 That's a big one though. That's a big one though. That's a big one though. That's not that big. That's a big one though. That's not that big. That's not that big. That's not that big. That's not that big. That's not that big. That's not that big. That's not that big. That's not that big. That's not that big. That's not that big. Do you hear me? Do you hear me? Do you hear me? to order and we're going to start with the Pledge of Allegiance and I would like the chair of several of our committees, Peter Taylor to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And now Kevin Dorn will instruct us on how to leave the building if need be due to an emergency. If we have an emergency this evening please proceed immediately out of one of these two side doors and gather in the parking lot just to the south. If these doors are for some reason blocked please go back out into the main lobby out the front door around the building and back into the same lot on the south side. Tom Hubbard and I will be responsible for making sure that the building is cleared. Item number three is the agenda review. Any additions, deletions, or changes in the order of agenda items? The only thing I see and somehow we need to get it back into our regular agendas is the committee reports. Do you have one for tonight? I think they're at the, always happy to. I'm sorry, I had it at the end. Always happy to. You're always happy to and the pension advisory you're going to probably have a lot to say tonight. They'll be here soon. Did you have anything to report as a committee? No, we just got an overview for the closeout of 2018. A little update up through like January 17th which makes it look a little bit better because the market's come back a little bit. They'll give you the overview so I don't want to be redundant. How about the IZ committees? You were at the TDR meeting. At the open space meeting I think it would be great for us to give an update on what we did last week. Sure. Yes? And then if we have something from GMT that would be great. So could we put that perhaps, what's your pleasure? We have moved these things to the end of the agenda. Let's do it again. All right. So under other business then we could do the committee reports. Okay. So that's item number 15. So now we're on to item number four and that's comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda. Is there anybody here who would like to come forward? All right. Seeing none we'll keep going. And we have announcements in the city managers report. And we'll start here with Tom. Nothing comes to mind. I will say one question that a resident called me about during the snowstorm and I didn't have an answer. And maybe we can redirect this or I should have sent it via email but regarding studded snow tires. I don't think there's an ordinance on it but she wanted to know if there's generally guidance from the city. If we don't prefer studded snow tires, if they're known to be a hazard for our streets. I didn't know how to respond but maybe I'll send a follow-up email. And I think I saw some posts on Facebook about this too. Tim. Let's see. So I was at a TDR meeting last week. Last Friday I was an MMI interviewer at Lerner College. And again, 10 of the SBBA last week. The only warning I had was supply. Did you learn anything new? I was sorry I wasn't able to make that. Yeah, I did. So they had an interesting... So Karen Stackpole, the lawyer presented about the marijuana policy and the legalization of marijuana or the criminalization and the effect on employers. So just reinforcing the fact that if an employer already had a marijuana policy, outlawing possession, transfer, sale, intoxication by that, whatever, in the workplace, right? Or coming to the workplace, that policy would still be legal and it was grounds for dismissal. We did cover a couple of interesting pieces where with CBD, if you had a full spectrum CBD product, it could render you a positive on a drug test for trace amounts of THC, right? Because there's very little THC in that industrial hemp that they process for CBD. So there was a mild warning and it might require a conversation with an applicant from their company. So actually I went into the series store on College Street and asked them about that some more and got a little bit more information. So just interesting aspect of our changing marijuana landscape. I had seen it was about the mental health initiative. Did you discuss that too? I left before Kevin gave an update on that. I didn't get it to where the building, which is unfortunate because it's rather cool when I was on the DRB when we approved that change. David? Not much in there. I mean, it's only been a week. Not much in the last week. Schools cranking up as you and Tom know all too well. And that consumed the entirety of the week. I don't really think there was anything else really at all. It was a UVM week. The only thing that I wanted to put forward publicly and I shared it with Kevin personally this morning because I could not get to the bus stop to get to work to get to UVM and fortunately had my husband drive me was looking at the prioritization of the snow clearing. I think that would be interesting for us to know how those choices are made because obviously choices have to be made. We can't wave a magic wand and have all these streets and sidewalks cleared. But I think that would be interesting to know what Justin's rationale or the team's rationale is. Didn't we get that? Didn't we see an email on? Didn't we just have something? Plan. It's for the plowing. I don't know that we saw for the sidewalks. Just decide what you're talking about. Yeah. Yeah. Because we could get to school. That was great. So the walkers to school got to school. The commuter, there was no way I was going to walk up. No. There are still many sidewalks now. Right. Right. Where, you know, and it depends on communities too. So I would be just curious to know where we are with our equipment, you know, and our personnel, our level of, you know, response that we can provide. I think that would be helpful for the community to hear as well. So I just, is that something that you would be interested in? There were a lot of complaints about, you know, amount of snow on roadways in the last, I mean, and I know we had a huge snowstorm, right? And it went from Saturday night, Sunday, not so much. And it was done by Sunday night. But then there was a lot of high wind that blew snow in there. So I don't know, you know, I would like to have sort of an explanation of, you know, what that priority is. Salt was working. Salt doesn't, I know it. There are a lot of variables that were not in DPW's favor, you know, for that event. And every event's a little bit different. I'm not really concerned about it. I think they do the best they can. I have a student who actually told me today, two all-nighters over the weekend. He drives part-time for one of the towns. I forget which town. He said it was a lot of snow. It was wicked cold, wicked windy. We do the very best we can. We can't do it anymore. I mean, and so I think that's what they did. And I'm okay with it. I'm not talking about the roads. No, I'm talking roads and sidewalks. I think they're doing the best they can. I mean, certainly can ask out of curiosity how it's prioritized. Exactly. But to me, it doesn't make any difference. I have faith in the decisions they make. And I think they're doing the best they possibly can when we get significant snow. I agree. But I think if we could just be queued in on the prioritization, that might be helpful. And if we see perhaps, you know, a place where input would be helpful, I think, right? Sure. That's fine. I'm completely agree with you that they do the best they can. And given the quantity of snow that fell over the weekend, all we can do is say a big thank you. Exactly. Right? We were on the road yesterday morning. So, right? Right. So I'm fine. I love the prioritization so we can talk to community members about their sidewalks. But I just want to echo what you just said. We owe them a big thank you. They were out all night, Saturday, all night, Sunday, and they're still working today. So thank you to the DPW. It's a big storm. It's a lot of snow to move around. They're doing a great job. We need a motion to officially thank them? No, I think we can just say thank you. The record should show that the city council officially, offers its sincere and hearty thank you to the DPW for the great job they did clearing up from the snow storm. I mean, it was only what we had, 14 inches or so. I think there's more. In the grand scheme of things, we should be getting that on a normal winter in the old days. We should be getting that every couple of weeks. So, you know. Forget the song. To me. Yeah, that's exactly it. To me, it's no big deal. If you don't get the root structure, we'll have Justin come in and brief you on the root structure, how the roots are laid out. Yeah. And I would be curious, do they only do state roots in our local roads or do they actually go onto 189 and 89? No, not at all. Okay. I was just curious about that as well. Can I add one other thing for the other business leader? I have a couple of questions about the financial warrants for Tom later. Sure. Under other business? Okay. Okay. All right. Can I ask you a question? Where is the planning commission? Medium conference room. Thank you. It's not an agenda item. It's too late for the public to ask questions. All right. It was too late to change the order. You'll have to sit for four hours and then you can ask. We do the best we can here, right? All around. Okay. I think that was the only thing that I heard bubbling up from the community and that I saw this morning. But I think that Tom's emphasis on the big thank you is what needs to come through loud and clear. So Kevin, we have your announcements. A couple of scheduling things. The South Burlington Rotary event, awards event, it's not a dinner. I have the awards and cocktails, 537 30 on Thursday at the Trader Dukes. And I also wanted to let you know that there is a resolution that's going to be considered on the house floor. The Vermont house floor right now scheduled for January 30th at 1pm in honor of Trevor Whipple. And so Tom and I will be going down to that. If any