 So I think it would make sense for us to go up there. It's more official, so. Is that okay? That's totally fine. Okay, great. I was going to order, Madam Chair. Yes. There's a pending challenge to the legitimacy of that appointment that's not been responded to, which includes the lack of legitimacy of the appointment that needs to be done with earth. Not still? We have time to respond. I'm sorry? We have 10 days to respond. We have 10 days to respond. You have a screen. Oh, do you, I was going to be like have a screen. I don't know, I just didn't want to have a screen. I'm going to take pictures of that. Yeah, because you be. No water bottle. Madam Chair, to not respond to the issue that questions the legitimacy with a normal legal argument is corruption. No, we have 10 days to respond. Yeah, because you have to respond before you make the appointment because it would necessitate a labor course of action. Yeah, we don't believe you're talking about this. So, I'm going to say that's your opinion. But you're not a lawyer either. We got to be like, well, it's your, I'll be sure as you're a lawyer. You're making a mockery out of this democratic process. So, you can do this. And I want to be able to take photos of that. So, huffy God, we're under the pain and penalties of perjury. Thank you. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will faithfully execute the office of city council member for the city of Montpelier and will dare and do equal right and justice to all persons to the best of your judgment and ability according to law. So, huffy God, we're under the pain and penalties of perjury. I do. All right. You are sworn. I guess I shouldn't take this. Now, the book is just a sort of silly thing because it goes back to 69. Both is no good. In fact, I have to cross out men and women and persons. But people like to just have their names. I have to do this down. All right. I'm not wrong. Sure. I can check. I'll let you put your own name because I always. So, you do not have to respond to that. I'll read that. Okay. Can you hear me okay? Yeah, sure. Over there? Okay, great. Sure. All right. Well, I think we should get started then. Okay. Welcome. So glad to have you. So, I'm going to call you. First thing is to review and approve the agenda. And I don't think there are any changes that please have to the agenda. Right? Okay. So, on to general business and appearances. It's an opportunity for any member of the public to address the council on a topic that is not otherwise on our agenda. We have only really one other item, which is our strategic planning workshop. So, we're going to break it down. A couple of parts. If you have a comment that is not pertaining to the strategic plan, now would be the time to do that. If you have a comment that is pertaining to the strategic plan, we're going to have members of the public have an opportunity to comment just at the very beginning about that process or content of the strategic plan. And then after that, we will go into the agenda. And then after that, we will go into our workshop. And that we will not have an opportunity after that during this meeting for further comment from the public. Though there will be more opportunities in the future for the public to comment on the strategic plan. So, I realize that was kind of a lot of information. But for now, general business appearances, if you have any comments, if you'd say your name, where you live, and try to keep your comments. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. I'll turn that one up. Is that where that's the work? Yeah. Yeah. The microphone is on. Steve. I believe you're doing a really disservice to faith and trust in government by when there's a pending notice of open meeting violation, challenging the legitimacy of the appointment that was made at last Wednesday's meeting, that in effect should be discussed and debated and responded to prior to swearing in and beginning council business. Because in effect, you're sweeping aside a serious issue where a person who was not present and apparently not even informed of the need to be present at the meeting where the appointments were made and other candidates who were present were disregarded and were not notified prior to executive session that you would be contacting other candidates from within executive session. They were not noticed as being a necessary participant in the executive session, such as an engineer or an attorney or a staff person. So in effect, you have corrupted the process. And then to take the second step of not responding to the open meeting violation prior to true, you could have gone ahead and ratified that decision or and continued to appoint the same candidate. But you didn't do that. You actually just ducked and barreled through, which is really corrupt, Madam Mayor. You really need to look at the damage you're doing to this town and to faith and trust in government. The transparency and due process. Other candidates were not notified. At least one other candidate was not notified of the opportunity to be heard at that meeting. And yet you made your decision either prior to the meeting and the whole thing was a farce, you know, a preordained conclusion or you notified the one candidate you wanted and made the appointment subsequent. But either way, you've damaged the public's trust in this process. I have other topics, but this one's needed to be said. On behalf of others and citizens, there's a lot of talk around town about how bad this was. And you all decide to just sweep it under the rug like you've done the shooting of Mark Johnson and many other things. Thank you. See truly, Stephen, would you please put your mask up so it's functioning? Thank you. Anyone online or present? Wish to add anything. Okay. And so we just as a heads up, we will respond within the requisite 10 days and we will go from there. Okay. So from there. Okay. So we are so on to the strategic planning workshop. Any public comments specifically pertaining to the strategic plan? Yeah. You want it to be introduced? Yeah. We're going to do an introduction piece to this part of the process tonight. Okay. Okay. Fine. Is that all right? Fine. Okay. Great. So any comments about the strategic plan? Go ahead. Yeah. I mentioned that two meetings ago that over recent years, I have brought a growing list of issues related to public safety, trash in the rivers, shopping carts in the rivers, feces in our alleyways and our chair charts along the riverbank. And none of those have apparently been collected anywhere into a list which you could then categorize into the four categories in this strategic planning meeting. They all seem to just get lost in the noise of this dysfunctional administration. So I would ask that you direct staff to pull out all those comments from myself and others about the problems that have grown over decades in this town that have been ignored and take this opportunity to fit them into the strategic plan. Thank you. Anyone else? Or online? Okay. All right. So with that, we are going to go into our strategic planning workshop time. And for this, I'm turning it over to Cameron. Bill is going to actually kick us off tonight. We've got a really great presentation. I do get paid to say that. Thank you very much. Yeah. So I just click? Yep. So I'll try to get through this quickly. We thought it was a good chance to go through what the process is, a little bit of our roles. We have new council members who seem like a good time. We didn't do a retreat or anything that's here to kind of go through some of the broad overview. So I'm going to hit the broad overview. Cameron will then go through the specific process for tonight. So I just said that. So that's our agenda for tonight. Why do we do this? Who does what roles? What's the product? And then the workshopping and those kinds of things. So we start here. This is the Athenian oath. And I want to share this. This is the oath that ancient residents of Athens took when they became of age. I'm not going to read the whole thing, but the last sentence is, thus in all these ways, we will transmit this city not only not only not less, but greater and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us. And I think that's really our mission as elected officials and public officials and kind of the basis of all that we do. So we'll get some inspiration from way back. So why strategic planning? Has anyone seen this box before? Hands? What is it? Oh, it's like, what is it? Yeah. Where have you seen that before? Oh, just other like planning strategy this last year. This is from Stephen Covey, seven habits of highly affected people. And he talks about your work. And your work tends to fall into four quadrants. You know, you're urgent and important. You got to do urgent, not urgent, but important. So you need to plan urgent, but not important to delegate and not urgent, not to eliminate. So to plan your time to do your thing. So as an elected body need to use our time wisely. You know, I looked at the number of meetings we have and I think so we have about 125 hours in a year that you all meet in session, which is how you do your work. So that's roughly three works, work weeks a year. So all that you're trying to take on and do as a group, the time you spend is about three weeks. So obviously we would like to have you focused on the stuff that you have to do because you got to vote to approve something and looking forward to the future and having the urgent, I mean not that what we do is important, but having the work done by others. So it's how do you focus your time on important leadership issues and really think about your role as council and then to provide clarity. This is why we do, you know, the more clear that you can be to your staff, the better we can respond to, you know, as you know, sometimes we'll say, someone will say, do we need emotions? Yes, emotion will be great because then we have clear. So this is an iceberg. Anyone have any guesses why I put an iceberg up here? There's a little of shows and a lot that happens. Right, so a lot of what the council talks about is up here in the public and a lot of what goes on for city government is down here. So just it's a good visual and we're going to get back to this. We're not moving. I know. I'm sorry. Hold on a second. He's got an online issue. Yeah, we're having a... It's stuck on the first page. We're having a moment. Let's just take in the iceberg. I'm working. Is that why we're not the Titanic? That's right. I'm going to stop sharing and then I'm going to share again and we're going to see what happens. Yes, we, for those, we had a big crash this afternoon getting ready for this meeting, which is why we had to... Is that working? Oh, great. Cool. All right, but now it's not advancing. Oh, thank you. But now it's not... Way to ruin it. Thank you for noticing that, Donna. I would have not noticed that. That means people following along at home. Sorry. Is that a Russian? Good. Um... Liar. One have a chair. Is it possible that you'd have to click it down on the laptop instead of... Do you know what I mean? Like, use the arrows on the laptop instead of... Fine. I'm going to go back. No. Please. Just thinking it out. You don't have to squash that much. Next. So when we think about any organization, there's kind of three things that come up. One is vision. So where are we going? We're going to spend a lot of time on that tonight because that's where you're at. The next is external authority. So who do you have to get approval from to do what you want to do? So for these folks over here, it might be me. For me, it might be you. It might be the voters, but... Or the state government or the federal government. Whatever it is. So there's always someone who you have to bring along. Next. And then there's your capacity. What do you know how to do? So do you have the right people? Do you have the right equipment? The right knowledge? And so how do you