think? I'll take a quick break just to get it. Okay, let's take five and we'll be back shortly. One piece I neglected to mention on the last item, but just to be clear, shh, and I know some of this has inadvertently already happened, but because this is not, because this is a matter of deliberative session quasi-judicial, actually unlike a political issue, you really should not be discussing this with people until a decision's been issued. So ex parte conversation with a decision-making board, just like the DRB, and nobody had bad intent, but I know it just occurred, and so you should, if someone comes up to you to lobby on this issue, you really should decline to have that conversation. Okay. Okay, so we are moving on to the ordinance amendments. We are going through our ordinances, doing a little cleaning up of them. So we're taking it one chapter at a time, and so we're looking at chapter one right now. So I know I have just a couple of questions about some of the changes. I would love to not necessarily go through all of them. So let's assume that we're only gonna talk about the ones that you wanna point at and say, what's up with that? Yes, go ahead. So if I may, this was on the priority list, the strategic plan for this current year, and we spent a fair amount of time going through all of these, including a whole afternoon meeting with Paul Giuliani, Tony Fakus, Jamie, Sue, I'm trying to think of someone else was there, and literally going through the entire ordinance book and making marks, then sharing each section with appropriate departments that it involved, and then going back and looking at their comments and sending it back to the attorney. So it's quite a long process. It's finally found its way to you. Having done all that, there's still one huge piece that we need to get back to you on that, and that is in with chapter one. Doesn't mean you can't do your work tonight, but we will be back to you is that we under 1.9, the general penalty and continuing violations, we're actually gonna rework that to make these all civil violations and consistent with current law. So there'll be a whole new section on that with specific penalties. So that will just come to you when we're in the process of drafting it now and having it reviewed. So when it's ready, we'll get it back to you before final adoption of all of this. And then I think the plan is that we would go through each of these. This is the first reading of the ordinance. Next week would be the second reading. You could go ahead and adopt what you change. We'll just come back and do this one later. And then next week or the next meeting, you'll have the first reading of chapter two along with second reading of chapter one. So we'll always be doing two chapters. Otherwise, we're here to answer any questions. So before I forget, I just wanna officially open the public hearing on this. Okay, any questions or comments on the proposed changes? Lauren. Two things I was wondering about. So in section one, three definitions, it says or and near the bottom. And to me, or and and are very different and policy matters. And this says you can kind of interchange them. And I would rather be clear, are we saying an or or an and, like do you need to meet all conditions or just some? I was thinking of that serial comma case in Maine that they got in trouble over some lack of clarity. So I might just strike that. And as we're going through, if we mean or, we should put or and if we mean and, we should put and. Can you, I'm sorry, can you just clarify? Oh, or and, okay, I found you. So you're just saying strike that, we should be just be clear whether we mean or and. Thoughts on that? Well, which is meant in this incident. Well, this is a definition. This is a definition and it's saying that you can read them interchangeably in the text, which could change meaning in my mind if you are thinking and or you're thinking or, so. Okay. So this is first reading. So we could flag that and get feedback on that for second reading. Does that sound okay for everyone? Good catch. Great. Jack. Before all of my other comments, I do have a general question that I just wanna flag for the council to see, you know, get a temperature of the body. And that is that in the, when we're doing this rewrite, do we want to take on the project of doing a more substantial rewrite to eliminate the turgid legalese that appears pretty much throughout and convert it to language that people can understand. It's obviously a bigger project, but as an example in section 1.9 B, I came across the phrase, in addition to the penalty here and above provided. And I think there's a lot of stuff like that that's challenging to read. I'm fine with not making this whole sale, doing a big change like that now, but I at least wanna flag that. So we're considering whether we wanna do that or not. Obviously it's a lot more work than has already been put into it. Fair question. Glenn. I support the idea of making things more readable to the general public entirely. While at the same time, I kind of appreciate the all the syllables that they managed to squeeze in there, but that may be partly because it's not, not something that I run across all the time. So it has some novelty to me. But yeah, I'd be in favor of full clarification taking out legalese. Oh, Donna. Jack, are the legalese phrases that you're finding readily available that you could find an option to just do a fast replacement? Probably not, right? I'm sorry, it's like sentence by sentence section by section and so I didn't go through to flag each particular one for the very reason that I don't know whether people wanna do that or not. So there's a whole movement in legal writing for writing in plain English. And it certainly was not the way it was done