 Okay. Well, I'm going to call the meeting to order. Thank you for being here and ask Councillor Brown to introduce yourself. Hello, I'm Kerry Brown from District 3. Okay, thank you. Meeting is called to order. I'll mention, as always, if anyone's online joining remotely, please indicate your first and last name on your screen. Anyone who is wishing to speak, ask to be recognized and the chair will recognize you for two minutes. And please, anyone who's speaking, state your name and where you live before you start. Okay. And that is about it. I want to, we have first item on the agenda is to approve the agenda. Is there anything that anyone needs to change about the agenda? I haven't seen anything. I've got no minutes on just so you all know. I've got so much going on. I triaged you all to the bottom of my list. Okay. Sorry. So that'll be off the consent agenda. Consent agenda minus the minutes. Well, we're a little bit out of the current for that because we haven't gotten to general business and appearances yet, but it's okay. This is just to approve the agenda. Okay. Okay. Now we're on to general business and appearances. This is an opportunity for any member of the public to address the council on any item that is not on the agenda for up to two minutes. We will start with people in the room. Steve, would you like to be recognized? Question of the two-minute limit. I think it's not consistent with the law and the Constitution. I'd ask you all to consider one of you who voted in favor of the MOU voting, making a motion for reconsideration. I think it's a prime example and it does overlap with your executive session review of the city manager tonight. It's a prime example of the council not doing its due diligence being led around by the nose ring by the city manager when that MOU is so full of flaws committing the city 10 years into the future for expenses that haven't been quantified or studied anywhere, that basically giving away a multimillion-dollar radio system that the city is the awardee of from the state, if indeed it ever happens. It's just a reckless example of this council going along with whatever the city manager puts in front of you and it's bad governance and there's enough in there highlighted and memo and studied by others for y'all to really dig into it and make an example of it. This is not the way to do the public's business is to basically commit unknown amounts 10 years into the future and give away public assets. That MOU was a farce and it was part of the engineered secret meetings that Bill Frazier conducted with Aldsworths and Pete and and Barry officials and that's not consistent with the guidelines for the grant that may right there might have disqualified Montpelier from receiving that grant but my point is y'all just went along with it and despite both Kim, Cheney and I raising concerns and and approved it so it's it's on you but your your only option to try to make it good is to move to reconsider it put it on a future agenda and examine it in detail ask tough questions about those dollar amounts and and what other cities have bought into it and what other cities are subscribing to what other cities are subscribing is distracting uh subscribing to that kind of blank check that's no way to do the public's business the garbage has not been picked up this week though the mud from the water blowouts uh we got we still got the state and elm mud the inches thick that people have to cross that's been before the water blasts and then the TD bank water blowout has left uh Langdon street and state street all coated with mud sidewalks and it's it's as if nobody it's as if no one's who's in charge are responsible for governing the city is out there seeing this stuff and asking it to be cleaned up the cones got put out for the uh for the ice but then the ice had been gone for days and the cones are still blocking half the sidewalk it's like who's running this show if anybody thank you sir I don't see anyone else in the room who wishes to be recognized anyone uh joining us remotely who wishes to address the council take a moment okay i'm not seeing any hands raised so we can oh i'm sorry peter i see your hand raised now all right i i just uh wonder whether the city manager would like to uh say anything about the incident at the transit center on monday so yes i was planning to after the public had spoken when i'm like working okay yes i was planning to once the public was done speak okay thank you okay i don't see anyone else any other members of the public with their hands up so we can move on i don't have a lot of information that hasn't already been shared but i think we should note that there was a pretty horrible incident at the transit center on monday night uh individual uh who was being asked to leave the facility uh did not agree with that and fought back and ultimately ended up stabbing the staff worker there 10 times we have we have received word that the staff that that staff worker has been moved from critical care or from the from one unit to the med surge unit which means he's in stable care looks like it's going to take a while but will survive fully that's great news um the immediate result of that was that good Samaritan who had been operating that evening hours immediately suspended uh their operations for some unknown period of time uh as a result uh city and the churches and ken russell from another way have been working to put together evening hours uh think on tuesday night christ church opened early before the shelter tonight bethany church is hosting and tomorrow night's uu church and we're continuing trying to cobble that together until we