look at this next? So obviously, if you've got... The idea is that what's in here is what you do best. So great example, snow plow. Right? Everybody thinks that we should plow snow here in Vermont, right? The people who vote. The city council. Everybody thinks we should plow snow. And we have snow plows. We have people with CDLs. We have salt. We do a good job of plowing snow. So it's not a controversy. So as we think about things, as we think about things, you know, think about what we need to move something forward. Because the more we can push those circles together, the more effective we're going to be. So as you think, it might be something the council wants to do and the staff can do, but we don't know if the voters will go along with this. Or we don't know if people that are stakeholders, you know, a good example would be the camping policy we've just been talking about, right? We think we need to do it. We think we have the people to do it, but the outside folks aren't there yet. So what do we need to do to make this successful? So that's kind of what today is all about. So go back to our iceberg. So this is kind of your vision, right? This is where you want to go. This is where you're headed. This is kind of this line, right? Where people are saying yes, no. And then way down here is your capacity. And this is kind of the sweet spot. This is, you know, maybe there's stuff down here that we know how to do, that we all don't need to do much anymore, or just kind of it has to be done, but it's not something people get excited about. And there may be stuff out here that's really a reach, and then there's stuff that the people haven't quite bought into yet. But this is kind of where hopefully we can be. So take a look at our roles. Who's our external authority? States, federal government, voters. The vision is really the mayor and the city council and the manager to the extent that we in the staff recommend things to the council to then consider. And the capacity is really the manager and staff to get the job done. So that's how those roles fit into those circles. So what do the voters do? They elect you all. They vote on budgets, bonds, engage in local discussions. They're the external authority. And they're the owners and customers. And this is kind of an interesting take. So a person comes to the city council and says, you know, I've lived here. I'd support this. And I just really feel this is a wrong thing to do. This isn't the way we should go. They're an owner because they have a stake in the city and they want to see things go a certain way. A person comes in and says, hey, you know, this pothole on my street hasn't been fixed. That's more of a custom. I pay my taxes. I buy good roads. I'm not getting them fixed. So in some cases, the owner of some cases is a customer. Your role is, go ahead. So the role of the council, obviously, is to establish the vision policy. And how do you do that? Your budget? That's your number one policy. How you collect and spend other people's money. You're choosing to prioritize, spending this collective sum on what are the most important things for the city. How do you regulate? What standard? What are the standards for the community? What can you do? Zoning laws, ordinances, whatever those might be. Fiscal oversights, making sure that the community is running well. You're approving contracts. Those kind of things you have to do. Overseeing the city manager who oversees the staff. So is your policy being implemented the way you want? And addressing controversy. We talked about owners versus, owners were kind of doing the controversy. The customers are the complaints. So really you should be the ones, you're the owners' representatives in that regard. You're the ones that sort out the controversies. And then the council speaks with one voice. Just an important thing to remember. You have important roles and voices. But as a group, you only act when you act in concert. So that's where your authority and your decisions come. So once, you know, again, once you make a decision, it's best if you could say, okay, now the council's spoken, that's our policy. Even if you were on the losing side of the vote. So the role of the manager. Implement the city council's policy through staff. Obviously the one person doesn't do it all, but it's by guiding the staff. Recommend policy to council. Provide advice and information to the council. The chief administrative officer of the city. You can, you know, hire, fire, supervise, manage, et cetera. Constituent service. So again, the people should be addressing the complaint. So if the customer didn't go right, then we shouldn't be trying to fix their complaint. If it's a policy controversy, that's the council needs to fix that. And then follow the ICMA code of ethics. I have a certain ethical standard, which I try to imply to all our staff. And then manage the internal capacity. So we're the capacity piece. So what are policy decisions, right? Think of it like an airplane. Choose where you want to go. You choose the time when you want to get there. You choose how much you want to pay. So you could go nonstop in first class. Or you could take, you know, cargo class. And, you know, for layovers. And that's a difference. So that's really kind of what you're doing. Where is it, and that's what you're visioning today. Where is it we want to go? How fast do we want to get there? It's going to take us one year, two years, five years, six months, whatever it is. And are we willing to actually spend the money that it's going to take? So think of yourself like a, continue with the plane, right? Here you are, a purpose and vision, you're up here. This is you thinking. This is what we're getting some of this tonight. What is it we're doing? The green is council, the way this stuff. Then your strategic goals. So now we're getting into, okay, we've got a vision now. How are we going to go forward? And, you know, now you're picking action items. So you're establishing them. We're sort of making sure they get done. You're planning an oversight. That's, you know, adopting your budget. The stuff that happens at the meetings, the reports you get, the updates. Authorizing contracts. You know, this is the project. Now we're running the project. You're just getting updates and doing what you need to do and then finally the day to day work. You're obviously hearing from people about it and you have a role to really that stuff. So we're kind of landing the plane. So we're hoping that we're going to be spending our time here up in the sky. We'll have more time to get to this in this process another night. So what is strategic planning? Basically, how do we identify the needs and priorities? What are the strategies and actions to execute that vision and then create a blueprint so that we use when we're doing the budget and all those kinds of things. And obviously we become flexible with our, we become move flexible. Oh, I can type. We'll just move past that slide. Okay. What is strategic planning? So again, where do we want to be? How do we plan to get there? How do we know where they are? What resources do we need? Because again, we may not have the capacity. Something we really want to do. Maybe the public thinks we ought to do it. But we don't know how to do it. We don't have the money to do it. We don't have the expertise. Okay. So there's a cycle of planning. You have this all in front of you, so I'm not going to read through it. But basically you start with your mission vision values. We take a look at where we are, where we want to go, what are our strategies and things. We start looking at reports of how you're doing, what we need, and then we come back around and we start to circle all over. So a little more simply. So this is kind of where we're going to be tonight. So we start with our vision. This is where we want to be. Where are we headed? Why do we exist? What do we do? What are our cultures and beliefs? What are our goals and areas? And then finally, what are our strategies to achieve the goals and then specific initiatives and different projects to adopt all that. So we are hoping we may be here tonight and come back for a minute. So in 2018, we did this process. This hangs on my wall in the office. I'm not going to read them all, but that was what the council brainstormed his vision then. Where we want to see, where we see more people in 10 years. So we're going to do something like that tonight. We'll have you brainstorm and then we'll come back with the draft vision statement that we didn't do that last time. Same thing with mission. We didn't do the mission statement at all. This is a terrible one. I just wrote it for the slide. It's not at all what our mission statement is. I don't even think it is. So again, we'll have you brainstorm for a few minutes about what you think the mission of city government is and we will come back based on what that says with the draft. And our values. So again, our organizational values. A few years ago, our staff chose these as our organizational values for our staff. And we try to incorporate them into things we do where I would say we're so, so successful at it. The council did endorse those, but it never really adopted them. But the council, you've adopted your rules of procedure and we did a lot of work on group norms and how you behave one by one yourselves. One area that we haven't really talked about are what our community values. And I think those are really established through the goals and priorities that you set. But there may be, I don't know if we want to get into that tonight, something to think about in the future if we want to set. This is just what we value in our community. And again, when we talk about inclusion as one of the goals, those kinds of things. What are our community values? So the next steps, we're going to try to look at all the big picture planning. We're going to try to tie that all in. We're going to create goals. So the goals might be, I'll go through that in a minute. So create goals and strategies and initiatives that we've talked about. So here's your end product. Here's your strategic plan. So it's a transparent document that everyone can see. It clearly states the goals and priorities. It articulates our strategies. It basically ties into all the work that we do. And we're going to work on future decision. So as you know, those of you that have been around and you are on your agendas, it tells you which goal this ties into. Our weekly reports are tied into the goals. And that provides clear direction to staff. Is this an important thing for the council? So we have to make a decision in between a council meeting. It's like, this is really consistent with where the council wants to be. Let's just do this. Or, I don't know, we might want to put this on an agenda. Let's see where that fits. So do's and don'ts. This is an organized group decision. So Jim Collins, the business guru, says if you have more than three priorities, you have no priorities. So one of the things, now obviously that's for a business. We have a lot of things to do. We're going to ask you at the end of tonight to adopt all the goals that you want, but then select the three that are really the top priority. The things that you think are really the top issues for the city right now. We're going to begin with vision and goals first. So again, Jim, excuse me, Stephen Covey says begin with the end in mind. Don't fight every bout. There's a lot of stuff. We can spend a lot of time fighting. It might just be you identify this as an issue and say, okay, we'll talk. That's one of our goals is to talk about it later. So I don't know if any of you are still here that were there, but a number of years ago in the city council, I had economic development. It was a goal to support economic development. But then we got talking, well, what does that mean? It turned out that there were seven different opinions of what