when I started practicing law, but to the extent that we can do it, I think it's a good thing, but I don't know whether we wanna spend the time doing it. Yeah, go ahead. Can you estimate at all how much staff time that would take? Or are you volunteering? Let me think about that before our next reading. Well, and I think that's a fair question to continue to think about. I mean, if it seems as though there is an easy way to fix here to floor above, I just missed it, or whatever it is, if it seems obvious to you that there's a simpler way to say it, then this is why we have two hearings, and let's bring that up. And then we can have it sufficiently reviewed, but I would assume that to go through it at the level you're suggesting would take much more time, but I could be wrong about that. I think you're probably right. It would be, yeah. Lauren. One way, I mean, I know that some of the changing the genders and stuff in here, I know that when we work at the state house, there's typically an approach of if you're opening up and looking at and updating an ordinance, for example, that we could have a goal to also clean up at the time if there's something that sticks out. I mean, I would just worry that the strict legal meaning, it wouldn't be as simple as just, is that word substitute changing the meaning in a substantive way? So I don't know that it would be a quick and easy thing to do. I think it could be laborious, but we could certainly have a goal to everything that we're writing is like that. And if sections are being updated and there are easy fixes that we could aim for that, but just a thought. Does that seem fair for now, Jack? Yeah. Okay. Thank you for raising it, though. Any, I have a couple of questions. One is in section one, seven, I wanted to go, I just lost it. I think it's H or it was H. It's parts of it are changing. Oh, yep. It was H and now it's F potentially. Says otherwise, or I'm sorry, unless otherwise provided therein an ordinance shall take effect 60 days instead of 30 days. And I just was curious why the change from 60 to 30. So I don't know that answer and I just saw that actually yesterday myself. 30 to 60, I said that back. 30 to 60 and I don't know, I think it should be whatever the charter says. Did Paul need to suggest it? You wanna come up, Jamie? Again, we can check that for the next reading because I think our charter's pretty specific about when things take effect. Okay. Okay. I mean, if it's to... I can ask him about it. Cool. If it's to be in line with our charter, great. Yeah, awesome. Okay. I guess I had a couple other questions about section 17C, which I think was about if we change anything in the ordinances, it's like how it would be noted, but we just took that out. So if we do make amendments further to this, is there any way that we would be signifying how ordinances are changed? If not, that's fine. I just clarifying. I think we were just taking out the very specific wording of how the motion's supposed to be for... Okay, so... Clearly there's rules for amending ordinances that's clear, just this was sort of saying, here's exactly how you have to make this motion. Okay. It still talks about how people can propose and writing other changes. Okay, thank you for that clarification. That works for me. And the Charter's very clear that the council can enact or amend any ordinances. Okay, any other comments? Donna? I actually like the 60 days, I hope it stays, because I feel people need more notice when you make these changes. And the other thing, including the restorative justice, I don't know if that came from you or Paul, but that was really good to see. Glen and I are fighting over district streets, but have we settled that one yet? Who owns State Street? I thought I had one side, and he only has like a couple, a corner or whatever, and that most of it's State Street. Where the district line is? Yeah. That's firm, I can never have it on me. The language in here... John, you wanna talk into your mic. It's questionable. But it's the language from the Charter, not the ordinances that matters, I believe. Well, we want them to match. Yeah, no, we actually looked very closely that there was some issues between district two and district three when I first got here, and we went back and dug all the way back through the Charter's, going back into the changes through the 70s. So we do have firm lines, and I can get that. Okay, well, all my maps show that I have one, I, district one, has one side of State Street, and this puts even and odd numbers in district three. I think we all are talking, why don't I just go around this? No, so yeah, it just says even and odd numbers up to a certain number, then everything beyond that is... Right, but my map show me I come down half of Main Street. Why don't we just check on this and come back? Yeah, and one side of State. It's firm, whatever it is, I can check on it. We'll check on it though, that sounds good, yeah. Glenn, did you have something to follow up with, or no? I think a check is necessary, and that's all on that. There are a few other things that I'd like to check about. Section one three, I just have a preference. I'm happy that we're switching from Councilman to something else. I don't really love Councilmember, and I'd like to consider Councilor with an OR at the end. I hear that that may not jibe with the Charter. I'd like to see what other Councilors think about that, or Councilmembers, whatever you think they're gonna tell. I will probably continue to refer to people to Councilor regardless, but yeah, Donna? I assumed that Councilor wasn't regularly used because of confusion with lawyers. They're also referred to as your Councilor. Are they not in court? No. Sometimes, yeah, or a Council, but not spelled the same