counselors wanted to go, sit up in the balcony and see that red and see Trevor there. You can ride with us if you'd like. Megan reached out to me the other day and asked about next step in the cost benefit analysis part of the IZ process. And there are a couple of local economists including Linda McGinnis who had a career with the World Bank as an economist for them and perhaps one other that I just want to sit down and talk to probably late this week or early next to kind of get the scope of the project down and what we would need to hire out and what we might be able to do with some volunteer help. And so we need to get that. Now the two IZ committees are going and the PUD part of the planning commission's work is moving forward. We need to get moving on this. So hopefully I'll get to meet with them this week or early next and have a report for you on your February 4th meeting. Megan has also asked if we could get an update on the regional dispatch project and I'll have a much more detailed one for you also probably on the 4th or the 19th. But right now we have the consultant is on board and it looks again like we will be taking this in a step by step process meaning likely that Colchester and South Burlington will be the first to merge into the new CCPSA authority possibly as early as July 1. So that's what we're shooting for and then and Winooski will be in the mix and then probably Burlington after that. So by this time next year we hope to have everybody in but doing it in an incremental basis is probably an easier thing to do. I was at the TDR committee and we'll talk about that later. I have, John Burton has and a couple of others have approached us on behalf of a company called Consensus. They are a blockchain based technology that does real time surveying for governmental entities. So surveying in real time and continuously on a particular issue and they want a pilot, they want a community to work with on a pilot program and we're discussing this with them. So it would be the ability to have ongoing survey on let's just say traffic on Dorset Street and have that data roll out over time and watch it move up and down. No, no just staff time, some limited staff time. But again it's a pilot project much like the one that Donna facilitated and it would likely occur in the late spring to early summer. This is a company out of Toronto and we've met with them a couple of times. Steering committee, oh I already told you about this. Steering committee meets tomorrow night at 6.30 here in this room. I see David back there. I'm guessing hour and a half max. Probably I'm thinking more like an hour and 15 minutes. I suppose the TDR meeting because it's supposed to be at 7 o'clock or I could just let them meet. You could let them meet probably and go back and forth maybe. You have quorum for that. I might not be able to be here. When's this? I'm sorry, I missed that. The Steering committee meeting 6.30 to about 9.15 or 8.15 or something. Maybe. Tomorrow night. 7.45. Tomorrow night I won't make. This is the joint meeting with the school board. Is that earlier? Yeah. I will not make tomorrow night. I can't do it. We're going to be here? Helen is not. Helen's gone. I will be here. I'm sorry, I've got an alternative commitment that I can't leave for tomorrow night. Do you need quorum for 7 minutes? Yeah, I think so. There's no authority. Are you going to be here tomorrow night? Okay. Sorry. Okay. So we have item number 6, the consent agenda. And that is the approval and signing of the disbursements. The approval of the minutes for December 17th. And I did catch one thing I hadn't caught before on those. An authorization to allow me to execute a quick claim deed for the conveyance of the city Gleeb interest at 1400 Spear street. Resolution establishing the energy project reserve fund. And one question on one of these. I'm happy to make the motion and then do it during discussion. Okay. So Tom has made the motion in a second. Second. All right. 10 is seconded. All right. The question is on the interim zoning application fees. The 275 that mirrors the development review board. Would this be in replace of the 275 or would they be paying the 275 interim zoning and another 275 for the site plan before the DRV? It's duplicated. I believe it's both. But I can check with Paul on that. My only other question on that is, is this comparable to what it has been when we had interim zoning in the past, the last two times, the last 20 years? And when Wilson's had it, is this a normal fee amount of 275 dollars or is this a new amount we're charging? My understanding is it's the same as what was charged the last time that five, four years ago interim zoning was introduced. So this comes with some precedent. Yep. Only correction I had. December 17th minutes. It was page nine, I believe. Let me just get there. And it was, it's my mistake. We review these ahead of time. So I'm sorry for not catching this before, but it's in that second paragraph. Mr. Chittenden moved to appoint Sophie Maserati. I don't know. Maso Vida. Maso Vida. That's it. Maso Vida. We didn't have that corrected, but we might as well. MAZOWITA. Okay. Allen Strong. Vince Bolduc. And Duncan Murdock. The one person we didn't include there and Duncan Murdock. M-U-R-D-O-C-H. Oh yeah, there's an N in Vince. Names are important. Yeah. Yeah. So friendly amendment I hope since that's what we moved to prove. All right. Any other comments on the consent agenda? All right. All in favor? Aye. I think that was unanimous. All right. We're now on to item number seven. We are honored to have the superintendent of schools. Join us tonight. David Young. I'll see you guys tomorrow, some of you. Yes. Having me here on your agenda. I know it's a busy schedule. I wanted to just address you folks and make sure you are aware of it. We are going to be putting up a Black Lives Matter plan on the February 1st. And so I wanted to just make sure that people are aware of some of the important activities. Obviously, every day there's important activities that are happening at our schools. But this is going to happen on February 1st. So just to give you a little bit of a context. Any time there's events happening, life as such is important to let our important officials and folks around the community know what we're going to be doing. So if you can imagine, we've got 2,500 students. We've got a lot of staff. But not every staff member necessarily knows what happens at every school. So this year I've, this preparation for this, I've also talked to all of our staff at all five schools. In addition, talked to the Rotary, Chief Burke, and also wanted to talk with you folks about what we're doing. Susan Merrick, who's here with me as well, and I think you have some end-outs. Maybe we'll just give those to you for your future reading. And I'm just going to hit on a couple high points. But as I said earlier, on February 1st, we'll be the students with the full support of the South Burlington School District, including unanimous support from the school board. We'll be raising the Black Lives Matter flag as a symbol of inclusion, especially for students of color. The flag will fly for the month of February this year and the years to come. Also important to note that February is also Black History Month, and this student-led initiative ties to a larger educational work of the school district, including but not limited to. Those of you who've obviously been around our schools, we have some pretty important things that we call our end. So what do we want our students to be able to achieve at the end of their journey with us in preparation for their future? Obviously, one is being academically proficient, possessing the qualities or dispositions as lifelong learners, possessing the skills to grow personally, and finally being good citizens. And we think that this effort strongly supports that work. In addition, the students have also worked to connect with other constituencies around the community. And we believe that, again, the students raising the Black Lives Matter flag will inspire greater understanding of racial inequity and steps. We may each take to address inequity. We have a lot of information on our website. I think one of the most important pieces, if you are asked in the community, which many of us are asked in many different places, we would ask that you direct them. Again, if you're happy to respond, if someone says, why are they doing that? You can direct them to the website on our site to gain more information. We have a series of FAQs, or frequently asked questions, which we think are really important. And then also, in part of that, I think is important, it's the statement of intent from the students, staff and community members, on the Black Lives Matter flag raising committee. And they provided this statement that I think is important, that resonates, and I'll just quickly read it to you. The self-growing from students to the full support of the self-growing from school districts are raising the Black Lives Matter flag. The flag signifies our commitment to creating an just and equitable and empathetic world. It's a symbol of inclusion, especially for our students of color. Injustice and racism are an ongoing struggle in our nation and our self-reliant community. This continues to traumatize and exclude traditionally marginalized groups. The Black Lives Matter flag movement affirms the value of Black Lives in response to the racism that infiltrates every institution in the United States. Our purpose is to engage our school community in hopes that it will leave with a greater understanding of racial inequity, more specifically its impact throughout Vermont and our country as a whole. The flag will be a reminder that history, including Black history, is not just something of the past. History is constantly being made, and this flag and this movement are part of it. The raising of the Black Lives Matter flag is our kickoff to Black History Month. We intend for it to generate courageous, community-wide conversations about racial inequity and recognize a month of celebration of the achievements of Black Americans and their contributions to our country. So as I said, more information to be available for anybody who wants it. Again, several folks, obviously, the