economic development were. And we kind of went round and round. And the only goal that we got was later in this year we're going to have an agenda item to decide what economic development is. But that was okay because we didn't spend our time in this session fighting that battle. So if it's something that needs to be discussed later, put it on a list to be discussed later. And don't waste time telling the pilot how to file a plan. We'll get to those projects and things, but really this is not to talk about specific, you know, this department doesn't do this. We'll get to that. But right now this is really the big picture. So process recommendations, coordinate with existing plans. We've got a long list of them, but we have a lot of plans. So how can those tie into these plans? Be realistic and honest. I mean, I'm sure you'll be honest with these. You'll be honest about what can really get done and what the capacity is, what the vision is, what the, you know, it's great to think about all these things. But then at some point you've got to say, hey, what can we do with what we have to do? So this is Teddy Roosevelt and Barry in 1912. Why do I have Teddy Roosevelt and Barry in 1912? Number one, it's a cool picture that he was in Barry. Number two, I did a presentation like this for the Barry City Council a couple of weeks ago, and so I thought they'd like it. And number three, this is a famous Teddy Roosevelt quote. And it's just meant to be a little inspiration to you. It is very sexist because of its time and not only human. No one hopes. Right. But basically it says it's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strongman stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done that better. The credit belongs to the man who's actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who heirs, who comes short and then again, because there's no effort without error and shortcoming. But who does actually strive to do the deeds, who knows great enthusiasm, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly. So his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory or defeat. So you're the folks in the arena and you're going to be criticized and you're going to make mistakes. We're all going to make mistakes. We're going to have people that aren't there, but you and these folks here are the ones that are doing it. So set your plans, set your course and go for it. So any questions on this part of the section, I'm going to turn it over to Cameron for the process. Paul, any questions on sort of overview of anything or roles? What strategic planning is? Did I talk too much? Let's go and let's get our circles lined up. I would just say the people in the arena also are like the employees. They're the staff. Fair enough, we're in it too, but I just want to recognize. I thought I said that. Yeah, maybe you did. So let's get our circles lined up and Cameron, you're on. Yeah, let's get excited. Thank you, Bill. Walk around to say we want to get energized. Let's do this. Oh, yeah, you can use the wheel. All right, we're cooking now. All right, so we have some expectations. We just want to make sure everyone is aware of. We're going to work inside your group norms that you've already identified. Everyone's opinion is really valid here. Nothing is off the table. If you want to throw it out there, I'm going to write it down. We're going to work through these topics with no interruptions, but do know I've put some breaks in there, so we're not going to be working straight through. Again, no ideas are bad ideas, but trust and honesty in each other in this process is going to be really important. So we're going to have a couple of different out. Yep. Just first, we have a new counselor, like those group norms. You've got your handbook, correct? Yes. I think rooms are in that handbook, if you need that. That is my best. So we'll get you a number of hours. A number of hours. I'll let you one in now, Will. Mostly it's listening, being respectful of other people's opinion and talking through disagreements instead of going head to head. But Bill is going to get you one of those. So we do have a couple of things that I'd like to come out of today's meeting with that I'd like to set up first. We're going to do some big picture brainstorming in the beginning just to get juices flowing. We're going to talk about what your overall vision is. I don't expect anyone to write a vision statement. I just want your gut reaction. What is your vision for the future of Montpelier? Think 10 years from now. Where do you want us to be at? And then we're all going to write that down. And the goal for us is to take all of that, synthesize it, write something we think you would like based off what you just said to us tonight. And we'll start a conversation about vision statements using that. Then we're going to brainstorm that mission statement which sort of drills down a little bit of like how do we as the city really manage that larger vision, right? And then, so again, the staff will return to y'all with formal language for feedback and edits. It's just a starting point for y'all. And then what we're going to do and spend the bulk of our afternoon or evening doing is brainstorming and voting on your preferred goals. So what we're going to do for a bit is just really spit out goals. Go around the room, sort of talk about your big goal items, what you really want to see. You have goals already established. Maybe you don't like them. Maybe you're a firm all the way. I don't recommend that, but maybe you want to. And then I know that some of y'all will have strategies, things that are not those larger goals such as like environmental stewardship, but the strategies, like projects that you want to see and that you're very passionate about. We'd like to hear those too because we'd like to see how that aligns with work we're already doing, or if it's brand new, how do we accomplish that work for you? So those are the two big takeaway items that we'd like to get out of today. So, but because connection before content is important and we also do have a new council member, we're going to do brief personal introductions. I think that's really important. So, if everyone doesn't mind, just go around introducing yourself. Give a brief personal introduction. Maybe why you ran for office or why civic duty is important to you. And if you have a fun fact that you want to share, feel free, no pressure. I'll start with one. Yeah. I'll start, I guess, because I'm not sure you necessarily know who I am and why I'm talking to you right now. My name is Cameron Niedermeyer. I'm the assistant city manager. I have been working in public service almost my whole career when I wasn't waiting tables. And it's very important to me to give back to my community. A fun fact is that I used to work in an organization that had more people that worked for the organization than lives in this entire town. So this has been a big change for me. I came from North Carolina and now I know how to snowshoe. And I think I'm the only person in my family who's ever even seen a snowshoe. So very exciting. So I'll pass it to Connor. Sure. And I guess we're dressing Jennifer for the most part. I know each other. Connor Casey, but I'm counsel. This is the end of the second term. I think I ran, like, in my job, usually a campaign manager, I ran the Vermont Democratic Party. And I was always electing people into office. So it was interesting to maybe switch roles and become a candidate myself. And I probably never hated a candidate as much as myself like working for them. So it's been a really good experience to sort of try to think some of the posts of the city here. And I think the great thing is you can actually see differences being made. You can see something being built. You can see a policy passed that affects somebody. It's been a great experience. And I guess I was baptized by a priest and I already was. Donna Bate. I'm in my fourth term, which will be up in March. One hand has gone really fast and the other hand is like, whoa, it's a lot of hours. And I ran for office at the time. There was an attitude in the city council that bothered me and that I felt that they were making decisions without really deciding their vision. And I really wanted the vision in my mind, even when I made the little decision. So I might not have the money now, but I wanted to know where that money was going to. And I felt like over time that council has gotten there and it's marvelous to experience. And fun fact, I like baking pies. All right, Jack McCullough. I'm in the same position that you were in. I first came on the council by being appointed when the mayor vacated her council seat to become mayor. And controversial. Yes. We do it every time. Yes, you can go back on YouTube and see the video of the meeting at which I was appointed. Whoa! And like like Cameron, I've always been doing public service my whole life. I'm a legal aid lawyer. I've been a legal aid lawyer for over 40 years. And I keep telling people I've never been retired because I love what I do. I love the city and I always tell people that it's the best place in Vermont to live. And what got me specifically into deciding to run for council is to work on the biggest goal where I've worked on in this housing. And that's one of the things that's really motivated me. And I don't know if I have any fun facts. I'm not really a fun guy. I'm not really a fun guy. Should we call one of your kids? Ann Watson This is my second term as mayor. Before that I was a city councilor and actually originally someone asked me to run and I was appointed. I was also appointed as a city councilor that originally. And I was really interested in putting my name in for that appointment because I have always had a passion for energy. Energy like renewable energy etc. I teach high school physics and engineering and math and so it's been a lot of time thinking about energy and climate change honestly. That's a big thing for me and fun fact I suppose. When I was in the second grade I broke my elbow. Had a cast for a while. And I loved doing the physical therapy so much that I can bend my one elbow backwards. Strange. Change the conversation. I don't know. I don't know. Fun fact is not going to be that far. It's just a weird human thing. My name is Jennifer Moore and I have lived here in Montpelier for six years. My husband is from here and we had very small children and we're contemplating leaving Portland, Oregon and it was either LA or here and I grew up in LA so I said let's go to Vermont because I want my kids to be able to play in the woods. And I love this small little town. It reminds me a lot of Olympia, Washington which is another place that I love. But I was recommended to run by my neighbors and I'm a jibway and part of our culture is to give back to our community. And I haven't left Montpelier and I don't have any intentions of leaving Montpelier at this point. My family is very bought in here. My kids are growing up in the schools here and we don't want to leave so I want to serve my community. I already spent four years as a commissioner on the commission of Native American Affairs to the state of Vermont for four years and I would like to do something a little more local and I want my daughter to see that you can do whatever you want even if you didn't realize that's what you wanted. Because this is a big thing and it's a big responsibility and I just turned 50 and I want to take on more things so that sounds weird but I don't know I've got this weird renewed sense of spunk so here I am. And then a fun fact about me I worked in the music industry for about 20 years and I was working the Grammys one night and I got pushed into a platter of hummus the size of this table by Whitney Houston. It was epic and one of my favorite stories there you go. I'm sure there are pictures somewhere of me elbow deep and hummus oh my gosh I did. It's amazing and terrible