see what long term ramifications where i did reach out to both down street and green mountain transit just to touch base with them since their property was nearby green mountain transit as we know lost a full day of service there had to close for the day on tuesday because of the cleanup uh you know hazardous material by waste etc so they were unable to open their building um they are interested in conversations about what service might look like if they if they are to reopen there obviously uh they have a time interest in transit and don't want to create a situation where people are not are afraid uh to go there for transit they didn't say they would not do it or they wouldn't partner with it but they um they would just want to be part of the conversation um otherwise that's really all we have to know right now obviously it's created a uh big chill through i think the staff community of people working there i think staff at good sam staff at another way staff in other places are feeling very vulnerable um and pointed out uh councilmember morton eloquently talked about this at our last meeting the danger and stress of these kind of jobs or hats go off to all the people who are out there um doing what they have to do um we do like i said we certainly have places for tonight and tomorrow night during the storm and hopefully by friday we'll have a place for friday so it's not the greatest situation uh reminded that pre-pandemic uh the church is actually rotated there was a set schedule um for that evening time that rotated through the churches and i think there may be some movement to see if they would do that i don't think any of them would do it without staff and it sounds like maybe another way and um good sam are collaborating to provide staff at those locations as best they can um so we're in a state of flux obviously uh this hits good sam pretty hard as noted that was their employee and the son of one of their co-directors so i think it's uh it's a very difficult situation for them so um that's what we know right now that's what we're we the city and the collective community are trying to do and we just appreciate everyone that's reached out and everyone that's volunteering and everyone that's helping so sad your resident i don't know if they're my earlier resident do we know the attacker is not but i'm asking about the victim i yeah i don't know if the victim is or not his father is okay okay so is there any plan to help him or support him or like we haven't heard so not that i know of we haven't heard of any needs other than you know at this point he's receiving hospital care i don't know what his medical insurance situation is um and we've been in regular touch with his father who is also the co-director of good samaritan uh so we've been talking with him both about the condition of his son as well as ongoing programming so uh he has not asked for any help yet but we can certainly find him thank you okay peter is your hand just still up okay no i i i just would like to add a couple of things uh anyone who's read the news knows that um the person accused of the stabbing is not a homeless person has not been a guest at the at the shelter it's very important that in talking about this with others that that be absolutely clear i think anything that the city can do to keep making that clear um it's understandable that people would be upset but this really had nothing to do with the that the fact that we had a warming shelter at at the transit center this was someone who came in from the outside and uh so i find it understandable but disturbing that green mountain transit if it's a fact that green mountain transit is concerned or people are afraid to go in the transit center is no more dangerous than it ever was in any transit center is i mean buildings that are open to the public without you know security um are going to be subject to these things and the association with the homeless and it is very unfortunate and unfair uh and i just hope that you all understand that and that the city will do everything to make that clear anytime that this is being discussed thanks peter i think that's an excellent point and i think we all appreciate that a little bit to that because i certainly do appreciate that and i know that is correct um there are a lot of facts that are unknown and um including you know why that individual was there who they were there to see what for what purpose and um what prompted the uh asking to be removed um so we don't know what relationship it has to that community uh and uh i i agree that it does not imply that homelessness is in and of itself creates violence but it is uh there's just a lot of information we still don't know that we hope to learn is this unfolds okay with that we will move to the consent agenda we pass the consent agenda with removal of the minutes and is there a second second thank you all those in favor any any discussion all those in favor signify by saying i i no any opposition all right we've adopted the consent agenda next item on the agenda item six of public hearing on bond articles and i will open the public hearing and then turn it over to the city manager seek help from the assistant city manager we didn't rehearse this um basically this public hearing is required by law uh if you are having a bond the first public hearing is intended to be before the decision is made to place an item on the ballot so that the council may hear opinions from the public um about whether something should or should not go forward this public hearing is intended to answer questions the public may have about the proposals uh this year's bond articles are amendments