 Welcome. I'm Diane Meyerhoff, host for Tau Meeting TV's presentation of the Winooski Budget and Ballot Items, part of our ongoing Tau Meeting 2021 coverage. The show is being aired live on Tau Meeting TV, Comcast Channel 1087, and streamed live on our YouTube channel. We welcome your comments and questions. If you're watching this program live, please join the conversation at 862-3966. I'm joined by Jesse Baker, the city manager, and Christine Lott, the mayor. Thank you both so much for joining us tonight. Thanks for having us, Diane. It's a pleasure. So tell us, what two Winooski voters need to know for Tau Meeting Day? Well, we don't have too much. We have our fiscal year 2022 budget that we're going to dig into tonight, and then a couple of ballot items at the end of this presentation. So our city manager, Jesse Baker, is sharing her screen with this presentation. And we wanted to start by sharing our values, Winooski's community values, which sort of drive all of the decision-making and how we choose to spend our money. So we are founding our work in a community vision that was driven through a lot of outreach process over the years, that we're a small and connected city, that we welcome newcomers, and that we're a place where everyone can participate in the success of their own families and the community at whole. So this values statement actually drives a strategic vision, which we use for sort of all of our city planning. So we are an affordable, livable, and diverse community. And the values that residents want to focus on and really invest resources in surround economic vitality, our municipal infrastructure housing, and having safe, healthy, and connected residents in our community. So from that, that work of getting to that values statement and that strategic vision, we then over the last several years have done a lot of planning, also with community outreach involved. So we have our master plan, which has overarching goals for what we want to be as a city. And some more detailed plans that inform that. So a housing needs assessment and a transportation plan. And these these sort of plans that say these are our priorities, these are the streets we want to fix next. These are the housing goals that we want to meet. That led to over the last couple of years, some bond votes for big projects that we're going to undertake that will lead us to that vision. So the pool rehabilitation, mainstream revitalization, a new garage in our downtown. So having made those commitments already, we have been focused more recently and are focusing in this budget and into the future on carrying out those existing projects and commitments and really shifting any new effort into focusing on affordability and equity in our city. So well, all of our big projects have experienced some amount of delay due to the pandemic. We still achieved a lot of progress in the past year. So I wanted to pass it to Jesse to share some of the the good work highlights of good work that has taken place in that our our city staff have carried out with our community. Thank you, Mayor lot and thank you Diane for hosting this event tonight. So I think we would be remiss if we did not start our report out this year without talking about COVID-19 and the impacts of COVID-19 on our community. So as you can imagine, in most years, we really try and stay very close to our strategic vision and our work plans that are adopted by the council and leadership team. And this year we really had to focus on our COVID-19 response. So while so in doing so, we were able to ensure the public safety through the governor's stay home, stay safe order, ensure that we continue to maintain our essential infrastructure. We sent out hundreds of communications to our residents to ensure that all had the information they needed to keep themselves and their families safe. We did experience 21 of our staff did experience furlough both to protect the city's finances and also out of respect for our neighbors who were furloughed or laid off themselves and not being paid for not working. We stood up bi-weekly leadership briefings with leaders from across the city to ensure that all work was coordinated and we were sharing services as effectively as possible in order to meet the needs of our residents. And of course, we dealt over the summer with our Winniesky-Berlington COVID outbreak and in partnership with the Vermont Department of Health, ALV, USCRI and many other partners were able to contain that first community spread outbreak in Vermont very quickly. So while we were doing all of that COVID response, we were also able to continue work towards our strategic vision and I believe we are poised now to come out of the pandemic stronger than ever. So we continued work on our investments, our major projects that the mayor mentioned earlier, the redevelopment of 17 Abanaki Way, our Hickok Street reconstruction project our Main Street Revitalization Project and of course we finished construction on the Myers Memorial Pool which we are thrilled to be opening this summer. Pool passes are now officially on sale if you are interested in buying your pool pass for this summer. We continue to see private investment in redevelopment of our community. We brought back all of our staff from furlough in early August. We hired 15 new exceptional new staff including a shout out to our new recreation manager and our new library director who are both just bringing so many opportunities to connect to the community even in these times of virtual events. And then of course we tried to leverage as much COVID grant funding as we could strengthen