way, but sounding the same. Our Charter just referred, so it used to be Alderman, and they changed it to Councilmembers, and that's what, as long as I've been here, it's been Councilmembers, and that's what the signs have all said, and that's what we've used, but I think you can refer to yourselves as really anything you want. But I think that for the point of the ordinances, we thought it should be consistent with the Charter. Yeah, I agree, I think that makes sense. Okay, any further? Yeah, Jack, oh, and then Connor. Oh, I'm sorry, well, so many people. Let's go through a bunch, so why don't we? Yeah, I still have a few. Oh, I'm sorry, yeah, go ahead, Glenn, and then let's go Connor, and then over to Jack. Is that okay? Okay. There was a question I had about, I have to find it, unfortunately, Section 19D, completion of a restorative process, the bit that we're adding, underlined in red, the amount of a waiver penalty for a first violation of any section enumerated herein shall be $50, or at the election of the violator, completion of a restorative process with the Montpelier Community Justice Center and completion of restorative process is certified by Montpelier Community Justice Center. And that just doesn't scan to me. It seems like we could get the same meaning by saying completion of a restorative process which shall be administered and certified by the Montpelier Community Justice Center. So that's true. And I just say that we're gonna be actually redoing the whole one point, that's the section we're gonna be doing all over in its entirety to change the not only the fine amounts, but the process and how the justice center, because we have to build in a fee structure for the justice center process and make it more consistent with what they call the municipal traffic. So we can issue civil tickets for these violations rather than having to prosecute them in district court. Great. And actually scrolling down through, since we're gonna check up again about the district lines, I don't have anything else. Conor. Right, two very quick questions. Since we mapped out the districts originally, it's probably for John, has there been a population fluctuation that we've needed to adjust this, do you think, or pretty steady and even with the three of them? Well, the last time that was done was not very long ago. It was about six years ago. So all I would have to be able to do was guess and I would guess now. So we did do a process and we did actually adjust the district. That's where this little jut out from district three on the state street was added to add that district three had less population than the other districts. So that was added to balance the population. Great. Other quick question. Same piece that the mayor raised initially. I'm assuming an ordinance can be effective upon passage if we specify it with that. So I think we'll check this with legal. I believe actually our charter talks about when ordinances are effective and so that would be the guiding principle. So we just want to make sure this is consistent with the charter. 10 days. It's 10 days. I believe so. We'll have to double check. All good? 10 or 15. Yeah. Jack. All right, I have a few more. Section 1.3 in the definition of council member. It says. Good point. Wherever the council word council is used. Council member shall mean any person elected to that office. It occurred to me since we have a provision for appointment of members in the case of a vacancy that it should be a point elected or appointed. Yep. Good catch. Does that nullify all your vote session? Yeah, right. No, just now I'm elected. So. Yeah, there you go. Good catch. Thank you. Going down in the definition section, there's a section, there's a definition for public place and one of the second sentence in there in that definition is not something that's proposed to be changed, but it's very hard for me to understand because it says in its entirety, a place visited by many persons and usually accessible to the neighborhood public. And I wonder if anyone in the process of looking at these revisions read that and has a theory of what it means. I think we missed that one. If I can. You could Google it. I can come up with. One in the public place. Yeah, I can make a proposal for our next time. Sure. Do you mean at the next reading? Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if this will help, but I was curious about that too. That whole section feels to me like three alternate definitions although they're sort of only very slightly alternate, that none of them are complete sentences. Is it, is your problem about it that it isn't a complete sentence or that it's not clear enough compared to the other two? The second one. So I'll come up with something. Yeah. We have a definition for residence and it begins true to me in the place mostly not being changed. The place adopted by a person as their place of habitation and to which whenever they are absent they have the intention of returning. And the clerk may be aware of this. There's a bit of a kerfuffle up in the town of Victory where there were a whole bunch of people who were added to the checklist as being residents because there were people who lived, didn't live, even live in Vermont. They bought property in Vermont and they said, well, I'm buying property in Victory and I have my intention at some point in the future to have this be my residence. And I believe a bunch of people were allowed to vote and then it got, it was challenged. And I think it was a peculiar interpretation by someone at the Secretary of State's office. Yeah. And my understanding for many years of the legal interpretation of residence or domicile includes not just your intent that it be where you reside but it includes physical presence as part