of last year's bond articles simply amending some terms in one case making the article a little more flexible in other case re changing the financing terms so there's no substantive issue to discuss although we're certainly happy to answer any of the details about those issues however because they are bonds and because there are special statutes that govern bonds we were advised and i think we agree that we should follow all the steps for approving a bond even though this is an amendment and not a new bond just in case uh if we wouldn't want to have any quirks on the bond market when and if these bonds were left so that is the issue um kelly could you want to maybe explain the details of those are you prepared to if not i can got them here too the cover sheet indicates we've got sort of the language um as proposed it's reflective of what is in the uh town meeting morning um and so i'm just going to go right down through the list and if you have questions please let me know um article 14 um is the bond related to general city infrastructure improvements um the total bond amount is for 1.8 million um it's for highway recreation park and building infrastructure improvements um and so this um item was amended to include some language that allowed flexibility and transparency um around the details provided after the initial question um allowing for um renewable heating systems and inner energy efficiency projects at public works garage so the energy efficiency projects were the sort of add there just so that we could you know allow for a little bit more flexibility and then there was a additional language provided um around conflict park which is also cited here and so moving on to items 15 and 16 they both have similar um term adjustments the original terms um were for 20 years these have been adjusted to 30 years to reflect the terms that we received from the um from USDA um for the loan entity so those are the changes their amendments and adjustments to those articles thanks Kelly um anyone in the building have any questions i think it should be presented as a red line because you've eroded trust uh of the public to say it's about transparency i understand there was a grant received for the what i call the shit cake dryer uh eliminating the need for one of those big bonds that was 18 million dollars or something like that um that's incorrect okay there's a long term loan received from us there was a grant but not for the full amount anyway near the full amount and then the low the low interest loan which is a grant because you're paying less than uh the commercial interest rates was for 30 years so we needed to amend from 20 to 30 years to take advantage of that federal funding but the way this is would not see not being able to see a red line i can't see what you're really up to here but the it appears that even if people spoke up loud and clearly that we shouldn't be spending three or more million on a confluence park this appears to give you latitude to shift money from another project into confluence park without any more public debate on it it similarly gives the council latitude to shift money away from confluence park to another project well why don't we explicitly you know so these are the same list of projects that were approved last year the major wording difference actually has to do with the heating and renewable energy system at the dpw specifically set a pellet boiler and we've looked at options and that may not be the best solution so the the wording was changed so it wouldn't be as specific everything else is not that different but why wouldn't a red line version be here to inform the public who has learned not to trust you post the red line version if that's helpful to the website tomorrow um that would be helpful i i believe i'm not the only one who's scrutinizing this stuff so uh it just raises red flags thank you for answering the question that we're we're gonna issue the bond to pay down to pay down the loan that we got or we need the loan on top of the bond loan and basically you were using borrowing authority so you can it could be a loan or a bond is a simple is like a loan so uh no we would do a loan in lieu of bond we're not going to double dip but we're going to receive the federal loan and pay it back over 30 years using the city's debt authority and the language does not authorize us to borrow double that money i think it would be helpful to well i guess that you're voting on an amended town warning so the other point i would make is that this warning uh states that the city meeting warning as past is the supporting document but in the packet there's only an incomplete version half of it upside down um you know but it only jumps from article eight to article 14 which is also clipped as is the whole strategic plan document unreadable in the packet so um i think we're paying for better than this quality of work well i'll just mention to you that if if you want another copy of the city warning we'll be happy to provide that for you is it is it complete in the packet or is it just okay so the printed okay yeah well it's missing some pages then it's upside down one of them all right thank you for noting that thank you any uh any other member of the public uh wish to be heard on or have any questions raised peter killman um i am i'm afraid that people members of the public are not going to understand these three bond bond issues they're they're not going to understand i i i did read in the bridge today bill's explanation but i don't know how many people are going to read that or even understand what it means that these are only amendments of words for uh bonds