high school, myself, Susie, this committee, we're happy to answer any questions about them. But the last thing we wanted to do is something happens, something, an event happens like this. We like to make sure that people are informed. And when we are asked, we can direct accordingly to make sure that people can get the information. So that said, if you have any particular questions, I'll see some of you tomorrow night. We'll talk a little bit about our budget and some of the other things that are going on. So happy to answer any questions or happy to move on. Thank you. Thank you. I'm glad you've taken a decisive action like this. I appreciate it. And I appreciate this school board's unanimity in supporting it. I know you had some spirited discussions, probably over in the Tuttle Library. I read about some of them in the other paper. And I think you made the right decision. We think that's important, too, because that's part of all of us growing, sometimes different perspectives. Lean provides additional value to the work that we're doing. So again, it's important. As you know, you hear a lot of different perspectives yourselves. The summary that you wrote is very helpful. Thank you. Oh yeah, this is great. It really is great. And you're not the first school in the state to do it, right? Okay. Thank you very much. Have a good rest of the night. So item number eight, consider and possibly authorize the city manager to enter into a contract related to conducting a feasibility study of consolidated residential trash hauling. Good evening. Justin Robert, the director of public works. Finally, as you're aware, the award of contracts, particularly ones of this relative dollar amount show up on consent agenda and we move on. But this is a topic of discussion that has a little bit of history in the county and we hope engenders more discussion going forward. So we wanted to have it on the deliberative agenda more just to have the discussion about what are we doing? As importantly, what are we not doing? What is this not lock us into? What are the timeframes? What are the questions we're looking to answer? So and council Chittenden was involved early on in this and was a proponent of us working with the solid waste district and the city of Burlington. I'll just do a real bit of quick history. The solid waste district has visited this topic a couple times over the past decade, eventually largely due to holler opposition. They never took the next steps. Obviously they'd never implemented a consolidated trash hauling. However, they did decide in 2014 that because they had the experience and expertise, they would serve as a resource to communities that might want to explore this on their own. I know that we've had this topic unrelated to this specific solution comes up every now and then with the council and with the citizens. So what we are proposing tonight is a joint effort between the cities of South Burlington and Burlington. They're board of finance and city council are considering this action. They're coming Monday's meeting as well as with the solid waste district. Each agency would have a fiscal share in this, but we would all have an equal voice. As we know in South Burlington, we don't know the exact numbers in South Burlington. Burlington have a better handle on it because they run the recycling program. So all of those hollers register with them so they know what hollers are in their town. I think anecdotally we're all aware of the four or five hollers we see and we know that multiple hollers will go down the same residential streets into the same neighborhoods multiple times a week. We're not trying to come up with a solution that eliminates choice or is forcing any one particular price model or Alucard model on the residents. But we are asking for residents to bring about the best costs. Is it the most environmentally sensitive? Is there a way to reallocate the pie so everyone still gets roughly their equivalent slice that they have market share that they have today? So I provided with you as a way of indicating that we have notions. We simply want to kind of have these questions asked have the community be involved in answering them. There is a statistically valid survey that's part of the scope of proposal that will survey both South Burlington and Burlington as well as non South Burlington and Burlington County residents just to see what the flavor is and we have past surveys to compare this data against. And I think at public works and the administration we think this is something definitely especially at the cost of $20,000 which is in our FY19 budget worth investigating a little further. The consultant that we have proposed working with has done this numerous dozens of times across the country certainly with larger markets. They also have a history both in Vermont and with the solid waste district and we thought it was the kind of the right mix of experience and personalities. Interestingly enough, there are communities in Vermont that are doing this. So if you're if you're wondering are there are state statutes we need to be worried about everything legislatively is at the would remain at the local level. So Vermont communities do do this. I know that some neighborhoods in South Burlington be they condominium eyes primarily or not also do this. And by this just to be really clear is we're looking to geographically award hauling contracts. So your neighbor so Butler Farms trash is all going to be collected out on Monday. And that's it. No more intrusion of haulers and recycling trucks and the unnecessary wear and tear on our roads and the pollution on Tuesday to Friday. And we would that would be broken up not just in South Burlington but also in Burlington. Right now we don't know if we want our our geographic areas to be specific just to Burlington or could there be some overlap again. Other than knowing that we want to study this we don't have we haven't given the consultant any gift. The only thing we have said is they must be willing to provide beyond just traditional cart service out of cart services. For example, today, if you want to get rid of a mattress or if you need backdoor collection, this is that's probably more attuned to Burlington. If you need something beyond just a truck pulling up at your curb and and picking, you know, they will be they will price and provide the services. So we don't want to exclude anyone for many for many services are getting today. That's a little bit of the background. I hope it's kind of paints a clear picture. I know when talking with counselor chitin and perhaps he has a couple thoughts to share or I just really appreciate your leadership on this. I think you understand the complexities of this used to serve on the CSWD boards, you know the issue. So I think Justin's provided a great deal of leadership and is just bringing this forward for consideration to explore and understand better in the right way. Well, we'll know a lot more. How much of this feasibility story? We're committed to $20,000. Is that our share and it's our share Burlington as well as the solid waste district. And obviously Berlin the shares population based on Burlington's is obviously larger than ours. Do you have any questions, David or Tim? No, I it'll be interesting to see what they what they came up with there. You know, there there's no doubt that there's waste in the way trash is collected in Chittin County. So the one just to provide some input. When I brought this up back in 2008 2009 I was probably in that way when it was not when it wasn't going to happen. Right. But one of the arguments for why there might be some residential resistance was that any consolidated trash hauling would preclude would prevent the residential drop offs that can happen now. And I was told that the monitors like to take care of their own trash. So is this something that would be able to continue or at least we have asked for them to consider an opt out portion of this. So I believe our South Brompton's drop off center of patching road is the healthiest and busiest that the district operates. They they have no desire and Burlington also has a pretty active they're trying to relocate theirs presently. But they have no desire for these to replicate or eliminate the ability of our residents to continue to doing what they've been doing historically. So you could opt out of this if if we were to write it that way and I don't see why we would not. Can you talk about opt out does that include also the taxes that we'd probably be paying. So yet so interesting is how does this you know why and I don't know if I put it in my FAQ or not is but how to who administers the billing of this program. Does a solid waste district do us as utility billers do it. There's we can certainly bill for the collection of municipal waste so that we can bill for storm water. It's relatively easy to do. It's just a software situation does the holler do it. So we're going to explore all those alternatives. Also they have budgeted in time a number of public meetings. So whether we want that to be kind of a standalone on just the topic or a chat with the council or at the planning kind of whatever we however we choose for the public participation process to go in South Burlington. Their proposal is considered. Any other questions I had with regard to you know what opportunities or options exist today. Some callers do provide real options as opposed to once a week pick up you have once every two weeks pick up or you have smaller you know bins and larger recycling bins. There are several options which I would hope would be considered today. Also would this would this go full through the same RFP process that we do for anything with regard to city. Yes in terms of how to construct a contract for the actual services. Yes. The term of that contract would probably have to be of some significant length longer than kind of our standard contract to ensure people if they have to make if companies have to make investments for whatever reason we don't think they need to. But to ensure them a stable user fee base for years. And then it would be competitively bid. And we could choose to just go with a little bit or across the spectrum or we could choose to say that Emory's hauling has 400 customers