our connections with our community partners that will last well beyond the pandemic and hopefully build trust with our neighbors. Shall I turn it back over to you, Mayor, for the budget reduction? So when we got to spending for the FY22 budget, we really wanted to recognize the impacts that COVID-19 has had on our community. And so council asked staff to create a budget that retained essential services for community members but also keep any increase in the tax rate below cost of living and inflation, recognizing both the need for services but also the financial impacts that people have been experiencing. So we talked about retaining services like meals and childcare, shifting some of our capital improvement focus to sidewalks as folks are spending more time outdoors and in the city and keeping that tax rate increase under two percent which staff were able to do for us. So on the next slide we will see the numbers. What we are looking at for this budget is going to be a 1.83 percent increase from this year which should amount to about $47 on the average the average tax bill for a Winooski resident. So this is you can see here the number laid out how much more how much the budget has grown versus taxes raised. I wanted to call out here that we are also seeing more non-tax revenue so voters a couple of years ago approved a local options tax and that's helping to sort of shift some of the cost burden away from tax bills and into this other revenue stream. So what is in this budget? You know we're retaining the existing level of services that the city is providing. So the same amount of staff, same community services programming, street upkeep that sort of thing with the exception that we received a substantial grant to fund a new equity director role that will support our focus on building more equity in Winooski. So that is a change in staffing but it doesn't have an impact on this budget that we're voting on that grant funds us for three years. We also call out in here that we're retaining funding for the school resource officer position. There have been discussions in the school community about shifting that role and and you know that could change so we will respond to that as decisions are made but for now we're carrying that through. So why if we're retaining the same services why the increase at all? And that is because the cost of goods and services increases the cost of health care increases. We provide cost of living increases to our staff and so you know supporting the same services to our community is always going to cost a little bit more each year. We have a lot of staff doing a lot of this work. We also have an annual five percent increase for funding capital improvements because those you know the cost of goods continues to increase and that's a value that folks have said they want to see us continue to improve infrastructure. We have also made some modest increases to funding regional programs that support our community like town meeting TV. The Winooski Valley Parks District and we are increasing our contribution to the Winooski School District newsletter. You know Winooski doesn't have a local paper or a formal way for people to keep track of what's going on so we're trying to build that resource out that makes it to every every home every mailbox in Winooski so that people can keep up with us. So now we have the hard numbers. These charts show how our expenses and revenues breakdown across the general fund budget. So when I say general fund that doesn't include like water and wastewater which are separate through utility bills. Those are a separate fund. So what you can see here is sort of where we're getting money from. Most of that being taxes but a good chunk of it coming from other revenues as we try to diversify our revenue streams in Winooski as well as how our expenses breakdown you know where is that revenue going. So I just mentioned general fund versus other funds. Here are the other funds. You can see our water wastewater rental registry etc. This is sort of all of the money that is being managed with city services in this picture here. I do want to while we're at the slide call out you'll see something on there called TIF. If you're not familiar TIF stands for Tax Increment Financing District. This is the funding mechanism that was used to redevelop the downtown several years ago. We are still paying that debt off and so you'll see that 23% of this pie is going to those debt payments. We should be paying that off in I think 2024 and at which time the revenue from that development will come back to the city and the education fund. So I just wanted to mention that as a preview as we're going to be having community conversations about how do we address that what do we do with that new revenue. And this is another way to look at things. Service areas breakdown kind of a more of a values look at where our money is going. So you know roughly 30% is going to public works and upkeeping our city and infrastructure about 20% to public safety 10% to community programs etc. So this is just sort of another way to look at the how the spending goes. Wanted to call out you know in addition to the municipal tax increase of roughly $47. We are also doing rate increases to water and wastewater. We started this I think two years ago. The rates have been stagnant for quite some time and we're no longer keeping up with maintaining the infrastructure that supports our water and wastewater facility. So we have been doing incremental rate increases until we can get and I think maybe it's another two years until we're at a sustainable level where we're