that we voted on last year um and i i raised this previously and you guys did adapt most of what i suggested for the wording on um a 14 but at that time uh uh counselor bates said oh well you know we've always had an explanation of these things that you can see when you come into vote etc etc um but not everybody comes into vote and i don't know whether there are any plans to actually have an explanation i think there needs to be more explanation and i think if there isn't i predict that this uh uh this will fail this on 14 people will vote against it because they think they're voting against spending a lot of money on confluence park um so i so i i it's it's unfortunate and and the city manager explained to me that he had originally suggested that the uh that there be separate bonds last year but that this council decided to put them all together i think he was right i think that this has created a problem which you're you're trying to fix by wording it better but i don't think it's worded enough better to uh to for the public to really understand it and uh i just hope that in the future if you not to put a whole bunch of things into one bond uh um uh article but separate them so that people can express their views of confluence park for example um so i had one other thing i want to say but i guess that's i guess that's about it because i can't remember what it was um but i i i just i at least do what donna suggested about putting uh an explanation in the polling place uh john if that's possible um but also i think maybe an additional explanation in front which forum or wherever it is that you think you can reach the most people thank you thank you peter um carol w carol w's there's so many there i am here i am i'm my last name is welch i live on ballery avenue i have two questions about the three um issues that we've been talking about i i'd like to have a better understanding of of why it was 20 years and now it's 30 years i think that um well anyway that's my question i don't i what happened that i mean the payment's going to be less each year but it's going to go on for longer for lack of if you if you have more questions why don't we get all three of them out and then oh sorry and the my other question goes back to the um the um the change in the wording about the if anyone on this call knows anything further about what what's different about what you want to do at the um dpw garage with respect to pellet boilers etc that those are my two questions okay great carol i can i can answer both those questions for you typically the we bond or borrow and i think you know mr wittaker just raised a good distinction i think it's a good chance for us to learn to the vote is actually authorizing the city to borrow money um and over long term borrowing so that can be done through any number of things typically we issue what you know municipal bonds through the municipal bond bank and without getting too technical basically they take all the bonds that local governments approve around the state put the ball together and bid them out at once usually to get a much more favorable rate on a 50 or 60 million dollar 100 million dollars worth of financing versus us putting out our 1.2 million or four million or whatever um and so those the bond bank issues bonds of 20 year terms so typically when we are anticipating to use that for financing we put on the ballot a 20 year term because that's what we're expecting to use and that's exactly what we were expecting to use last year we had also applied for funding through usda for this project and did receive um three or four million dollars in grant funds and then the remainder in very low interest loans much lower than we would even get through the bond bank but over a 30 year period that was the terms of those loans now there's no penalty for prepayment so we could still pay it back at the lower rate over 20 years but in order for us to secure the financing we had to show that we had the authority to take a loan with 30 year documents so we are therefore seeking the amendment to this so that we can match the the terms of the financing we've received for that project so I'll stop there was did that help carol yes thank you that was that that's very clear um then with regard to dpw um we had done a study we had a net zero plan done for the city by an outside consultant and they made several recommendations for ways that we could improve our renewable energy portfolio and one of them was to place a put to replace the boiler at dpw with a pellet burn pellet stove and we moved forward with that recommendation it was the highest priority project in that plan and so we we move forward with that with the estimated funding and that's what was approved last year as part of the wording for all of these projects over the course of the year we've just we've you know we've now hired a sustainability coordinator we've looked at some options and there may be other options it could still may end up being a pellet boiler but it may not for example uh some of the methane that's being created at the wastewater plant that we just talked about this new project may well be able to be used to heat the public works garage um so that would be a sustainable alternate sort of heat that was not pellets but it would still require the investment of funds there are some others heat pumps potentially so we're looking at an array and wanted to be sure that we did not uh the bond language was so specific pellet burner um and we we asked our bond council if that could be interpreted to mean any sort of alternate energy and he said i probably not you should probably clarify that so this