of it. So you can't say my intention is to live over there somewhere and that's gonna be my residence. I would just say that's not exactly the case. For example, voters overseas will consider a place that they're not living back at home as their domicile. So it does get a little fuzzy but of course the overall intent is that you not be able to vote in two places and to equivalent jurisdictions into two towns for example, so got a big one. There's also an issue and again, this is a little bit more specific than John's example but somebody has a fire and they have to move out of their house, maybe move to a neighboring town for a period of time. They said, well, I tend to move back to Montpelier but I can't live there for now until. Oh yeah, that's the easy one, I think, yeah. So I was just raising the question, do we want to clarify this further because that situation are people happy with it the way it is pretty much and I kinda ask the clerk if you think it's an issue. Off the top of my head, I would say probably not. I wanna think about that more. Okay. Donna? Likewise, John, is there not a clearer definition when it comes to voting and what is defined as residency allowing someone to vote or is voting depending on this definition? It's not much of a definition and it only exists in one place but it really comes down to where you designate your domicile, it's all about the domicile and you get to pick as long as it's defensible, yeah. But again, that was a line that didn't have any meaning at all until the victory case that the Jack is talking about and I should probably review that a little more closely to see what they worked out because there was some specificity at it. So with our taxes, it says it requires you, right? Six months or more? Isn't that a definition they use for income taxes? Not sure. That's certainly a question they ask. Must be. Yeah, I'm not sure. The homestead. Glenn? In our definitions here, it does say the last sentence is when a person eats at one place and sleeps at another, the place where such person sleeps shall be deemed their residence. That feels like it does at least modify the previous sentence and help keep it difficult to claim that your residence is in some other town. Yeah. I think this is adequate. That, I don't, yeesh. I mean, again, people sleep all over the place. They go on vacations. They, you know, I, that does, that makes me, even primarily you have folks, again, overseas, people who are, you know, deployed overseas for extended periods, you know, those, they are still registered to vote, for example, in their, in what they designated as their hometown. So I think that's actually problematic. So maybe, yeah, can you look at it? Yeah, I'll look at that. Yeah, it needs to be played with. Okay. Almost done. Section seven, or section one dash seven C is this provision for how people propose to adopt or amend or appeal ordinances. It requires all such proposals to be submitted in writing and signed by a member of the council, which I don't recall ever seeing anyone do that. Not only when I've been on the council, but the entire time I've been coming to council members and seeing discussions. No, I think you're right. So we could just say, could just say, she'll be offered at a regular meeting by a member thereof. Yeah. Okay. Ask him. That was his phrase. Well, I just, this is what it says. I'm just taking up that. Yeah. By a member. By a member, we could take the thereof out. Right. Yeah. By a council member. This is legalese, but I'll just point out in seven D, which used to be seven F, the this is also something that hasn't been changed. But the word on the last line of the last word on the first line, therefore, should be the therefore without the E at the end. Yes. Because what it's saying is in all proceedings to alter amendment ordinance, the proposal for altering or amending the ordinance. So therefore without the E at the end. Wow. I support that. Therefore and therefore. That's great. Any, any further suggestions there? Yeah. Well, it was a question. And it might not be a big deal, but it seems to be relevant to our discussion today. At the bottom of section one dash nine, there's a state law reference. The council is a power to power to obey nuisances and that's proposed to be deleted. I'm curious why is that something from because we because we because we added our own ordinance. Okay. I'm fine with that. Okay. Thanks. Okay. Lauren. First of all, I wanted to thank Jamie for going through. I had a lot of tedious typo E commas, him, hers that I caught and stuff. So thank you, Jamie for your work incorporating a bunch of very minor edits. And in that vein, just one other thing. We on page two near the top, there's a like the third line down. It's one BSA chapter three, just flagging that throughout. We use sometimes use that like fancy section symbol. Sometimes we reference laws like this. We reference them different ways and different sections throughout. So if we're trying to make it more consistent, we could try to make all of those references in a similar format. Thank you. All 21. Okay. Any further comments from the public? Communication is professional. I just would like to add my support to the call for plain language. First of all, if this is second of all, as we heard tonight, without plain language is a lot of uncertainty about what it actually means. And third, people who have adopted plain language have actually found it's not that hard to do if they understand what they're reading. And often the legalese is not necessary. So I would say give it a try. And as an added bonus, I would say that if you try to do plain language, it will become very obvious what's not clear in the audience. Great, thank you. Okay. Further comments? Council, no? Okay, so