or awesome I don't know. Everything all of the things. So I don't like the federal moved to Vermont and was working on state level policy and then was really drawn to kind of how Connor was talking about the like being able in your own community to see change and like really do tangible change like it's a lot more just academic at the state or federal level in a lot of ways so just the ability to work with a community and give back was inspiring such a great group of people to work with so ran again and let's see fun that I lived out of a pickup truck for a year and a half in my 20s so loved to travel so it's been all over the world and we were like just going doing like a greatest hits tour of like Mexico to through like Western North America then to Canada and moved to South Africa for a little while just living out of a truck and somehow found our way to Vermont I'm Jay Well I'm so glad to have you here Jennifer and I want to be back again this year our next round of strategic planning in person not just on computer screens which is fantastic this is still my first term as a counselor I ran I think because like a lot of folks here I love this city I'm a business owner and I'm raising my young kids here and I felt like this was a way to get back an opportunity to be able to make a difference going into it two marches ago we all came into it with that sort of a different perspective with the pandemic the world has shifted but I still feel like we are doing good things and really believing what we're doing and doing the best we can and I appreciate that so last year on zoom I mentioned that I actually made a cameo in the Big Lebowski pretty cool but I don't know how that compares with Whitney Houston I don't know we'll have to decide I think that even the Big Lebowski is really cool to be in any film that was pretty cool but one other thing I actually used to work for a television production company and I was the head writer and I wrote a TV show about fly fishing around the world and we actually won an Emmy so that's pretty cool just keeping in the Hollywood thing we gotta keep it there thank you so I'm Bill Fraser I'm a city manager I've been in this role for 26 years I've been in local government really since I got into college so close to 940 years in New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts obviously 26 years in Vermont the rest of the time in the other states five different communities I've raised four kids here in my billier all went K to 12 in the school system I've raised three kids here since you did I'm originally a Maine native my grandfather was a state legislator in Maine so when I was a kid I got involved with both my parents were educators so dedicated public service and just seemed to be something I was drawn to I was a junior high kid during the Watergate era so we got hooked on politics I see local government as a place where you can make a difference and if you don't do it right you hear about it and I like that it's immediate and fun fact I was in the music business too but only around here for 11 years I met the Starline rhythm boys a few times that's about it Jack used to be a groupie I played in the band for 10 or 11 years I would love for our department directors who are here in person to just say their name and their department so that you can meet them all Hi Jennifer, we met yesterday I'm Robert Gallants, I'm the fire chief Are you a structure? I'm the director of planning and community development Oh you're not a department He didn't work here, yeah Are you safe? I'm safe I'm safe Are you safe? Are you going to work here? He worked for me He worked for me Oh you were attached to her You were in charge? Yeah Allie goes with the parks director All right so thank you all for indulging us I think that was really important so what we're going to do next is really get into those higher level discussions and that's going to be really fun because like Bill said we really want to begin with the end in mind so that very top thing what does Montpelier look like if we've accomplished all our goals we've set out to do what we've set out to do so again the vision is the very top is what we're going to be talking about first and that's the future state what we're choosing to be what our goals are and so again this was sort of your vision a place to live, visit, work, and play be a leader be innovative for serving the community a place where people want to be day and night I think that one's a really important one and so we're going to spend exactly 15 minutes sort of going to set a timer because tonight's going to get lengthy I think but I really like for your choice you can either round robin it or we can just shout things out think whatever works can I ask a quick question I don't want to upend things if we can adapt that would be great but if it's too much then don't worry about it but having gone through this process with a lot of organizations and brands over the years it's always been about working your way up the pyramid working from the top down because I think conversation it's really easy to think about details and weeds or getting the weeds and think about how things will actually happen without you know if you start too high and then work down like to me working our way up that pyramid talking about what our values are and then deciding like okay then given the values what can we then leave there and then figure out what's our mission then where it's what's our vision which is really that top of the pyramid right because it's so I would I mean it's up to you all what you want to do but I would sort of argue that a little bit to say if you don't know where you want to even go if you have no idea and what we're creating is just initiatives like projects that we like and want to move forward to get to that vision I think we're just doing ourselves a disservice if we say Montpelier to be a great place to live work and recreate point blank how are we going to get there then that helps us build goals if the goal is I want to be a good plan I'm making all this up by the way don't quote me on any of these things as far as vision statements but if your vision statement is I want Montpelier to be a place to live work and recreate how do we become a good place to live we need affordable housing we need more housing how do we get more housing if we want it to be if I'm using that quote as the continued vision statement how do we make it a place where people feel safe to recreate so that's public safety that's our parks and rec infrastructure so you know I'm not sort of asking y'all to be in the weeds on this just honestly if you could look at me and say Montpelier would be great and perfect if it was X and this statement and captures that I think that would really help us while we're talking about those goals as if we know where we want to end up it might be easier to talk about the goals and how to get to there y'all are free to disagree with me and we can move it back and into the goal conversation first but I do think that there is value in talking about the the end goal and it could be honestly aspiration you could say I want there to be more houses than people like honestly that we can put that in there to be a vision that we are just putting in there and putting in the room right so I'd love to hear feedback if that's something that you guys are amenable to or what steps you would like to take I've already expressed my advice I think the vision is where you have to go to decide anything else that's just where I'm coming from like you I'm a lot older I've gone through a lot of these and you know there's lots of ways to get there I just I do feel that starting at the top and working down works better for me that's all okay we're here to again at least our training was always start with the y and then sort of how it went we're not going to ask you to draft a vision statement today we're just going to brainstorm some ideas where you see my period going to write them all down then we'll come back and draft so we're not going to spend a lot of time in the weeds because that could take us all night and same thing with mission so that you're thinking about what the big foundation is where we're going and then we want to get right to the substance as soon as we can I'm totally fine with that I'm not trying to upend by any means but I also appreciate that sometimes it's sometimes it's hard to establish a vision if you haven't figured out your mission and your values first and so we can start there but working way backwards but I just don't you know I think that's fair I mean ultimately it's about conversation and then just stilling down so honestly we can start in any direction but I just want to make sure we're keeping in mind what our goals are definitely and I think that is what we're going to get to eventually in this and hopefully this is just a brain opening exercise and anything that we talk about tonight is being recorded and we're going to we're writing it down we're going to go back and all of this none of this is going to be left on the drawing board right all of this will be coming back to you in one way or the other so I'm going to write vision here and I'm going to not spell things correctly it's a test it's a test for us and we're not going to call me out on it that's what's going to happen I will type it and spell check will help us so I'm going to set a timer and we'll sort of get started so if you had a vision statement and what would it be or if you had a vision in 2031 all students no I'm sorry there is affordable childcare available for all children from birth till through high school third out there that the city takes a role in human services not only childcare but that they're making partnerships with non-profits in the state to really have a holistic approach to people's quality of life and to me that it's childcare that's anyone who's homeless it's health, it's drugs it's all of it our city is an affordable place for working families what about safety what is a safe place for communities of color let's say that the rivers that run through our city are part of our day to day life in our parks what about businesses so we're talking a little bit about people coming here there's a safe place for a community to maybe talk about our businesses as well business community that sparked anything for anybody before we get to that I want to say the city is welcoming and affordable to everyone city is an attractive place for socially responsible businesses so when you say that what do you mean I don't think regulations are bad necessarily but we want to attract not just businesses but businesses that pay a livable wage are environmentally responsible so don't just try to milk the resources of the town and treat their work as well so I'm about Peeler to be your really fun place to live then that's like no that's a vision like festivals or spaces maybe somebody who grew up in a very large city and then moving to a very small city the things that happened here like Valentine's Day and the father daughter dance and all those little things that happened here is what made me fall in love with Montpelier all species day and having more things like that because it really feels unique to Montpelier and unique to Vermont and small towns I think I heard Alex vision outdoor recreation as what place destination destination and how I would add that we have an engaged and informed constituency and so I think that starts another point is how do you what is your ultimate vision for how people engage with government because if we're doing our job right where does that take us what is that vision that the how would be another step the vision is to have them engage I didn't think at this stage you would talk about how we would do it oh I'm sorry I guess I meant like our people our people engage well they're my I'll not even go down that path we're just moving on from that path all right