amendment was created to allow for a better range and pick the most effective technology that would be the most renewable and save us the most money so i hope that answers your question yeah i can i just that ever the clarifying um because i have looked at that net zero plan and um is there once we come up with all these different alternatives is there a cost benefit analysis that's going to be done like there was for the items in the um and in that zero plan yes so it we're still looking at something that's um cost effective okay because i was just a little troubled by that like the open-ended idea of what it is that we're voting and you're on the right track there carol um the uh you know the pellet stove they did cost benefit so obviously if you know what that is if we can do better than that than than we will for example if we can you know if we have a pellet stove then we still have to purchase pellets if we can somehow figure out the technology to use our own methane then we don't have to you know not we're manufacturing the source um so we don't have to buy pellets on an annual basis so i think there's a lot you know all of that needs to be figured out which is why we wanted to maintain um full full options okay thank you you're welcome okay is there anyone else in the public who wishes to uh raise a question or to be heard seeing none i will close the public hearing and bring it back to the council council do you have any questions or comments on this proposal okay so we need a motion to approve it nope you simply have to hold the public hearing in advance of the vote vote okay so we've completed that um now we uh we discussed this before the meeting some of us we're going to skip over the city manager's review go to uh all the other items on the agenda and then at the end we will we i would anticipate going into executive session for the city manager's review and likely not returning to public session at the conclusion of that item so item eight no other business that i'm aware of item nine council reports let's start with you we had some lively park commission meetings this month they are finalizing their management plan and the ecological assessments of the park it is posted online and i've googled it all sorts of way on the website and it comes up parks commission and right up there is updated management plan you can go to their minutes it's attached along with their agendas the last four or five meetings but the latest will be with the latest meeting which is coming up on the 23rd so that's really important they're also got a link on their part of our website to go to the survey about what part of the park relationship to the country club road property so people can do that it may have already closed it was closing the 21st 20 seconds yeah yeah like i can't remember exact date but so people should do that right away go into the website and go to that survey likewise on the central vermont regional planning commission i'm on that transportation group and we've been talking a lot about how the state needs to look at complete streets formula and guidelines when they do roads and on that discussion i found there was a lot of other communities like monterey who at least talked about reducing their local speed within the town limits beyond what the state will allow so i just want you all to know that discussion is happening and likewise is part of the monterey transportation infrastructure committee discussion that's coming up and within that committee we're also talking about more flashing crosswalks where you push the button and the lights flash and so that has there've been some issues of design when the flashing light is like a bar and not part of the sign it's harder to see and there's been some regional assessment of those kind of flashing beacons so we're going to look at that before we buy any more but we are considering some of the requests that have come up including one that was made here at city council um counselor brown since you're you're virtually in your seat here yes thank you um i also wanted to talk about some committee work um i'm on the housing committee and at our most recent meeting we discussed the um the application from the vermont college fine arts to change some of their uses from conditional to permitted and i understand that they have withdrawn their application to the development review board about that but i just wanted to say that just wanted to kind of report that the the housing committee meeting the i believe that the members who attended that meeting were unanimous in wanting to um recommend that the housing uses that were proposed to be changed from conditional to permitted be changed in recognition that we need more housing we need to remove barriers to developing housing and we need to um do what we can to facilitate development of additional housing resources in the city and so while that may not be a particular point at this moment with the development review board and with this particular application it is something that the housing committee continues to look at and will be continuing to support and then i also wanted to mention the public restroom committee which i think on a member of now i'm i'm acting as though i am at any rate and they had a meeting today and unfortunately i was only able to attend for about five minutes because i have some out of town obligations that i that were made it impossible for me to continue to attend so i don't know if there's anyone else here who was able to attend the full the full meeting but at the previous meeting we did make a strong uh we made a motion to urge the city to in reinstall port-a-potties