I'm gonna close the public hearing. And we've got a lot of things to check on. I think for next time. So I'm not looking at it right now, but do we need to set the next public hearing for the next week or the next meeting? Do we need a motion to that effect? I think we do. I think we do. Move to set a second reading for, is it our next meeting? No, it's May 8th meeting, okay. It is May 8th. I'll second. Further discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. And we will also be having our first reading of chapter two at that meeting. Okay. And toward that vein, Council Member Hurl just read it. If you catch things that are easy to fix, please send them in in advance so we can just correct them. Correct the e. Yes. Thank you, yeah. So therefore, we don't have to make the corrections at the meeting. Yeah. I was trying to comply with the older meetings. Yeah, fair, fair. I learned something. I did too. Therefore, okay. So we're not doing the TIF Validation Resolution this evening, so we are just about done. So we're gonna move on to Council Reports. Lauren, can we start with you and go around this way? Sure. I would just report that we are tomorrow evening, the Social and Economic Justice Advisory Committee is meeting, working on hopefully adopting our strategic plan. So thanks for some of the feedback you all gave and if people wanna come, that meeting should be really interesting and hopefully we'll be able to build on the work that happened at the strategic planning and all of that. So look out for that. I'll share what comes out of that with you all soon. Just before our meeting tonight, Council Member Hurl and I went to the Police Department to have a tour of the facility and a presentation by the Chief about the work they do. And without going to too great depth, I'll just say as with every department we meet with, I continue to be impressed by the quality and dedication of the personnel and the work they do. I've been hanging out recently at the T.W. Wood Gallery where I'm on the board as a member of Council here. They're continuing to do great work and are moving forward quickly with the construction of a new elevator for the building, for the Center for Arts and Learning. So I urge you all to go check it out. It should be installed I think June 1st and as a collection of scrappy non-profits, they're always in need of assistance. So I also encourage you to consider donating. And I think the only thing I have to say otherwise is that I will be at Baguitos tomorrow morning as usual, 8.30 to 9.30 if anyone has any conversation they'd like to share. I look forward to it. All right, a couple of people have been asking about scooters, so I checked in with Sue today. Did have a conference call with the company Bird who came in for the pilots. And Bird and their operations division did determine that Montpelier did not warrant the size to continue operations. I think that largely has to do with Burlington deciding to go with another company for their scooters and electronic bikes. That said, at a meeting very soon we'd like to present the analytics from the pilot project which will be available as well as the survey results from 116 people who were users of the scooters there. I think we need to have a good public input process on this. And I think Burlington's actually been doing a pretty good job on that. And we can look at it, but certainly if we make the determination that we wanna bring scooters or electric bikes back, we'd likely be going with another company. And there are other companies interested, so I'll keep you posted, thanks. Thank you. Last evening, such from our regional planning commissions TAC meant, and there's some elements that are happening that you all need to be aware of. One is the ledge on exit six of I-89. Work will start soon of blowing that stone away so it will impact traffic on I-89 going both directions, but definitely north. So stay posted on that because the bypass is really long. And likewise, there is a real need. We have acquired unmanned aircraft. And there's that gender thing, but it's drones, and we have a department within Vermont Agency of Transportation that deals with these drones, and they would do things like survey this building and let you know what's going on around it if you needed to do something that was off hands. Do bridges, they do emergency, they had lots of shots of the recent flooding and stock bridge, but they do have a call out to the public, when you own a drone as a private person, you still have to obey FAA's rules. And they're very strict. And unfortunately, a lot of people buy a drone or give a gift to somebody and they don't tell them there are rules here that you have to follow. And one that I think is really important, even with the emergency crews, you have to have the drone in visual contact at all times. And so it takes really three people to have one drone up in the air. It's really amazing and sometimes four. So that is something that's there, but please, if you own one or you know someone who owned one, tell them to go to the Agency of Transportation site and read the rules. Likewise, across Vermont trails that report the bridge is going to be happening, but unfortunately due to the tariffs on steel, it's now going to cost them nearly twice as much. So they're raising more capital. They're raising more capital, but it is coming. Waterbury is going through their own dig that will start and go for two years on their main street and underground utilities. So we're not gonna be the only ones dug up. And the other thing is I believe you all got an invitation from the Lost Nation Theater. And tomorrow night, they have a gala around the Hitchcock-like thriller mystery, Turn of the Screw, and it starts at 6.30 is a reception. And