well I have something to add to that that we are communicating via multiple channels and methods to the public to be accessible this looks really good I think there's some things I see that may be missing is like I think Anne spoke a little bit to this for child care but I think that ties directly into like the health of our community if anyone has any ideas off of that we also talk about some of our roads or other infrastructure safe community some of thinking of some of our bigger services here for the city we want to be maintaining and improving our city infrastructure multi-modal infrastructure well I wasn't thinking of it necessarily just in terms of transportation that's another part of it so I'm also hearing multi yes buildings all of it yeah transportation and improving our infrastructure well maybe we should have the word green in here maybe that's covered somewhere else but when he mentioned infrastructure as far as buildings operations being more energy if we get an energy star it could be a city with an energy star energy, water quality storm water we brought that up we're going to put storm water up here in the safe water including our storm water I don't know how to I'm still struggling with words on this one but something about public safety systems that are compassionate but also effective and trusted what was your other word? trusted, compassionate, effective city government should be a desirable place to work and we should give our staff the resources they need to succeed I'm going to put that as a totally separate thing using like ADA I would also you know our website, our communications I think that also plays a big role in accessibility here the mode and cost there's accessibility dealing with mode like reading or not reading not speaking as well as not moving in the ways we can access the building but I think it's also cost like running for city council we've all talked about that our stipend is not enough to allow many people to run taking time out to take advantage of some of the public meetings just as an active citizen it's difficult so I'm hearing making city engagement city engagement is for definitive vision statement in here is accessible and doable for all killed this pen making sure that there are support services for folks that are experiencing homelessness making sure that people that work downtown have access to mental health first aid training disaster readiness we are disaster ready this looks good excited about this it's like 15 minutes no not yet probably close you have to fill the 50 that's what I was saying we'll spend more time on that one does everyone feel pretty good about these vision statements that we've gotten to okay so now we're going to I mean we're really close there's only a couple seconds left but I know sorry so now it's known for taking all the time so we're also just going to skip right ahead to talking about more of what a mission statement is so I want to hear from you and I think that this is important as staff to say why are we doing what we're doing these are all the things that you said or the end goal why do we exist what are those goals that you do have this is a time to start thinking about those goals you're starting to understand what we even do as a government what is our role as government in this community so role statements work here statements about why government is important what you think we do best and what you think even if you say I want to improve on X Y and Z that also goes well here if you're interested so it also can talk about our target audience too we serve who what do we do and who does it serve so it's a little it's slightly different but you can see this is our current mission statement which is serving Montpelier with integrity is our craft this is a very internal one but it is in your handbooks as well and craft is our values of staff, of competence, respect accountability, fairness, and teamwork now to be frank that's not quite a mission statement because it doesn't really hit on the core points of why we're doing what we're doing and who we hope to serve doing what we're doing but it does I think highlight some of those values that we had been talking about earlier so again I think we're going to spend about 15 minutes sort of like passing out what we think our mission is so I'm going to hand these off to when we did our new logo we did it that time we did the branding statement is that a round? it's in your handbooks it's right at the beginning of your handbooks okay there you go okay yes yes yes I really liked it and once we're done with this we'll take our first break and then we're going to head right into goals and it will be very long and 15 minutes timer is set, let's go that's an older version the branding statement mission so maybe let's start with why? why? why do we exist? why do y'all exist? what is your role? what if I make something like our success is reflected in how we treat our most vulnerable residents? that's good and you don't need to craft statements necessarily but why why are we, why is the government why are we here? what is our role? what do we do? we're in service we're serving our local community like liaisons maybe think about actual functions of city government what do we do? what are we serving our local community? we could say things like safe roads so what a safe roads safe travel needs to economic development people can go to their jobs that's an example so what else are we serving our local community? we're trying to create conditions in which people can thrive safely I guess thriving is a problem and that includes moving here and having housing being able to create and operate businesses and work in those businesses raise their families access local resources enjoy the natural resources so it would be I'm leading the witness here so I'm leading the witness I'm looking at Alec so with providing some of those resources for a role to provide parks and recreation facilities for people to have fun is that something we do? yeah part of our mission we serve our guests as well as making the location inviting to guests I mean since and inviting how do we get there is sort of how we're going to get into that goal conversation so again we're working our way down that pyramid so we're going to relate to some of this when we talk about how do we create an inviting community to access that through good roads so what else are these overarching things that we serve our community why do we exist what is our role? sorry if I'm being redundant here I'm just trying to look through but it's leveraging our local business and natural resources to make Montpelier a inviting destination to live and play to visit to play and to live because I think tourism is a big part leveraging those pieces to promote tourism certainly helps oh no I totally agree with you I just was inserting that not only visit us but also live here totally agree there's so much as a state capital to be a model community for the rest of the stage that's cute when you say model community I probably pile on everything we just I'm not as altruistic I want anything good for me and then if we're a model great well I think that competitive huh I think that part of that is that as the capital that we accept a leadership role in the state I think that that's important in what we're doing I don't know if that's true of all capitals some capitals I think are much more passive and they sort of take all the advantages of being the capital but they don't have the assertiveness that I think Montpelier got into just a real difference so let's think a little bit of what we do so we've talked about these are honestly some of these are still great vision students there's nothing wrong with that so what is it the city does what's our mission why is there a charter what are the we've got that survey I know it seems obvious we provide public safety services public safety we provide education road utilities water and sewer service these are all core missions that we do they sort of be a place you enjoy in the best of times like what Jennifer was saying but also in your most devastating times know that we're there for you like chief shop there if you have a health crisis or something we're going to be there responsible for you but that takes an organized entity so the entity has to be really organized within itself staff and its council and all of its committees so that without that organized body you can't do all these other things so I don't know how to put that in there but it seems like it's needed we keep track of give or take 20 million dollars of public money and records trust in the accountability piece that we have to do there's sort of one of the functions would be like stewardship of public goods which includes the roads includes the water but also I think there's a stewardship of public resources in general some of them maybe are planning our regulations that's how we do some of that it's through there and I think there's something to a couple things here in a row but there's something about facilitating the democratic process like we're we've said this is why we talked about engagement like we want people to be engaged and informed and participating we conduct elections that people can trust the outcome they trust the process and many people as possible can participate we keep land records and assessing records so those don't show up on visions but it's part of good government it's like the people to make sure we're taxing people on a fair basis people can look up their needs it's our responsibility it's part of our mission provide a whole range of public services excellent and professional and responsive way we also carry what our community members are talking to us about certainly bringing those those concerns and needs from our community members that we represent to the table giving them voice receptive and responsive to the voices of the community at the same time leading there's both once it's responsive and once saying we're also going to lead like the energy and the green and then pulling constituents with us that's leadership but your vision and you're trying to get your external authorizing environment to line up and then build the resources to do so I would also say you're saying that we need to have those resources so ensuring those resources are available and planning for them sustainability planning is important we're entrusted by the voters with the present and future of the city something about the accountability to ensure that public dollars are spent well do y'all feel good? this is a lot, it's robust there's one word I just haven't heard and maybe others somehow is that respectfully engage I think that's important I'll be quiet then lots of luck in that he's probably kicking again I got his chair he's a big guy I still mess with Donna so as you think about it you've talked about kind of where you want big picture where you want to see us go and then we talk about how we do what we do, what the government's role is and so then you're next as we go into the next step we'll be to talk about what we do to start moving to where we want to be because again it kind of goes to can't be all things to all people so how do we use what we have the authority to do and the ability to do and again we'll come back with drafts even if this ultimate is going to be reduced to sentences but to name some of these things just liven them up it's good for you to be thinking part of this to get you I'm actually just going through the departments in my head what is the mission I'm not really the one to say what the mission of that department is but letting departments sort of inspire some of these statements and one that I feel I could be more represented here is actually the community justice center and I know we said public safety but something about providing a space for maybe this is, I don't want to write phrases some of the guys you covered you