in public places that are accessible in the city and um we are are hoping that we can see some immediate action to get some kind of bathroom facilities available even it's just port-a-potties which is far from ideal but something that can serve unhoused people in the city right away while we work on longer-term kind of more comprehensive plans for what we may be able to provide and that's it thanks thanks councilor tone so i had my second listening session with the two people um last on last saturday and it was a very good experience for me because i learned a lot from then i'm planning to do more after the election if i were elected as a city councilor so one thing i just want to raise um today um they talk about um how they can um follow up the improvements on projects uh they say there are like information on the city website about what happened right all the votes and everything but uh what is happening right any updates so they mentioned um you know we talk about different ways and in the end they mentioned front porch forum might be good because everybody checks right this project update right this month or something i don't know if you want to consider but i thought it's a good feedback for all of us to follow up with everything the city has been doing and the second thing is which i already shared this request with the city manager uh so um i received email about um can any changes to the dog policy in Hubbard uh be put back uh to the water so is there any plan to do that and where we are at um in this um event or activity yeah thank you i'll actually respond to both of those um first of all uh any you know we appreciate any thoughts about how to keep people better informed we do now have a dpw newsletter it's actually attached to um the the weekly report that you get and people can subscribe to that and it does provide weekly updates on what's going on and i think they post that i think we do post that i don't know for a while we were posting our weekly memo to the front porch forum i don't know if we're still doing that um but all that is included with that so people can get that but if you know maybe we can think about some other ways to keep people informed as well but we are very actively doing that through that dpw newsletter uh with regard to harvard park you know i think that's a council policy decision there has been no discussion and i'm aware of at the council about putting any kind of issue about dogs on a ballot obviously the march it's too late for the march ballot so we'd be talking about next march i guess it'd be the next regularly scheduled meeting unless we were to call a special meeting for that purpose um just to follow the process and i'm i'm not a super familiar but the the charter gives the parks commission the authority to sort of manage the parks and basically create rules the city council the only ones that can pass ordinances so to the extent that the parks commission is creating rule and policy about the use of dogs bikes or anything else in the park that really falls within them there are separately elected board but they're part of city government if so i would urge people to engage with the parks commission and if the parks commission were to come to the city council to say hey we we've got this rule and we'd like it made an ordinance then obviously that'll be before us and at some point this council and or parks commission could decide whether something goes before the voters i think council member bait might be able to speak to this better than i but the last time this was before the voters it was advisory only it was not a binding vote and it was part of a special election it wasn't during a regular election so i mean it was we got public feedback the vote was about 50 50 slightly in favor of keeping dogs off leash and um but it was also during a june or june election for some other purpose so was not held during a highly attended town meeting thank you do you have anything to add donna parks commission has been holding all sorts of hearings on dogs the last couple months as well as you know surveys they really sought out the opinion and one of the reasons that they've been looking at it was one the city did do an ordinance or has an ordinance dogs on roads should be leached and the parks k-line code of conduct did not include that so that's one of the things within their management plan that they're changing is that roads in the park you have to lease your dog to be on the road because there has been a lot of incidents with cars and dogs but also to make it in compliance with the ordinance they're also considering at the parking areas where they find a lot of more conflict happening among dogs and dogs and people is when you're getting in and out of cars and so they're considering making that change that in the parking lots all dogs must be leashed and they're looking at having some on leash um designated trails so that if you have a personal preference or you have children and you want to avoid loose dogs then you could go on these trails so that's part of their discussion right now thank you maybe i can just forward email to you too so yeah it will be better you know to inform our neighbors right thank you thanks Donna counselor hurl thank you um two quick things before acknowledging jennifer's last meeting um so one i've gotten a couple pieces of feedback um from some folks who have weighed in on the country club property survey and it's kind of brought to light that a lot the way some people are like thinking about the questions of the housing options the recreation options like i think the presentation is excellent and have gotten really