if you aren't familiar with the Vermont author who's gonna be speaking there, see if I can do his name justice, Chris Bojalean, okay, something like that, okay. Tomorrow or Friday? Friday, Friday, thank you for the correction, Friday. Friday night at 6.30, Chris will start speaking. His books are wonderful, but he's an absolute delightful speaker. So please consider coming. It will be a real treat to have you there and it'd be a great experience. Thank you. Okay. So I just want to let folks know that the Pocket Park that is next to downtown T's in the, what was the vacant lot. We've had lots of discussion as a council about whether or not we ought to be paying for leasing that space. And it's very possible that in the near future, we, the city, may have that structure evicted. And so if that is the case, then we may be looking for a new home for some of that structure. But I would also like to just put it on your radar to your council that we may want to talk about supporting a Pocket Park, no, I'm sorry, it is a Park Park. I'm sorry, supporting a Parklet sort of in that same general vicinity because that is a nice place for people to hang out and gather and rest. And if that structure needs to move, it might be in our interest to talk about what would replace it in that same general vicinity. So I just want to put that on your radar as something to talk about in the upcoming future. So just be thinking about that. And that is it for me for now. John. I realize everybody's excited to get out of here at a reasonable time. So I can give you all an update on the non-citizen voting charter thing or not. Yeah, and that's okay. All right, here's an update. So the proposal was modified significantly in terms of the language but not significantly in terms of the content by the House Government Operations Committee and they passed it out favorably last week, last Tuesday with an overwhelming vote. It was like eight to three, I think. It was terrific. They were very enthusiastic about it. And then last Thursday it passed on the floor and it's finally starting to get a little bit of attention which is interesting. But also the vote on the floor was, I think it was 95 to 47, 46, okay, that was close. And there were several members who were not there and just looking at them, you can sort of make some assumptions, safe assumptions probably about how the votes would have been. So probably it looks like it was a veto-proof majority. So that's extraordinary. I mean, considering where we thought this was gonna be and where I thought it was gonna be. So now it's over to the Senate and the Senate is, I think if it gets to the Senate floor, it's gonna have a really strong chance of passage and probably a strong chance of also having a veto-proof majority. But it needs to go through the Senate Government Operations Committee and that could be, we will see, that might be more challenging or it might not be. But I am meeting with Senator Polina and Senator Jeanette White who chairs Senate Government Operations tomorrow at noon and I'm also meeting with someone from the Governor's Office tomorrow morning because he has finally spoken a bit about it and he's concerned that it would run afoul of a law recently passed about keeping databases of non-citizens. Just so you all know the quick and short answer to that concern is that I think technically the database that would be kept is not a database of non-citizens but it would be a database that is inclusive of non-citizens. But the really more meaningful answer is that the charter change is statute. It would simply be new statute that would be carving out an exception if there is in fact a conflict there. So shouldn't be an issue, we'll see because obviously we are getting into, there is a policy question as much as I would like to frame it as this is about how Montpelier chooses to run its own affairs. That's where we're at. One thing that's potentially good is that Senate Government Ops is an afternoon committee. So they've had, I mean? Well, a time comes in the legislature and it's gonna be coming pretty soon where they shut down the morning committees. Oh, oh, I see, yeah, yeah. So having it be in an afternoon committee increases our likelihood of getting it acted on this year. And coffee, thank you. So I've got a few things. First, thank you all for participating in the strategic planning last week. We just got the draft report. We're going through that. We'll get that out to you as soon as we can. Hopefully we'll have a formal version on the next agenda to vote and approve. Any feedback that you have, I'd be happy to get. Just always happy to figure out how we can make that process even better. Speaking of the legislature, is an issue I wanted to raise with you all to see if you would support us weighing in on. We just learned last week that in the transportation budget, there's a proposal from V-Trans to move the rail line. So if you go out Berry Street, currently the rail line goes and crosses over a bridge past where Caldonia Spirits is and goes out toward Pioneer area and then down. They're proposing to basically discontinue that bridge, have it cross Berry Street, go across the front of Saban's Pasture and down along next to our bike path. Now I will say that they forced us to move our bike path which was gonna be in that rail bed so that there was a potential of a reactivation of active rail line. So technically we can still fit our path in. There are some concerns though. One is the experience of being on the alternate transportation path with active rail next to you and could there be rail stacked up? Secondly, what if any impact might it have on residential development in Saban's Pasture with an active rail line in front? Third, we simply went through a very