today. We want Emory's hauling to remain a viable small business. They are to somehow we can write in a way that Emory's hauler gets a geographic area that is comprised of 400 customers. So past attempts have at this back when there was more options frankly when there were a lot more smaller haulers. The large haulers rallied the smaller haulers to tell them how much they should be worried about this driving amount of business and then subsequent years we just bought them out anyways. But now there's there's a there really is no more small hauler compared to what we would consider the small hauler of 10 or 20 years ago. At least not in Burlington, South Burlington. You're more likely to see them in other areas of Chapman County. So that was one of the main oppositions in the past was there used to be 9, 10, 11 viable trash haulers in the county. And honestly today until the Burlington, Burlington there are there are four. Those are my questions. Just to comment that I mean the whole process of collecting waste from residential areas is going to change when they have to start picking up organics. Right. And if I were a hauler I would want to weigh somebody's garbage can before so I could charge them by weight so that people have some incentive to reduce what they buy in order to reduce what they throw away. I mean you know because households depending upon their behavior can generate larger quantities of trash or not. And the late odds there was a reverse approach of that. If you recall, I don't remember the program's name, but there you were to be incentivized for how much you recycled. Right. And we were we as we got money back for we were given you could get you could get gift cards out like Hanifords. So we were given the roll off containers that had a chip on it. The Burlington's lack of participation to program because they did their own recycling. It never got off the ground but they deployed tens of thousands of these large bins counting wide. However, if you've been reading recently in the last week or two, the notion of organics collectibles at small meaning less than four residential units. There's going to be discussion this legislative session about eliminating that mandate 2020 mandate. So that's another reason why the, you know, everyone's always worried about the organics and in response to that they just kicking the can two years down the road. So now the kick the can proposal is perhaps eliminate the mandatory side of it for small residential properties. But I agree with the incentives. I think it's important to incentivize people to consume responsibly. I really think so. All right. Well, thank you. I think we need to approve or authorize Kevin Dorn if that is what we choose to do. Second. Any other comments? I don't see any. So all in favor. Aye. Aye. When will the study start? Assuming all goes well with Burlington and then we shuffle paperwork back and forth, hopefully in three to four weeks. It'll take how long? I don't think it's set in here. Approximately five to six months. So, but, you know, by mid summer. It's not an emergency, right? No. No. A survey would be done. Yes, they would do a statistically valid survey. Surveys. By mail. I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. You're very interesting. Thank you. Thanks, Justin. The economy of scale will be interesting too. I just don't throw away the results. All right. Item number nine, consider and possibly authorize the city manager to proceed with formal acquisition of land interest for the community center and market street access parcel that 180 market street. And Andrew Bolduc, our city attorney is here to walk us along with this purchase and sale agreement. Andrew Bolduc, city attorney. Provided in your packet the purchase and sale agreement that was signed about 18 months ago or about a little over a year ago relating to the community center parcel that's going to be known as 180 market street. And as you can, if you look through the purchase and sale, there's an option to exercise this during the due diligence period. And what we're asking tonight is to authorize Kevin to move forward with that with that exercising the option as well as there's a portion of property that we're going to need for the roadway that we're also going to need from the adjacent property. So this would also be to authorize Kevin to execute and legal agreements necessary to accomplish this this land acquisition. Are we ready to move ahead or are there specific questions? I'll move that we approve the acquisition of the land interest for community center and market street access parcel 180 market street. So I originally abstained from the library vote but the voters of this community resoundingly supported this notion so I'm happy to second this motion. Yahoo! Very good. All right. Any comments or questions? Better approve this or we can't build a community center so off we go. All right. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. And I believe that, was there a nay? There was a nay. All right. One nay. You all voted for it and it was a pretty resounding vote and I didn't want to derail it. To the rescue. Go library. Or Helen, we're going to have to call the pilot and turn her plane around. Okay. Very good. Thank you, Andrew. All right. Number 10. The final public hearing on the Vermont community development programs $525,000 grant to support the construction of the Allen Square building by Cathedral Square. Cindy Orita's here. Yeah. So this is just the public hearing that's necessary. I think we're going to just go ahead and move to enter a public hearing and you can tell us about all the successes thus far or anything that we need to know. So moved. Second. All right. All those in favor? Aye. Avention in the public hearing? Aye. Aye. That was unanimous. All right. Cindy. Great. Thank you. I'm Cindy Redham, the director of development at Cathedral Square and we really appreciate the city's leadership on applying for the VCDP grant. And we were fully occupied before we opened the doors. And I think that you've all gotten a chance to tour the property. If you haven't, give me a call and be happy to show you we're getting programs up and running. Tai Chi, chair yoga, all kinds of wellness programs. The school kids have been over to connect. So it's just really fabulous new community and we're really excited to be open and really appreciate the VCDP support. So unless there's any questions or comments. Any kinks in the building? Well, there's always kinks in new buildings. We're working out some HVAC issues. Primarily there with our office space, which is actually better than having the residents deal with that. So we're working on that with our mechanical engineer and balancer and all that good stuff. Working through some more punch. We did have an issue with the planning and zoning certificate of occupancy. And we're going through the process. So basically in the T5 district, I'll just do a really short overview since you asked. In the T5 district, there's a piece in the code that talks about the number of doors that need to be on Marcus Street, which we've designed to that criteria. And then there's something that talks about public entrance. And so the CO is denied because we don't keep our doors unlocked because it's a secure facility. So it's a situation where public safety is bumping against the code requirement around design. So we feel that we should be able to have a secure facility because that's what we do in all of our properties. So we're working through the process. We have an appeal into DRB. So that's one hiccup that I have confidence we'll work through. But since you asked, I'll let you know that. Same issue came up with the proposed hotel. I read that. Yeah. And so when I was at that meeting, they talked about the ability of the person at the desk buzzing people in through the street door at night hours, or the person using their personal card to get in. I don't remember the exact resolution. I don't know if that application went to another meeting or not, but that kind of discussion occurred. So it was a very similar situation. Right. So that might be helpful when the DRB goes to hear this case and look at what kind of precedence there is. So that's one hiccup. But other than that, we're working through design issues with the site plan for the city's building. We're very excited about the library. It's going to be a great neighbor for our residents. And so those are our highlights. I think the building looks great. Do you have any other compliments on the beehive that Conant designed and installed? Well, it is really the focal point when you enter Market Street. Right. Yeah. So we did receive eight applications for every apartment. And at that building, we're serving from extremely low income seniors below 30% of median up to 120% of area median income. So it's truly a mixed income property. We saw a high demand for each kind of apartment we had. So it's truly mixed income from formerly homeless to well-resourced. So it feels like a really great way to deliver healthy housing community. And we see a tremendous need. And so we look forward to developing more housing in South Burlington. What do you expect for the next one? Well, we're starting the next one in Burlington at the former Cambrian Rise development. I mean at the current Cambrian Rise development. There it is. We sort of have to spread the investment around. But let us know as there's opportunities. We're also working to help the receiver of the Pillsbury Group. And thank you for your support in that, Kevin. So that's a complicated situation. And we're doing our best to help the current receiver to keep those communities stable and operating and getting them. There's been some new media reports about that. Are things stable there now? There's going to be a court decision issued this week. Hopefully this week about temporary versus permanent receivership and sort of what the status is there. So a lot to be worked out. It's just up to the court. And we've just said as an organization that we're willing to be helpful where we can. So currently we're working as a contractor to Primer Piper, who's the receiver. And stay tuned. We're not sure what will happen. But there's 250 residents in four communities. So it's a really significant situation. Oh, it's the four communities. It wasn't just the two. Three in South Burlington and then one in St. Albans. And there's a combination of independent living and licensed residential care. So a lot of vulnerable folks. So hopefully we're hoping for the best for those communities. So thank you for your support in many ways for the Allard Square property, the affordable housing committee, the housing trust fund, the form-based code, applying the BCDP grant, all of those ways the city really has such an important impact on creating affordable communities because we just need more affordable housing. I mean, this government shutdown really highlights how many people in this country are one paycheck away from losing their housing. It's quite staggering. So thank you. This is an opportunity for any members of the public who wanted to say anything or ask any questions. I don't see any hands. So anything else? You just thank us. I want to thank you for all the good work you do to bring affordable housing to the area. So thanks. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Excellent. Very good. So is there a motion to close the public hearing? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Presentation of fiscal year 18 pension valuation. And we have Eric Shate. Who's here? Yes. Hi. Welcome. I think that's the first time you've come before us in this chamber anyway, right? Yeah. Yeah. Quite a clarity on the last item. Did we get to vote on anything? It was just a public hearing. Public hearings required by the program. My name's Eric Shate. I'm an actuary from Newport Group. For those of you that haven't heard of Newport Group before, they are a large national retirement services company who in April of 2018 bought the retirement services division of People's United Bank in downtown Burlington. And they opened up their own Burlington office on Main Street. So our little group there basically moved down to Main Street. We're still working out of there serving this area. But now we have more resources across the country. We have more qualified actuaries to help us with things. And we have better programs to do valuations and just better resources to help do the pension plan valuation. So I am going to primarily talk about the liabilities of the plan and the funding contribution. Before we get into that, I want to just take a step back and go over how the funding happens for a plan. What's the actuarial funding method and what they mean and what they are? So there's many different ways of funding a pension plan. Two of the primary ones are what's called unit credit and then entry age normal. So unit credit is basically saying, we're going to look at the benefits earned in the plan based on current compensation, current service, nothing projected to the future. This is what's been earned in the past as a liability. And that's what single employer pension plans have to do for their funding. And that's what the city did for their funding up until January, July 1, 2014. And then after that, we switched to entry age normal, which will take your current service, but it's going to project compensation out to the future in anticipation that employees are still working. Their compensation is going to go up in the future. The benefits you owe them for what they've earned today, 10 years from now is going to be higher just because they have higher compensation. So it takes that into account and it also primarily came about because the GASB financial said you have to use this method to display your liability on the financial statements. GASB? GASB, yes. GASB. GASB. What in a sense? Government Accounting Standing is born. So beginning in fiscal year and 2015, I believe, your financial statements had to reflect the entry age normal form of liability. This is just a little bit more in depth, but when we're talking about the entry age normal, what it's really doing is it's taking your cost and attributing it to each employee across an even percentage of compensation while they're employed. So their cost per year is going to go up. It's supposed to be an even percentage of what that employee is making in compensation that year. So if it's 10%, your contribution for that employee is 10% each year of whatever their compensation is that year. And the goal is that it's more even. So as a percentage of pay, if you're doing your budget, your percentage of pay won't change as much from year to year because that's the way it's designed. And it also attributes more liability to the past than the unit credit would. So we'll see in a second, we'll see a little chart of the difference between the two. But a point I want to make is at the end of the day when an employee retires, their liability is the same. It's just how you get there and what you're putting away now for what you're going to pay in the future. A little chart. So the top line is the entry age normal liability for a participant and the bottom is the unit credit. And the entry age smooths out a little bit more, whereas the unit credit may not have as much liability now, but in the future, your annual contribution would start jumping up more and more each year. And so the reason we fund on the entry age normal is because we want to anticipate that now and get there. But we're also going to look at what you would be funded on both ways to give you an idea because the unit credit right now would be a good representation of if you just froze benefits and no one earned another benefit in the plan, that would be your liability today. You wouldn't have to, you wouldn't have that additional liability accrue. But we look at both because we want to fund towards what you're going to eventually have to fund. So just if you hear me talking about liability, it's the present value of benefits earned in the past. And then if I'm talking about the normal cost, it's what we expect to be earned during the current year. So when we do funding, we look at what's been earned in the past, we can bear it to assets, and then we also look at what's going to be earned in the coming year, and we put that all together to get our recommended contribution. So I've kind of covered this. Some of the reasons that we made the switch to entry age normal was because it's less volatile, because gas we had to do it, and we didn't want to be having two different liabilities. So we didn't want to be showing your financial statements with one liability and your funding on another. And because it does help you fund now for your future liabilities, and that's a more conservative, prudent way to go about it. So let's jump into the contribution. So just in general, your funding policy, what you've generally contributed to the plan is a contribution each year. It's we take your past liabilities, we compare it to your assets, and if you have unfunded liabilities, we make an amortization payment on that based on a 20-year amortization period. And then in addition to that, the contribution will include benefits expected to be earned during the coming year. So we're paying what's being earned now and we're making a payment towards anything that's earned in the past. And then there's a little bit of interest because this is done as of July 1, 2018, and the payment goes in at a later date. So we take that into account. Employees also fund a portion of this. We'll see a little graphic in a second. This is just the city's contribution. So when we calculate the recommended contribution, we do use what's called the actuarial value of assets. It's a smooth value. We'll see that in a couple slides. This year, it's very close to the market value of assets. So these two contributions would be almost the same thing. But at the top here, we have current recommended contribution. Bottom is last year's. We show the 10 on the 20 year, just so you could see what the difference would be if you paid down the amortization payment over 20 or 10 years. So right now, the recommended contribution is 1,384,000 compared to on the 20 year amortization compared to last year of 1,246,000. And this is just kind of a breakdown of what the contribution is. So the city portion, which is the 1.3 million we just saw 630,000 of that is for benefits being earned in the year. Almost 100,000 is for interest to the later payment date. And then 520,000 is the amortization payment towards past liabilities. And then the employees are funding 330,000. Can you go to the previous slide real quick? So there's 660,000. Is that part of that next bar there? No, that is separate. It's just mentioned because there is a loan payment for that, but it's not part of the recommended contribution to the plan. So it's not part of this? No. It's on top of this? Right. Thank you. When does that loan retire, Tom? So 20 year loan, I think it was taken out from 2011. So it always stick out. So this is the fund and status on those two methods. So the present value of the accrued benefit is a unit credit form of liability. So it's what's for an enter date if nothing else was earned and you walked away, you'd be about 102% funded. And then on the entry-age normal liability is significantly higher because we're funding towards the future and that's about 84% funded. So we'll see in a little bit. These are very good. You want to be at 100% on the unit credit method. You would like to be working towards 100% on entry-age normal, but it's not necessary. You will get there eventually and that's what, because you're funding towards that, that is intended to go up over time if all the other assumptions are met. The top of our present value of accrued benefits, the PAV is the unit cost method. You're not using that term here, but what you presented earlier. Yeah, it's the same thing. It kind of got interchanged. So this is on the smooth value of assets. We also compared the market value because we want to see both. It's roughly the same this year. You have 101.8% on the present value of accrued benefits and still 84% on the entry-age normal. Big long graph you had earlier with those two lines and how we're currently farthest away from each other, the unit cost versus the entry-age normal. What was the span of that graph in your mind? It's 30 years, 20 years. When are we going to get to that closer where the two lines