talked about respectfully engaging you talked about people feeling safe to be here that's a lot of what they do it'd be nice somehow to mention mediation and social yeah or like justice center so again you're going to get they're all going to have a chance to to weigh in to Hollywood to develop their department priorities based on what they're learning you know in a sense I feel like they facilitate difficult conversations that's like that I think the only department I haven't heard really talked about at all is maybe our senior center and aging police sure you know y'all we do have an aging population in town I think they're covered in a lot of this the accessibility is really important there's certainly an aging community here too well there is certainly an element of providing resources thinking about the Meals on Meals program Feast I mean we often don't provide a lot of services like that but that we talked about in the vision about making things fun and affordable and some of those things when I see the senior center like the child care and like issues of homelessness go back under that partnership with the city state nonprofits and really doing more with that that we can integrate that thoroughly one of the things you didn't talk about I wish I thought of this when you were talking about vision and I'm not trying to push you to talk about this yeah yeah I'll go ahead and push we'll condition it Bill just say that we didn't talk about whether we wanted the city to grow you talked about what was great about the city oh yeah do we see it as being a larger city approximately the same size do we see it being more residential you know I mean we didn't and I know some of that's going to come up when we do the city play they're just kind of interesting we talked a lot about the character of the city and not actually what it might look or feel in terms of I think that's a great point my vision for what the city is like includes growth more people coming here more people being able to come here consistent with our within constraints of our sorry within constraints of our infrastructure we could still support more people than we have now we could easily go to 10,000 people and it would still be recognizably what it is now 20,000 I don't know 10,000 definitely okay so 10,000 is our mark if you're the 10,000 you can't that's a we can envision our city growing to a population of 10,000 then we can think about or not I don't see growth just for the sake of having full growth but we'll get into that when we talk about the specifics but just is that a vision that we see this as a place where more people living here in 10 years or 20 years part of that to me is also people of all ages and diverse demographic assuming we meet all the other people I mean that's I made a separate vision board for that we're good we need more hummus divers so we have been talking it is now 8 o'clock so it is break time and then we're going to jump right into goals and that will take us through the rest of the evening how long do you want us to take for a break 10 usually we go 10 10 okay so now we're going to get into sort of the meat of what I'd like to do today but I really think we're going to get you out of here by 10 at least or less greatest whatever we're going to manage this so what we're going to be talking about now is really the goals and so y'all have already established goals in our previous strategic planning processes but goals really are that how do we prioritize city funds it answers where do we want to be and what we want to do and what we want to accomplish as a city so that's a fun backdrop not scary at all so a lot of this we really do want to align with the city plan eventually that is the goal is to feed these annual strategic plans that y'all are creating into our larger infrastructure of the city plan there can be as many or as little overall goals that council would like but know that everything can't be an immediate priority so that's something to keep in mind while you're talking about these so what we're really talking about is short term medium and long term goals so short term goals are those low hanging fruits or quick wins that are pretty short in time period in three months those are what I suggest that you don't focus on because those are actions those are things that we can do to support your goals right if they're that easy to accomplish chances are we're already working on them to be perfectly frank the plan sweet spot to mean term goals that sort of can be accomplished in three months to three years right these are the things that you can see us with prioritization of budget getting done sooner than our city plan tie in which is where we want to eventually get y'all is these plans not only feed into what you see as priorities for that year so we can be quick and responsive as a community as an organization to serve our community but to also tie into our long term goals that are being created right now through our planning department in partnership with community outreach all of your committees etc so we're really creating a pyramid of our own with plants so it's pretty exciting to me but you know you don't have to take my advice on this one at all throughout whatever you want but I do believe that our plan sweet spots are that three month to three year time front time window so these are your six current strategic plan goals these are the six things out of the nine I believe you have that were included in your strategic plan because these are what a majority of you voted were most important for last year so this is what we spent our time and our prioritization on for the last strategic plan that included community prosperity COVID-19 response which gets back to my point about these being quick responsive plans responsive and responsible government sustainable infrastructure environmental stewardship and more housing so the things that you also had because remember you do have more goals than just that but the ones that didn't rise to that priority level for you included inclusive equitable and engaged community thoughtfully built plan thoughtfully planned built environment and public health and safety when I say that they were not prioritized in your strategic plan I do not mean that they were not important so I think that's another thing that we got to get to all of these goals carry equal weight and so this year we're sort of asking you to come up with all of this huge list and then at the end vote for the three things you think will be most impactful this year we as staff and we're just asking that you can say this is a bad idea you don't want to do it that's fine but this many of high priority goals were difficult to prioritize budgeting around right especially in the time of COVID COVID-19 was pretty much our number one focus and had a lot of our funding going through that in a time where we didn't have a lot of funding right so all of these things were competing to your highest priority so my goal and again pushback where needed is to have your council strategic plan goals be three high priority and then the rest of everything that you come up with right yep go for it and so one of the other things that I think might be helpful as we think about these things would be to look at these goals and think about them in terms of maybe adding an action verb on them so like we say sustainable infrastructure are we maintaining it or are we trying to get there what's our action verb are we completing because those also have different sense of severity so are we encouraging more housing are we going to and then think about maybe the title of the goal more housing could be 100 new McMansions affordable you know say a range of housing so I think as we get into the strategies below them we need to think about being clear about what they mean I mean we figure these all out and they all have statements to go with them just as I think about maybe having clear things and then I think just to set the stage are you already going to talk about strategies we were going to get there I know but I just wanted to so people are thinking yeah yeah sure so the next stage it would come after this would be strategies so I'm just going to pick on say responsive and responsible government so we say we want to have a responsible or maintain a responsible so strategies might be maintain transparency excellent communication treat our workers well you know whatever else they might be good fiscal management those kinds of things that's your strategies we'll come back and say then here's some activities that would support those and that's when pet projects like the new website or something like where that could go so we'll give some time at the end of the meeting to throw out ideas for actions and projects but then our staff is going to meet next week with what you come up with for goals and strategies and recommend you know put together how we think we can accomplish them and then you'll get a chance to look at that and say you either like these or we don't we'd rather substitute this or whatever so just so people are thinking the level thank you Bill you're welcome can I back up to some minute because I always associate the action verb with the strategy and not the goal and I know we constantly which is which well the goal is but so but whoa just to go back when you said then you wanted us to add action verbs but you also added you wanted us to add action verbs that lended to a sense of priority well what I just mean is you know look say like more housing are we facilitating more housing are we building more housing are we just creating more housing I thought they came under strategies correct me I'm just trying to I guess the goal is what are we trying to do and then the strategies are what are the types of things we would do to get there and then we talk about initiatives and actions with the specific things that would take to meet those as long as the ideas get down we'll take it from there so I don't want you to get hung up on not sharing ideas just because so the questions that we're proposing to you tonight are those goals that we just listed these ones still feel appropriate do they still resonate with you what would you like to change about them or would you like to add take away more etc these are the other plans that we've got going on just I just don't want them to be forgotten in our ultimate goals I know a lot of y'all sit on these committees that have come up with some of these plans so this could be those actions that we start talking about too is make sure the downtown master plan or the net zero plan that's a strategy to create what we had earlier which is the goal of environmental stewardship right we just want to keep those in mind while we're moving forward that those do exist and we don't want to be in conflict with those that's something that staff will also be looking at to give you the sort of initiatives to accomplish your goals we'll be looking at these as well so our goal for tonight is brainstorming new or continued ideas for your fiscal year 2023 strategic plan goals so this can take as little or as long as you would like I'm going to keep it on this slide while we talk about it so you already kind of know what your goals are I think this one I think the homework assignment was to think of these so I think people have come with lists so instead of just free yelling them maybe we'll just go in a circle I guess I'm feeling like there's a lot of different things on the radar right now one task that I feel like I heard was come up with action verbs for these strategies you do not have to first decide if those are the goals you want and how you state them the second thing I heard was which of these things are your top three and the third thing I heard was like of the lists of like the actiony things that like I hope that we do what are they so what I would like to do for this part of this is for us to brainstorm