good feedback about how clear and like so i think the consultants um and city staff are doing a great job with that i think the piece that it sounds like might be helpful that we could think about like a broader presentation like i was reflecting back on the work we did a few years ago on the recreation center and the analysis of different sites and different options and costs because because what i'm hearing is some people are for instance answering like i i don't know how to answer it because i want rec facilities but do i have an option of somewhere else because i would rather it not be there and so like what am i really deciding between and so they and there's not really a space in the way the survey structured to get that across so they might actually want that service but they're saying no because they would prefer it to stay at the rec center in town and so i just think like a at some point you know some kind of public conversation about um you know what are the real options and why i mean i based on like the analysis we did we i i'm guessing we would probably be like it makes more sense to cite it there because we can do so much more but like remind people of all the analysis that went into the rec center and just a lot of questions of like why aren't we doing housing here here here all places that the city doesn't own the property so just kind of reality checking some of the like what what we really have the option to do as a city what we don't conversations that are happening with different property owners um just i'm getting a lot of feedback about just some of that other context and i feel like just some better information about that could be could help inform the conversation around the country club road property um so that was one thought um from just wanted to know uh from the energy advisory committee meeting last night having the sustainability director is such a an asset for the city the complexity of trying to figure out how to actually manage these projects how to take advantage of federal and state funds that are all these moving pieces right now figuring out the best location for things i mean it's like the amount that he's learning and like the ability to just move these projects forward and like figure out how to actually um live up to this commitment and i think it's you know projects that are gonna save energy be more efficient do all these great things you know and meet our our climate commitments um so just just a plug for chris and the great work and how complex and it's like oh did we do this without somebody who could spend so much time doing it um and last thing just wanted to take a minute to thank jennifer for her service on city council um if being her last meeting i know i have just learned so much from her i think the perspective that she's brought she has brought her full humanity she has been brave and vulnerable and shared her stories with us shared her professional expertise shared so much um her deep values and love of people and community and i just think it's been such an asset for our community to have her serve i think it's been such an important and valuable voice um so deep gratitude for serving it's been a real just feel so lucky to have gotten to serve with you and gotten to know you um i think also just the fact that it hasn't been sustainable for very long speaks to the work we still have to do as a community to you know having an indigenous woman have to take on extra burdens serving um it made it harder and it just shows the work that we still have to do as a council as a city government and as a community to really be accessible for everyone to serve and you know make that something that everyone can do and thrive at um and thank you and i'll leave it there this would be a good time those kind words do you mind go ahead wait she'd be waiting till she's done talking so she doesn't so she can get through it you have to open it up so everybody sees it these are not flowers this is the other side of life's work that you has helped us do and every time you use it i want you to remember how much you have not only pushed away negative debris but you've made the path for more positive growth okay thank you so much thank you so much so perfect and so we're watching i need when you have no idea my husband's probably going to be very excited you won't have to clean my car you're up um i'm not going to say much because i i'm a very emotional person obviously um it's one thing everybody's learned about me in montpelier um i won't i really just want to say um chimiquish to all of you for um being such beautiful neighbors like i you're not colleagues you're my neighbors we're all neighbors and um coming from a very big harsh scary city to a very small small city that feels like a town um was really intimidating and you've all just kind of embraced me and supported me and educated me and become friends with me and um and carry your i my eyes are all blurry i can see you right there though um just the camaraderie has been beautiful and wonderful and um it's been a huge honor i keep saying this but it really has been a huge honor serving uh my community this way culturally that is like the foundation of of my people is giving back and serving even when you're tired you continue to serve and um even though i'm not going to be on city council i will continue to serve and support you and um our beautiful little town that i really love that my children are growing up in and um despite all the hard parts they're they're going to be okay and we're all going to be okay and montpelier is going to be okay i have a lot of faith in all of you and i have a lot