are closer? The whole span is approximately 23 years. So you're right in the middle and it's really the remaining active working span of active employees right now. So it's the employees that are in this plan, how much longer they have until they retire and then they're retiring at the top of that chart. But it's constantly being pushed out? If there's new employees being added, it'll be being pushed out, but at least half the plan is soft frozen where there's no new employees coming in. So you will slowly move along it a little bit more. So just year over year from last year, the actual return on assets was a little bit greater than the assumed return. So that's a small net gain. We'll talk more about mortality in a little bit, but the update in the mortality projection scale from last year to this year was a small gain. But there was larger than normal compensation increases, which jumped up liabilities a bit, and it's not so much compensation as much as it was over time compared to the prior year jumped up. So the prior year over time was kind of low and then this year jumped up a lot and that led to a large increase in compensation, which increases the liability. So our actual performance is above what we assumed, but we're still contributing at $100,000 or so more than previous and that's because of the mostly firefighters over time or is that across the board? It's pretty across the board for the over time. So yeah, so there's an assumed rate of return, but there's also an assumed compensation increase from year to year. So it's the same thing, whereas if that's more than the assumed, you get a loss. Are there new two firefighters which should reduce our overtime fees in a way that should smooth that out a little bit, right? Because in the end it's less total salary paid out. Are the two new firefighters going to VMware's or here? This is a historical graph of the two measures of funding and the entry age normal only goes back to 7-1-14 because that's when it was first starting being calculated. But they do move pretty close together, the same movements and the PBAB method has been consistently at or above 100% for the last and this is just some comparison to other entities. Part of the reason for GASB was everyone had their own funding method. So if you tried to compare one city to another, one state to another, you're looking at two numbers and they mean two completely different things. So that's why all these are on entry age normal. The city of South Burlington, 84%. The average plan as of July, June 30, 2017 was approximately 71%. June 30, 2018 I would expect to be a little higher than that, but it wasn't available when I put this together. VMware's is at 83%. And the reason that these discount rates are there is because different discount rates get different liabilities just because the discount rate is different. So VMware's is using 7.5, you're using 7.25. So if you were also using 7.5, your funded ratio would be higher. It'd be about 86 to 88%. So it's on there to kind of display that their discount rates are higher and their funded percentages are lower. So you're better in both regards. I feel like I'm talking too much. This is my last comment. This slide right here tells me that we, I almost interpret that we might be overfunding our pension to the point since we're leading the pack here. Not that we could ever do that because the pension's important, but what I'm saying is when budgets are tight, we do have the option to put less than the 1.3 million in this year and we would lower that 84% down to some other smaller percentage possibly bringing us more in line with our neighboring municipalities. Is that correct that we have that option? Right. The minimum contribution is still the amount we want to meet though so that that funding ratio can actually get to close to 100% over the 20 years. Otherwise we could, on a really bad year, we could go into a deficit. Okay. That plan could be compromised. It obligates you to make that contribution. It's just what you've been doing. I'll stop asking questions. That's the problem child in Montpelier right now and has been for a couple of years. Yeah, vistas. So that's the least well-funded. When we moved down to 7.25, Tom, I recall you saying that somehow we would gain something that we could reinvest. It was just to help the long-term value of the plan to make a more realistic rate of return. So bringing it down to 7.25, as Eric's showing you right here, puts us in a better funding ratio because if we have consistent years where we're not meeting the 7.5 and I'm sure Patrick and Mike will talk more about this now, that could compromise the plan more. So, I mean, we may at some point, not this year, maybe not next year, but we may even look at bringing that down to 7. So it was the right move. It doesn't help us reinvest money. It actually costs us more in the short term in terms of the liability increasing. But it's going to be worth it in the long run. I might bring that up under other businesses. What's Oklahoma and Chicago? What do they like right now? You can only imagine. So when we calculate these liabilities, there's a lot of assumptions that go into it. These are just some brief overview of the major ones. The discount rate, what we're just talking about, the 7.25%. It's the long-term rate of return, but it's also how we discount future liabilities to the present. And it has a high sensitivity, the liabilities in the plan. So that changes the biggest impact on your liabilities. What is the discount rate? What number is that? That's 7.25%. It's also a long-term rate of return. So when we think about it, the liability today, you would expect to have assets equal to that because both of them are going to grow. You're expecting them both grow at the same rate in the future. Salary growth has a medium impact on liabilities. And then we have an assumption about when people retire and if they leave employment before they hit retirement age, they'll have less of an impact, but they still have a medium impact. So we're not going to go too in-depth. But the mortality assumption uses standardized mortality table, but every year there's an updated projection scale to those mortality tables. And that projection scale is saying, in the future we expect mortality to improve. So someone who's 70 today, compared to someone who's 70, 20 years from now, is not going to have the same rate of mortality. So that's kind of what that's doing. Every year it's updated from social security data and that gets updated into the plan every year. Since the last three years, it's been slight gain. So it was originally too much improvement and now that's come down a bit. So it's a benefit to the plan. Does that take into account gender? Yes. And smoking? It does not take into account smoking. It's pretty much just gender. You're saying we're expecting people to live... I'm sorry, I said I wouldn't talk anymore. But we're expecting shorter lifespans, slightly. About four years ago there was a big update where lifespans jumped way up in these tables, but that jumped up a little too much. Lifespans' expectation hasn't really come down, but it was over-predicted and then it's come down. There's a standardized turnover table. I don't have the rates here, but the turnover is if someone leaves for reasons other than retirement, disability, or death. Long-term rate of return, also the discount rate hasn't changed. None of these have changed from last year. We assume public safety, employees retire at the age of 53, which a couple of years ago that was changed based on a study we did about when the average retirement age was. They can retire at 50 with a full benefit. A lot of them stay longer. There's a handful over age 50 that are still working. Non-public safety we assume at age 65, which is they're no more retirement date. We assume public safety employees have annual increases in compensation of 5%, and non-public safety of 4%, and that is everything. So that's merit, cost of living, promotions, extra variations in overtime. The ups and downs of overtime make it a little volatile, but overall the averages have been very close to those two rates. There's a slight minor change to how the Social Security Offset was valued in the plan, which had almost no change on the liabilities. We're not really going to review these things in depth to determine if they're valid. We're just kind of reviewing them today. The last major change in mortality was made in July 1, 2016. That's when we adopted those updated tables, but they keep getting updated from that point every year. Retirement age was changed in 2014. And this is just because the discount rate is such a big factor, this is the sensitivity to it. So your entry is normal liability. Right now at 7.25%, it's about 40.5 million. A swing in that just 28.25% would lower your liabilities by 4.4 million. And then the other way we have the opposite effect. So when we do the funding, we use a smooth asset method because it helps to smooth out the changes each year. There's changes in the market. And long-term, it gets you to the same point. It's just each year you don't want your contribution jumping up or jumping down. So what we do is we take the assumed return and we smooth it with the actual return. And that's how we get... I'm not going to go into each step, but this is a graph. This was first adopted three years ago. And from 2015 to 2016, the smooth valley is on top. You can see it kind of smoothed out, but they've come back together. And ultimately at the end of the day, they're going to... The market's going to jump up and down around the smooth value and your contributions are going to largely be the same. It's just they're more fluid over time. Soon-rate 7.25. Last year, this is just a rough calculation of it based on what went in and went out. It's 7.6. Your before is 12.2. And three-year averages are all pretty close to 7.25. But when you do... If you do look at the long-term rate of return, you're really looking at the future more than the past. So these are items for reference, but if you're to ever lower it or decide to keep it the same, you'd want to look at capital market assumptions and what's projected to happen in the future more so than what's happened in the past. And this