any new things that you would like to add to this I will be writing them down and then we'll be writing down these ones and then we're going to be putting sticky dots next to them we'll just discuss and decide if I think they still resonate or whatever a voting process will go through them right because I think we could come up with like 40 goals if we sat around and thought about it we just want to make sure that they're all represented well so also I just want to jump in with them I feel like we could potentially get weighed down with the verb like that yeah let's not worry about the verb we'll suggest the verb yeah sorry no thanks we'll worry about the verb sorry you've been wanting to say something it just seems to me that we have two on this second list that really belong like inclusive equitable that belongs over in responsive and responsible government to me and likewise thoughtful plan bill belongs in sustainable infrastructure and many people don't want them more condensed but to me that seems that they sit there and literally responsive and responsible government also includes public health and safety but maybe you don't want to reduce it so just for background this group was I think initially done three years ago when we first had Julia here and the council sat at that time and then we kind of stuck with them since then and just modified them a little bit so three years later we get some difference in the council is this still where you want to be so I think that's it you're not weighed down by prior group's decisions unless you choose to be secondly there's a difference somebody asked me about this today so thoughtfully planned built environment really was intended to mean buildings in the public so whether it was our planning projects or I think at the time of course the hotel and parking garage we're part of that thinking things the city builds are they meeting the look and feel of the community versus sustainable infrastructure which had to do are our roads going to last for a long time are they climate resilient so it was sort of our own water and sewer pipes and our drains and those kinds of things so they were intended to be set to things that have to be but they really weren't the same thing and I think at least at the time maybe it was council member Hill at the time who really wanted the inclusive equitable and engaged community separated out and that's ultimately what led to the social justice committee sort of master I know I was around at that time I was partly doing this review for everyone else but like the sustainable infrastructure as Jack reminded me we're talking about buildings as well as roads and the buildings and the infrastructure is also our parks and our riverways things that we want to do the right way so that's why I would suggest those first to get moved over the third maybe to keep it by itself but that's just a suggestion I would vote on it however you all want to do it so just to be clear sorry you're suggesting that thoughtfully planned built environment be a part of sustainable infrastructure sustainable infrastructure okay then the broad sense of infrastructure anything we build and maintain parks so I guess again just to make sure we're clear thoughtfully plan built environment also to do the city didn't like private buildings and our zoning and planning so that's not the same as city buildings the infrastructure that we sustain so if you want to lump those together that's fine but they were meant to be slightly different I think of the thoughtfully planned built environment the emphasis being on planned which in my mind is about the planning department so you could also change that I mean that could be another goal as something separate like sustainable planning planning that fits our community like that could be another goal entirely so you were not wed to these by any means we're doing ongoing work in these buckets but like just as Bill has described in the iceberg a lot of that work is not necessarily the things that are going to be aligning with your goals are just necessary work to complete our jobs right and so the things that we're trying to get you to think about here these like larger goals if the goal of thoughtfully planned built environment really sticks to you with that planning maybe the goal should be renamed or reimagine to fit things more like you know refining our planning processes or a goal should be you know planning as a response to community need or whatever or fill out your vote in this circumstance you know so I'd love to you know if you have other I'm just sort of rambling here but if you had anything that you were going there with that I was just going to say the reason I combine them is I think the goals are like having a red thread and a purple thread and a blue thread and that everything that comes after those have predominantly that gold in mind whether it's the private owned building or the city building that there's an assessment going on that's going to have this one color of a gold going through it even though it has many different departments or strategies I just find having as many goals we've had is to be not I can't grasp them I read the list every time and I say really so I like to simplify our goals so that we have this thread going through all the stuff that then becomes strategies that's just me that leads up to what I was going to say maybe which is as I look at this list now thoughtfully planned built environment I'm not sure exactly what it means but the other thing I think is that rather than being I often go back and say that when we went through this the last time or the last couple of times one of the elements of this was there are certain things that city departments and city staff are going to do just because that's what they do even if we don't say this is our free art we don't have to tell the fire department that your goal is to put out fires because that's good that's the center of those consensual circles when I think of thoughtfully planned built environment the planning department and the planning commission and all the departments are already engaged in working on producing components that are going to go into the master plan and that is zoning ordinances, master plan all that stuff is what we do to develop a thoughtfully planned built environment I'm suggesting maybe we don't need that to be one of our goals that's a core function of city government than a goal for the council do you think we need to get more specific in terms of goals well no, I'm just saying strike that off the list because if we're going to have certain there's only so much attention that we have to go along going around and likely in the next year you're going to be dealing with the master plan of the city plan that's going to be on your table desk probably on February maybe March somewhere in there so some of your work in the next year will be that's going to happen whether you put it on the list do you think this document is a communication to folks it's important to set aside that like COVID-19 is still up here look around the room we're all wearing masks it's a worldwide pandemic we had like a million dollars cut from our budget and there's nothing more personal than like a shot in the arm so ensuring that everybody's safe and healthy during this worldwide pandemic which has potentially go like past and sick but like breakdown supply change find people out of work it's kind of all encompassing so I would just like kind of separate it from other stuff like not necessarily business as usual but just to communicate that to folks so that's a good point whether it needed to be on there not because it's obviously not still an issue but last year at this time when we were doing this we were talking about what can we do to prop up our businesses and all those kinds of things and that was before we do anything about PPPs and the loans and all these other things you know it was and so I think some of that's taking care of itself maybe the partner so you know I think where it's really come down to us is how we manage rules for employees and kind of let the state set the big policy so the question is do we need to spend when we talk about that three weeks of council work is that something we're going to spend a lot of obviously we're going to do this but is that part of your 125 hours to spend a lot of time on COVID-19 as a council or is that a public an activity under public health and safety that we will be making good decisions about there's also the thing a lot of what Bill and I talked about the COVID-19 response a lot of the things are still ongoing under that you know that we saw in your report by the end of the year is the economic development side of that how do we take advantage of those loans how do we communicate those loans to our business owners so to me that made a lot of sense is some of the public health and safety part of it honestly it comes down to y'all putting masks mandates into place but the strategies for COVID-19 all right now are around economic development which is what community prosperity used to be is economic development those words changed three years ago I think it's just two thoughts on that I mean I do so like we're pretty fortunate being able to say like through QVP and the expanded unemployment benefits and like some of that's drying up now so and you know the pandemic is not ending anytime soon as far as we know so I think we're still going to have to be prioritizing and it might shift like I think the federal programs are going to be changing and different opportunities and different state opportunities so I still think something in that vein I mean part of it to me would be like how is my failure positioning itself to take advantage of the state COVID money and so maybe COVID response could be some different things this year than it meant last year where it was really and I also hope maybe Connor talked about somebody talked about like how we're more disaster ready and you know like what are the lessons learned like okay we had to stand up this response we did you know there was like the mutual aid groups and this and that we're recapturing that so we're better prepared next time like I hope that's part of what we're doing too so to me that would be like COVID like readiness and learning and so somehow I think it still needs to be there but I think it'll look different this year how do you feel about moving it into like a strategy under either public health and safety or community prosperity or would you rather it still remain out separate you could say it touches anything right you could fit almost under anything here that's why I'm just thinking like like don't take it out but like almost highlighted you know living it's a lens do you think there's a goal that's not on there that ought to if I had a proposal I could make it fit under one of those things I'd be telling you guys this fits exactly with like sustainable infrastructure and actually you only voted on housing we had more later nice definition to me because I'm like environmental stewardship like I mean to me would be like a clean healthy environment like I'd rather make them something to people like the same way we're like we came up with these words I was there and built environment and no one knows what the heck it means so that's not great communication with the public so I almost think either it's just maybe we even had like cool sentences describing we do have sentences but like when wanting them to be kind of short sweet to like point to but maybe even thinking about are there better ways to describe them like I work in the environmental field and like environmental stewardship like I would just never say that I don't even know what that I'm not in that field and I relate to it as a more relatable way of being careful of our resources and our energy and being green and access and all of that all of that yes to me it's like well it's