collecting enough from rate payers to actually keep up the facility. So the total there is probably about $39 a year in increased water bill for the average home in Manuski. So we wanted to share this tax rate history something I often hear in Manuski is how high our taxes are. So this slide in the next we'll have some useful data. We've got seven years of our municipal tax rate history here and so what you're seeing is that in previous years leadership kept that rate increase very low in anticipation of some big asks which you see happened in FY19, FY20. That's the mainstream revitalization funding, the pool rehabilitation. So those things happened that work is underway and now we are trending back towards keeping a sustainable tax rate increase you know these last two years we've been under the cost of living so that our spending isn't exceeding the growth of people's paychecks essentially. And so here is a comparison of Manuski to our surrounding communities. Basically the takeaway here is that we're a small city with a small tax base providing the same services as other larger communities so there are less of us contributing to the pot. A one penny raise on our tax bill nets about $50,000 you know that gets us maybe one employee. The same one penny increase in our neighboring communities gets four or five times as much revenue for the city. So anything that we add on anything we do just the regular increasing cost of goods and services is going to be more expensive for us than for Burlington or Colchester or somewhere like that. But what you can see on here is a place like Berry that is more comparable in size. Our rates actually lower than theirs. Wait are we lower? Yes yes yes just you're right. So that's sort of I think that helps contextualize that for Chittenden County we have a high rate because we are so small and we're doing more with less. But when you look at when you compare us to more communities that are more similar it's it's just different. We have a different landscape that we're working with financially. Um and also in a previous slide we showed we're we're we've seen about 0.7 percent growth in our tax base because of development in the city which also brings in about $50,000. So even the development and the growth that you see that folks feel like is happening so rapidly it's not as much as it looks like it's not contributing as much to the pot as you might expect. You know all of our development is happening on our gateways on Main Street and East Allen Street. It's very visible and noticeable but in you know in the majority of the city that sort of growth isn't happening so it's not as much increases as you might expect. So moving away from finances just wanted to share some you know what can you look forward to in the coming year. Obviously we will be continuing to respond to changing needs from the pandemic. That's not ending anytime soon unfortunately and so we will continue to adapt. I mentioned earlier the grant for the new equity director. We received an additional grant to do an audit a policy audit to look for inequities in our local policies and look forward to establishing another advisory commission to help us. Staff are also engaging in a citywide traffic calming policy and a parking study. So the pressure of growth and development has you know made things like this more apparent to people. There are concerns about too much traffic not enough parking etc. So we're going to get some professional support to help us address those concerns and as I mentioned earlier we are also focusing on more sidewalk improvements. We have a historic preservation study underway and we are going to be looking at a citywide reappraisal starting maybe this year maybe next year. We have been ordered by the state to do so as home value homes sales have continued to get further and further away from my current appraised values. As Jesse mentioned we look forward to opening the pool finally this year and also beginning that main street construction and then lastly just want to because this isn't something we are doing but because it's important to the community the noise mitigation program from Burlington and the airport will begin its pilot later this year and so we'll be participating in those discussions and making sure that our residents are up to date and we'll be able to access that program when it is available. So that's enough budget two bell items will be on there two questions for residents. The first one is in response to the state's creation of a legal commercial cannabis market. So this question is asking would you like to see retail cannabis businesses here in Manuski. Voters have to opt in to allow that kind of business that the state has allowed and would be licensing in fall of 2022. So we will spend if should voters move this forward council and staff will spend time doing any updates to ordinance or regulations locally to make sure that that those businesses could operate safely. The second question comes from residents who wanted to see this on the ballot. So this is a non-binding advisory question asking if we as a city should urge the state to halt F-35 flights. Regardless of how the vote goes the state will not be bound to respond in any specific way but a lot of folks wanted a chance to voice their opinion on this topic again now that the jets are actually here. So those are the two items that will be on there in addition to budget and council and school trustee seats. Christine can I ask you a question about the cannabis. Certainly. So will every town regulate cannabis retailers separately is every town can do its own or regulations but everyone has to vote in order to allow it to happen in the town. Is that my close halfway. So the state will be regulating health and safety and the things that you we could decide on locally are where should these businesses be allowed. Do we need to have specific nuisance controls for them? That's sort of I don't know Jesse if you want to add anything. No that's absolutely right land use planning since at the municipal level the health and safety setup with the cannabis commission at the state level. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Um with that if Jesse if you would like to let residents know all the ways that they can vote this year. Sure we have many ways you can vote and if you live in Winooski you should be receiving in the next couple of days a postcard with this information on it as well. We will not be mailing ballots out to every home but there are many ways you can vote on or before town meaning day. So you can vote at home you can go on to the state's website that's listed here mvp.vermont.gov and request an absentee ballot. We will then mail you a ballot you can vote at home and return it to us either before town meeting day or on town meeting day which is March 2nd. The deadline to request about absentee ballots is February 26th just to make sure you get it by the by town meeting day. You can also vote in person early or on town meeting day. So starting on February 10th which is next Wednesday a week from today you can come into city hall anytime between nine a.m. and three p.m. and vote at vote in person at city hall then and your ballot will you'll receive your ballot then you can return your ballot then and be done or you can vote in person on town meeting day and that process will be the same as it's been in past years. The polling place is located at the Winooski senior center which is at 123 Barlow street and is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Of course on town meeting day we will have some COVID restrictions we will be required to wear a mask you also are required to wear mask in city hall we ask that you socially distance and respect the guidelines. I also do want to clarify because there was the ballot item on the November ballot in Winooski to to approve the charter change to allow all residents to vote in municipal elections in Winooski that did pass in November. However it is still before the legislature who must approve it before it's passed into law so currently in Winooski only U.S. citizens can vote on town meeting day so that those are all your options again request an absentee ballot vote in person at city hall vote in person on town meeting day. Sounds like you're well covered in terms of folks coming out to vote. I hope so that's our goal make it as easy as possible for as many people as possible. That's fantastic I totally respect that. Now tell me also will you all also be doing an additional presentation on the budget to the community prior to town meeting as well? Yes so we will be so obviously there's this broadcast this this evening which I understand will also be available for folks to watch in the future of course at their leisure. On February 17th at 6 p.m. we will be holding a joint city and school community presentation traditionally this is our annual community dinner and of course we can't do that this year we look forward to doing it next year but we will still be holding that information session and then of course as required by state law the night before town meeting day the evening of March 1st the mayor and I will be doing a virtual budget presentation again as will the school. Okay so many opportunities to to hear more about more dig in deeper ask some more questions etc about the budget as folks get a chance to look at it and see what what what they're voting on. Yes fantastic yep go ahead Diane if I can just plug one more thing if you are watching this and are interested in additional information or want to see this presentation on the ballot item if you go to our website whenuskivt.gov backslash town meeting all of this information is posted there so again that's whenuskivt.gov backslash town meeting thank you. Fantastic great and so I mean my takeaway and I didn't have much time to to prepare or anything but sort of the takeaway at the end modest increase in in taxes it sounds like right maintaining any of the services you've worked really hard to put in place and a couple of ballot items I think the cannabis one people have heard a lot about I suspect I don't know and then the F-35 certainly has been on people's radar quote unquote as well so so no no big surprises is that safe to say that is right no big surprises no big new asks we are continuing to move forward with the the established vision that residents have asked for. Fantastic well that that's probably a fantastic line to end on right there is there anything else we forgot or anything else you want to let folks know about before we wrap up. I'll just say early voting starts next week so town day is coming soon. Oh it certainly is yeah next week gosh okay so you remember all those options for places you can vote and how you can vote um nicely we have our phone number here and email addresses for both of our guests with us today um the mayor and the city manager in Winooski so hopefully you have much information for you all to to the folks out there who are listening watching to vote on on or before town meeting so thank you both so much for coming out we really appreciate it it's a great presentation thank you Diane and thank you to town meeting tv great thank you thanks for joining