is just a listing compared to the assumed rate. And just a brief overview of the planned participants. So top blue is actively employed employees earning benefits in the plan. And last nine years, it's decreased from 129 to 104 participants. The middle section is people who have earned a benefit in the plan. They no longer work. It's just sitting there. They most likely can't take it yet. They're too young. They haven't reached the age to draw on benefits. So they're just sitting out there right now. And that's grown from 22 to 44 over time. And the bottom section is retirees, people who are getting monthly payment right now from the plan. And that's increased from 48 to 75. Surviving spouses? And surviving spouses. So if it's a retiree who also has a surviving spouse that's not actually receiving it, it is just one as a retiree. But if that retiree is passed away and a surviving spouse is getting a payment, it's in there as one. It is as one. Okay. Even the, go ahead. Oh, go ahead. Finish your thought. No, that's it. Oh, okay. The decrease in the employees that are active, is that because they're moving over to Vemur's employees or is there another explanation? The non-public safety are. That is part of it. Yeah. Briefly, the average service of a non-public safety employee is about 15 years. Public safety is about 11. Expected future service, which I think we kind of touched on a little earlier. It's about nine years for non-public safety and 11 years for public safety. And that's really the average age, the average time from now until they're expected to hit their retirement age. And the average age is non-public safety about 55, public safety about 39. And then the retirees, 75 for non-public and 63 for public safety. About 20 years ahead of us, you're saying, we're looking at the average age. How does that compare to, you know, kind of, how do you take that into account when you look at the projected costs? I guess, are we in? Until employees are expected to, current employees are expected to reach their retirement age. It doesn't account for new employees. Right. And then once that happens, you have 70 more years of benefit payments to make to those employees. So you have a lot of time, actually. You do have, just on a projection of benefit payments, like each year, 60-ish years until those payments drop below a million dollars or expected to drop below. So you have a long timeframe left of not necessarily earning the plan, depending on, you know, if a new employee is coming. If the last employee is in line to get this annuity and there are no new ones coming, then, I mean, 100% is a good goal to have because ideally, when the last employee passes away, the last dollar is issued to them just prior. Is that the concept? Yes. You want to, you're funding now for those future payments. Right. Yeah. I mean, so if you technically have that now in that you're over 100% funded on the present value of accrued benefits, but you want to make sure you're there 10 years from now when those employees earn additional benefits. So it's just, we're on our way there. You're in a good spot. We're in a better spot than our neighboring municipalities is what I interpret it. Probably in the best spot. I just put to this council again, if there's a lean year next year, one place we can look for 100K or 200K, it's not that I want to do that. I'm just saying that that's an option, right? We don't need to fund the pension as much as we're currently giving this year. As long as we meet our minimum contribution, because you do have a resolution that governs that. Right. What would be the minimum this year? 1.384 was the number that... Is there a resolution that requires that payment? Yeah, I believe there is. I can check on that. I mean, the council can always change that, of course, but there's currently a resolution. Because it's our policy. Not mandated by charter. I'm not just saying that. Have we seen the last... There are no new employees that are going to be in this system, right? Is that true now? That's not true. And so we have contract, ratified contract agreement. Within a year or two, we might not have any more new entrants. So, actually projecting out how many years would remain in the plan, do you think? Until all payments are made? Yeah. I'm just ballparking. 70 to 80 years. 70 to 80 years? Okay. Well, does anybody... No, we won't be here. No. I'm curious, you know, about how many years that is. And I figured that's the person that would know best. Thank you. Any other questions? Very presentation, very clear. Very much. Well, that's even better. It's the next career you don't really know. But every year is unpredictable. Now we're on to item number 12, the annual report to the Council on the Pension Fund with Pat Blizzard leading us in that discussion. How's everyone doing tonight? Thank you for having us here. My name is Pat Blizzard. You've seen me several times. And I'm my associate, Mike Burke. Mike is LA's Unstuny Advice Group and the service team, which I work on. And Mike's going to start it off. We're just going to go through some market commentary. I'm sure you're all curious with what happened in November and December with a lot of volatility. But we'll speak through some of that. And then I'll get into some of the numbers later on. You shouldn't. I've skimmed through all of this. There's no rocket science. Well, good evening, everybody. Thank you for your time today. We'll keep our comments reasonably brief. We won't take too much time. As you all know, there's been quite a bit of volatility in the marketplace. A lot of the numbers that are reported in our update are through the end of December. Thankfully, markets have recovered quite a bit since then. We still have some more room to recover. But a lot of the numbers and the volatility that we've seen is thankfully, you know, coming back into our favor, adding some more return to the plant. So through, you know, through last night with this morning, you know, again, being evidence that we continue to see quite a bit of volatility in the marketplace. So, and that's something that we haven't really felt for a number of years. Page six and seven, which I will speak to very briefly, really just highlight when you look across many different corners of a well-diversified portfolio across stocks, both in the United States, large cap, small cap, international stocks, areas like commodities. It was a very difficult road no matter where you were invested. There was really no place to be fully immune to the volatility that we saw, particularly during the fourth quarter. But when you include what we saw in February of 2018, a pretty choppy year. When we extend this to page seven and you see it in the bond market, you can really see what historically at times can sometimes show you some positive returns in areas like treasuries as investors really seek safety. Some broader, more credit-oriented areas like high yield bonds emerging market that really added to some of the negative returns that we saw. Something interesting is at the very bottom of this list, the Bloomberg-Barkley's U.S. Ag, that's basically the broad investment market for investment-grade fixed income in the U.S. The Barkley's Ag usually is fairly positive in times of stress as investors kind of flock to safe haven assets like treasuries. But as interest rates rose during 2018, with the Federal Reserve hiking, and we saw a gradual kind of climb in interest rates, that resulted in a very flat experience. So when you think about a well-diversified portfolio, you saw negative return coming from many different areas. It wasn't just a single source of negative return dominating the experience that you see in the numbers. I won't spend too much time diving into each particular market, but I think it's worth spending a little bit of time on page 12 and 13. One is really just talking through this notion of diversification as a very colorful, very detailed chart that you see here, really just highlights primary asset class returns over any given calendar year, and we call this kind of this return quilt. And then the important takeaway is many things that we looked at in 2018 that were very, very poor performers, like international equities, for instance. We often get a lot of questions like what's the role that that's playing in my portfolio. And we use this to remind investors that over time, as early as just simply last year or 2017, that was an area that was returning 37, 25%. So when we think about strategically investing money for a pension plan, it's very important to us that we strategically build this by portfolio that's very well diversified across all of these asset classes. And we, as a fiduciary partner, are really not going to try to time this market as it comes over the very long term. So today, in our meeting this afternoon with the investment committee, we talked a lot about staying the course, maintaining the current allocation that we have, thinking about ways that we will continue to kind of capture value as we go forward. And as a reminder, SEI is a manager of managers. So when you look at our portfolio and you see 10 to 12 different asset classes that you're investing in, underneath that are an additional four to six managers on average in each and every one of those strategies. So that translates to almost projects that have been discussed. So that's, you know, these are the types of projects that we're talking about. So those are the changes to article three, the additional 1% tax. On article four, section 13, going to be a new section 13, 1508. I actually made some additional edits since the ballot went out based on information received on the amount of money that could be generated from rental sales tax in the city. And I don't know, Kevin, if you want to touch on that at all. So before you have the version that Andrew is talking about in your packet on your desk, you also have two letters, one from Enterprise Holding, Dean Thompson, and I think they're represented here tonight, and Sharon Faulkner from the American Car Rental Association, both commenting on article four. Andrew alludes to some changes that we would like to promote, propose partly coming from the Economic Development Committee and partly coming from an updated evaluation that