of faith in the community and to the people that haven't been here um thank you for your trust and um i'm just really grateful and thankful for everything that you do and i will still be here and chief i will i'll always be there for you too sir even though i work for barry that's all i have just two things to say one is that uh this friday at city hall probably in this room there's going to be a blood drive i checked online there's uh there were 12 more slots to give blood i'm drinking you drinking out of my red cross award for giving blood i'll be here and encourage everyone else on the council to sign up to be here and give blood too but but really the most important thing i want to say is to thank you jennifer for everything you've done you know we we every time there's been there's a change of the makeup of the council people bring whatever is unique to themselves to to the council and to the service of the city and it's been a tremendous help to the city to have you on the council and bring your unique viewpoint and and your commitment to the council and even though it hasn't been a long time it has been very very valuable and i personally will miss you the grocery board jeez jennifer it seems like you just got here that's because i'm old well we don't interact much but it's been a real pleasure some good luck in whatever's next oh there you go all right love the sound of that though i would just note that early voting is not quite as as horrifically low as it was but i would still describe it as modest but we're getting a pretty steady flow of people coming into the office to vote it is time for me to start reminding people that post covid we are going back to saturday voting hours this saturday before the election i'll have the clerk's office open from 10 a.m to 2 p.m for voting only so keep your parking tickets to yourselves at that point um and the only thing i would mention is that there is going to be this weekend uh the legal women voters has been working to get the word out about non-citizen voting and they've been working with with my office and there's an event they're promoting this weekend um and i should put something up on the clerk's page about it maybe i'll do that anyways about non-citizen voting um and it's going to be saturday at well you think i would have this in my fingertips oh at the library all right you got it oh good tires i think i'm pronouncing it right right tires h a y e s room oh the haze room yeah yeah and 30 yeah i may not have been able to remember the time but i do have an alarm set on my phone so i won't i will be there if you don't tell him i will call you so you have to be there i have a couple of things uh let's see if i can read my own handwriting here uh the annual report should we should have got a pdf either today we'll have it tomorrow so we post it to the website and we will uh get that out so people can read the annual report online we will be getting print copies in probably not to be the beginning of next week but that will be out for people to see um what did that say wow well can't be that important i'm sure it was oh well maybe it'll come to me i have the world's worst handwriting i admit that so um certainly uh offer best wishes to all the candidates and all the folks running for any office uh next week this will be our you know our last meeting until then so we uh certainly wish that as far as jennifer's concerned don't forget to take your name tag yeah there you go and uh i won't pile on too much um but i'll simply say that uh i've i've appreciated you being on the council i feel that i'm a better person for having worked with you this time i feel that i appreciate what you've given to me so thank you for that um and if i can ever read this i will get back and announce it at some point okay um and last up we've completed everything next next on the agenda is the city managers review something the council does uh oh yes finally read it um and we've already mentioned it a little bit the the survey for the country club road has been extended um until i think march 3rd whatever that friday is um next week from this friday so it was going to close down february 21st but it's been extended to march 3rd so people have not weighed in on country club road that project those ideas notwithstanding and i think great point to bring that in perhaps you know with the new group and i guess i will observe that the next time we're in this room there's going to be you know at least two or three new people so it's going to be uh it'll be different so we will we're planning a good orientation for all of you and uh looking forward to working with the next group but we certainly appreciate working with this group as well i think believe i speak on behalf of the staff for that okay now i'm done okay all right now we're to uh city managers review this is uh something we do uh every year the it's an opportunity for the council to review the performance of the city manager how well he has uh he discharged his duties and advanced the policies of of the city council um chair would entertain a motion to go into executive session is there a second okay any discussion all those in favor signify by saying i i opposed okay we're going into executive session now um i will close out uh this this link on zoom and only and then we'll stay in this room and councillor brown can uh and and the rest of us can log into the executive session link we have um should we take a break between then so we're give the sound people a chance to get done and so as i said i anticipate we will not be coming into returning to public session we will adjourn from the executive session