complicated and expensive fix for the rail crossing to access Caldonia Spirits which may in fact be not used. And I think also the team bridges issued calls for the residential, excuse me, passenger rail running through there and their concept really showed a lot of residential and commercial and parking areas near the Pioneer area and then people would park and live there and then take these trains in and out. If this were to happen, there would be no train going there. Now whether the, and then that leaves the last question which says what happens to the rail bridges? Do we continue to use those four passenger rail? Or do they just become abandoned and the city has, you know, are they our problem or do we just have rotting V-trans rail bridges? So I think there's a lot of questions that we have. We'd like to engage with this. I just, as I said, Senator Perchlich called us to my attention last week and I didn't, I thought I would see whether the council had any feelings about this. We may not be able to do anything. The rail has a lot of authority and V-trans has a lot of authority but I think it'd be good to at least try to get some of our questions answered. Questions, thoughts? You should ask lots of questions and I think we should push to protect the commitment we have to the bike path and to Savings Pastors Housing. I would really like to see some maps of all of these things. It's, I know we've talked about it but it would just be easier to think about it if there were some maps. Sure, we can do that. Yeah, great, okay. Still going. We are in the process of our audit selection. We have annually put it out for RFP. We've got five proposals. I mentioned this only because this is an audit for all of you of our management team. And so asking if any of you would like to be involved in the selection process in the years past, people have chosen not to when we've made a recommendation but we certainly don't want to assume that. There is a range of prices and a range of qualifications this year and we're going to go through an interview process but wanted to open the door in case some of or any of you wanted to participate. Cool, okay. Yeah, we trust you. Yep, all right, thanks. But we want to make sure you go. You won't come back until you didn't let us. Yeah, okay, that's right, exactly. And most fun of all is at the request of council member Bate, we should talk about our summer schedule. So typically we've, and we can always do it next meeting if it's not that easy. Now, typically we've tried to drop one meeting in the summer, if possible and it's usually a July or August meeting. So our normally scheduled meetings in the summer would be July 10 and 24 and August 14 and 28. I have no preference. I mean, even if people don't know now if we're thinking about it and come back. We'll put it on the next agenda. So just be thinking about whether, so the question usually comes down to, do we want to just drop one or then move one to like a middle week in between? But it's usually one of the late July, early August meetings that, what that means for Lauren's perspective is sometimes we do end up having to call a quick meeting, like a five minute meeting here to get some things, consent agenda stuff passed. But it doesn't mean one of these full operations. That's all I have. Steven. Briefly in the state house with regard to rail, the house put language requiring V-trans to do a study of the passenger rail use of the bud cars, Burlington and potentially Essex to Burlington. The Senate took it out, both with Senator Hurtlick as well. Part of this is the gamesmanship of what tits for TATs are left for conference committee. But the fact that a demonstration project was not able to garner enough votes, we're being pushed around by an agency because we don't have a clear vision to articulate what we want. And there is support for what we want, but we have to be able to articulate it and could involve council members specifically talking to House or Senate Transportation Committee members and or the Comperies. It's pretty easy to guess who the Comperies are going to be. So just so you're aware, we as a council did actually support a letter that we sent to, did we send it to the House or the Senate? I think it was to the House. Or was it to both? Because we said, I think it was Senate. Did we send it to the Senate? Okay, well, there we go. So just so you're aware, so we have talked about it, we are interested and specifically cited the rail study. But the study was a step down from a demonstration project. I think the quicker we can get something showing that people are willing to ride this and here's where we need B-trans. B-trans money should be better split spent, implementing the few absolutely necessary rail improvements than studying something for a year and another year passing. In another year, we may lose access to blood cars because that'll be leased to another company out of state. Those are sitting there at great expense in the loss of interest. So I would encourage you to get active on this. Your next meeting's not for a couple of weeks and then it's gonna be dire to have a clear articulation. It may be possible to insert something more than a B-trans managed study but a city-involved demonstration project, right? Or viability, something more than just having B-trans do a study that kills another year. There is support for that, both on at least one or two members of the Senate Committee but more in the House. So I just, I'm happy to talk offline about that. I feel like we're missing an opportunity. Okay, thank you. Okay, anything further? I'm all set. Okay. All right. Which we don't need to go in, we just adjourn the meeting. Yep, great. Okay, so I, without objection, we're gonna consider the meeting adjourned.