would be raised from such a tax. Going first to the what would be raised, you should have before you memo from Andrew that states that in tax year 2017, total state tax revenues from car rentals, $4.2 million. So the state takes 9% on every car rental in the state. If we were to estimate, and this is just an estimate, that 75% of total state car rentals occur in South Burlington, that 75% then of the full state tax take would be about $3.15 million. So based on that 9%, for us, every 1% would generate about $350,000. Half a percent would be $175,000. So we had an earlier projection much, much lower than this. This has been updated today, I think to Andrew's work. The Economic Development Committee, and I'll get back to these numbers, the Economic Development Committee met last night, and they said they took a motion and unanimously supported this provision except that they wanted the ultimate percentage to be based on some level proportionality against impact. So the Economic Development Committee feels that there is an impact on our roads and on our public safety resources through the lease of rental cars in our community, but that the ultimate tax burden borne by those customers should be roughly proportional to what the impact is. So at half a percent, it's $175,000, and that would be reflective of impact on roads, other infrastructure, and our public safety associated with servicing those folks. So to be consistent with what the Economic Development Committee is recommending, we're proposing that the number in the rental car, Article 4, be reduced to up to 1% as a target, and our recommendation is that it be set at, ultimately, be set by the City Council at half a percent. So this is a change from what you saw in the first version, and what I would like to do is hand you out the new second version. I didn't want to confuse the two. I'm unclear what you just said, Kevin. Are you recommending 1% or half a percent? The article says up to 1%. Currently drafted as half a percent. Oh, is it? Yeah. Did you change it? Okay. I'm sorry. So currently the City Council may impose a half of 1% tax. May impose. Okay. May impose. May impose. So that's 4.5% less than the original one. Yeah, but the original one was based on some faulty math. Oh. Okay. And the other minor change is a change from highway infrastructure tax, highway infrastructure and emergency services tax. And why would we do highway infrastructure instead of paving specifically? Paving could be included in infrastructure. Paving is the whole thing, right? Pot hole filling, grading, you know, upgrading maybe if there was a water issue with the road, right? So there might be some related. That's highway infrastructure. Yeah, yeah. Like a culvert maybe or something like that, you know? Because I mean, because paving is great, but if your road has got another issue, you need to fix that issue before you fix the paving. Just looking for a direct relationship between what the wheels on these rental cars are doing and, you know, the impact. Are we confident that the city would capture the full half percent or does the state want some of that? Yep. The way it's been drafted and conceptually is that the city would administer it 100%. The city would receive a full 0.5%? Yes. And the city would administer that. Does this have to go to the legislature? Yes. So do I have this right that the ultimate dollar is $17,500 based on taking the $175,000? No. That's the whole number, $175,000. Yeah. That's a half a percent. That's a half a percent. This is a full percent? This is a half a percent? Oh, that's a half a percent. Yeah. Expected revenue at a half a percent. Yeah. I'm supportive of this. I'm fine with a half percent, the 1%. I think it makes sense for a lot of different reasons, but I'm also supportive of just pressing the legislature since 75% of the rental cars are in South Burlington. Maybe we just need a larger part of the pot of the 9% that they're already collecting. But either way, we're bearing the brunt of these cars in our community, and I think we need some more to pay for our road infrastructure. I just had a question. Can someone do the math for me again? Because 1% of $3 million doesn't add up to $300,000 to me. Right. The 3 million is based on the 9% tax that the state is charging. So the question was what would 1 9th of that be? So it's actually 11.11% of the 3.15 million is that number, the 350,000, to represent 1% of the 1 9th of that total number. You have a lot of confidence in these numbers? That makes more sense to me. Yeah, the $4.2 million comes directly from the DMV actually administers this tax. Not the Department of Taxes. And this number comes from one of their staff people. So the tax goes to the DMV? That's who administers it, as far as I'm aware. Interesting. So the car rental agencies, they remit this 9th? They remit to the state? Well, the DMV administers it. They administer the tax. They administer the program. Okay. The other question I had was how confident are we that, since this is applied evenly across all rental agencies in the city, that the airport and the FAA would not take special issue with it and then maybe enter in some legal thing? It's our view that this is not a discriminatory tax. Okay. It applies to all car rentals in our community, not just those at the airport and not just those off the airport. If it were only confined to the airport car rental agencies, there would be a case. But because it's applied across all rental agencies in town, it is not discriminatory in that way. I think the car rental folks would have a different opinion of that, but that's our opinion. We have representatives here who would want to speak to those issues. I see your point, since it's evenly applied across the city, it just happens to be a larger share of the car is probably rented at the airport. So there are two. We'll let Kevin and then we'll. Local option tax. We'd like to proceed because there are people here who want to speak to the rental car issue. If they want to speak to that issue and there's nobody who wants to speak to the local option tax. Oh, I think there will be. And it doesn't matter what you are doing. I don't want to hold people here if we can expedite it. Let's hear from the rental. Okay. I think taking one at a time. Was that Mr. Moreway? Were you if you could come up and identify yourself? I'm sorry. Quick question. Yeah. Is it just cars or rental trucks? Just cars. Thank you. Okay. Are there. Yes. It's sort of like coming home. Even though I now live in the Liston. I was in South Burlington for 45 years. And was on the school board at one time here. So coming to meetings in South Burlington is sort of normal. I'm Jan Kennedy and I represent Enterprise Rent-A-Car as a lobbyist in Montpelier. I have a number of clients. Holdings in Northern Vermont. So anything basically Burlington, Montpelier and. That I think you all have it that Dean Thompson. And there are bullets about us. We're the largest rental car company in South Burlington. And we've been here since 1993. And Enterprise, our brands now are Enterprise National and Alamo. So it's not just Enterprise. And we have 34 employees in South Burlington. 23 are at the airport and 11 on Williston Road. Between Williston Road and Chilburn. 40%, but that means it's off the airport. 83%. So typically the Vermonters for two reasons. The majority of which are replacement vehicles. They're vehicles in the shop. So either the insurance is paying for it or it's going through a dealership or some sort of replacement vehicle. So it's actually essentially replacing their vehicle, which would normally be on the road. And then also people running for work purposes. So you have to travel on a work trip. Then you're traveling with a rental car versus your personal car. So that's the vast majority of it. And majority of those are replacement vehicles. So people who were involved in some sort of accident or mechanical issue with their vehicles. Unfortunately, I had one of those about three years ago and had a car for 40 days because of a bad accident that I was in. At the same time, I was a lot smaller tonight, a few minutes ago. But it's not just we disagree. The legal points made about it is that language that's in the law cannot be imposed unless wholly utilized. Unless wholly utilized for airport or airport. So we really are opposing. You're opposing such tax on the airport portion of the business would be against the law. Well, this is 8%, 9%. That's a plate of credit. It was a federal law passed in 2018, I believe. That are relevant here. And lawyers will battle about it is my understanding. It's in two different funds at the airport. One is for a facility that's being built at the airport for maintenance. It does not go to the city of Burlington. And that's only applied at the airport rent point. They choose to go there. So in a world where the city is out Burlington, if we owns that are collected by the airport and the roads are used by the rental cars. I can run that question by an enterprise. And I know having felt financial difficulties for the particular case. We do a tax. You know, I think you might think that legally it should not be imposed. Our rules are some of them, including Vermonters, who travel on our Palady. So there is, I see, some tax in order to have the car. And those are cars, right? Car drivers. So, you know, kind of obvious cost covered by the use of the roads. And to 5% it's in order to rent a car to go somewhere else in the state or go into Quebec. So this council to consider this task. I am your responsibility here is to use the car, whether it's a rental car or some bodies. But I was trying to think other types of businesses a lot. But I don't taxis and things like that. So a lot of people use the roads and the people that we rent to. You are correct. And an awful lot of people use. I apologize. I had to return. Last Friday I said, I was trying to stop growing to represent it. I said, why don't cars there are? You may have said this and I wasn't in here. How many cars are there? I mean, 1200, 1300, the rest of the state, that's not in South Burlington. Are there still places to go along with that? Yeah, this is just enterprise. How much do the others contribute? Equal amount? The amount of vehicles.