less about you know at some point it's get all the activities and what we put them under it's good to guide us but sure you can split hairs which one it goes it goes under so that's where I was at with the verbs is it promote environmental stewardship practice environmental stewardship engage in support they're just words but they do kind of shade how we then set our strategies so is there any terms that you would use about the environment that would satisfy? I'm just thinking more descriptive like clean healthy water and clean energy like what are we actually doing under that let's just say what it is just like broad stewardship but I think that also might cover our parks and stuff I don't want to get into strategies but I'm just no but I think that's what you're having so I think once we hit the organ we're going to have another one maybe one of your strategies I think almost for all of them so maybe we can do a straw poll I thought we were going to list our three well we're going to do those after you get the strategies because we don't want to know what they included we sort of summarize so maybe I can get a good idea of where you're at with these thumbs up and thumbs down on community prosperity it's majority thumbs COVID-19 response I'm sorry am I only voting for three right now? no no no you're voting for her do they stay in or stay or do you like them okay they don't this there's no limit right now okay all right maybe I'll restart then community prosperity all right COVID-19 response okay question mark I'm going to put a question right here COVID because we respond to everybody else when it comes to COVID-19 responsive and responsible government more housing all right environmental stewardship word smithing aside okay sustainable infrastructure inclusive equitable and engaged community I put it over there okay thoughtfully planned I don't know if we had I didn't see all the thumbs we're here and I was about to write it down because we didn't get a lot of thumbs so I'm going to put it in the question column I'm just going to write the word inclusive I'm not going to write all that thoughtfully planned built environment oh there are no thumbs Mike's going to do it public health and safety okay so that puts a couple ones up for for further conversation around so when we're looking at our COVID-19 response there was maybe some hesitation because we feel like it could fall in other places and that's fair you know the way that we've been doing strategies around COVID-19 like Lauren says there are grant readiness after action learning and our coup plans right so now we have to and our local hazard mitigation plan right under public health and safety that's where all of those things are being captured like how we've done our active or after action what lessons we've learned how we're integrating this into our coup plans which is continue I'm just very late for me it's just a plan that we have for continuity of operations see I remembered and then and then we also have that fitting in a couple different places as well so maybe maybe you don't need the COVID-19 one if you feel like it's accurately captured what you're looking for in your strategies I agree with that I think that at this stage of the pandemic we don't need to be setting policies at the council level for what we're going to do we think we know what we're going to do but then we put a lot of reliance on the nationals in the departments to make it happen and to manage it well and that takes it out of the council and that definitely again doesn't mean that we're not going to be responsive to any changes those will immediately come to you all for your awareness it just might mean that some of the things that we have been putting money towards like partitions and other things that aren't necessarily recommended anymore that's not maybe you're saying that's not quite your priority for spending mostly because we've already spent that I mean I'd like to convey in this document that we're on top of COVID I might be in the minority here I don't trust the state always I was proud when we came out before the state did with the mask mandate I think they're wrong making each school district do this by themselves and it's a school district decision but I think that we will be assertive on our own here not just relying on them but a decision led by staff good but like when a bunch of people are laid off what are we going to do about COVID if it comes back again I think it touches everything so much that it deserves to be almost separate from this it's almost a different train of thought as far as thinking into the future and roll with the punches with what COVID deals us next because we don't know and I think that leads us to our capacity and resources to sort of have our own unemployment program much as we think they would be great it sort of goes back to where's our mission what's our capacity so how do we support these other programs and what can we do I think we ran into that last year oh we want to help all these businesses we were getting millions of dollars but we did through the parklets we supported them in those ways exactly what I could envision Connor just to try to help you out here is we develop our strategic plan and maybe in the introductory statement we acknowledge that we are operating under you know in this pandemic era and that everything we do is colored by COVID-19 or put it up front and that's how I sort of feel about community prosperity all these other things we don't have the staff or money to make economic development that's a question at one point that was a high priority it was economic development activities and then I think it got broadened to be all prosperity for all people how does that look once upon a time that was economic development how much are we going to increase our budget frugality great because that keeps us more affordable yep so I think but again, it's up to you how you want to but that's why I didn't vote for it and that's why or the COVID I think they're integrated elsewhere and then you can decide if you want to change names of it too let me ask a question about that because in whether we call it community prosperity for instance the city worked really hard and spent a lot of time working with Caledonia spirits to get them here and the city council voted to devote capital resources to making that happen I don't know what the next thing like that is going to be but I think that the city should be doing that kind of thing whether it's something that should council level policy so this is not a question well so I would say yes that is definitely because when we come to do the budget whether obviously we used to have a private nonprofit that did that down we don't so we've got to figure out how to go forward that money is in abeyance right now because of COVID but if we go forward if that's a priority or a goal then how are we going to implement that or is it something again it tells us if that's not a top thing that the council wants to do then we may just say hey go see the planning department you're on your own or hey we can step up to really help because that's something that's important so we're allocating limited resources too Bar Hill came to us Caledonia spirits came to us and then well ultimately they really did look at the flavor of Montpelier and then Jamie put a lot of time Jesse put a lot of time on that as assistant city manager and that we decided to let her do that dedicate that time but we weren't having a staff focused on doing just that I think definitely your ears are open but I think that's different than if we become our own economic development council then we need to then look at staff are we going to dedicate a staff to that so I'm saying it's indirect that if we do or do diligence as a government in a city people will want to come here and then we can look at each situation as they come up and say now we'll dedicate more extra time for this that's I guess how I feel about it versus setting time aside now well so we can get to the strategies I mean right now I think it's in right there were everyone else voted for it right I don't know if Jay voted and I didn't see them these are the only ones that didn't have their majority okay so the question is do we keep the wording so maybe we focus on these three again so you know we talked about this you came up with a lot of really great strategies and actions that can be put maybe under some other positions unless you want to keep this one like readiness making sure that we're being leaders and assertive with don't worry about words with these things making sure that we're after action plans we're trapping mandates we're being proactive with mandates etc supporting businesses with things like parklet programs so and then I will also add our local hazard mitigation plan which does talk about infectious diseases so there's a few things there that you've talked about strategies and actions that can fit under full host of things or still COVID-19 response depending on how y'all feel I like Bill's idea though I think that could be encompassed in a statement to take this off okay so otherwise it would be under the public health some of them will be and some of them won't specific activities will show up where they belong readiness could be under community prosperity and these could be under public safety that parklets and other supporting of small businesses could also be under community prosperity so there's a whole different host of places that y'all want to keep that those things could find a home no problem so COVID-19 as goal thumbs up for now will include it as a preamble without like just as a goal not as a preamble or anything but if you want to include it as a goal still thumbs up or down alright so that one is gone and it's going to integrate itself into other places so that's doing a good job so inclusive equitable and engaged community we haven't really touched on that one a lot and I will say that under because it wasn't it was in department work plans only I think this one really stuck most of the work was under my work plan and the city manager's office work plan about work with the social and economic justice advisory committee and creative discourse that's really what a lot of this one came down to there were some you know we could talk about there's other things that could go under that like our homelessness response but that could also go under public health and safety so there's a whole lot of other things that could go there or could find other homes and that work could go under response and response right exactly because right now we've gotten our equity report and now it's time for us as staff to integrate that into everything that we do right we've gotten recommendations how do we start pulling those recommendations and putting them into action and not just a report right so well they're probably still at this stage we've got recommendations we have not as a council said yes out of these 10 recommendations we agree with 6 we kind of agree with 2 and we don't agree with 2 we haven't done that and that seems like that's part of what we're doing as a responsible responsive government so just looking I just pulled up the equity report and the consultant recommendation I mean a lot of it really is I think for like the next phase the accessibility of city government so that's like language access I mean it's a lot of like physical access it's looking into things like stipends which we've talked about before so they get more accessible for people to serve so I mean maybe if we add accessible response and responsible government at least getting at that I think and then the other sweet recommendations were like bond enforcement related which I think would clearly go under public health and safety and maybe there's some we had some like verbiage in the vision that was maybe part of our goal maybe it's a verb or something that is getting at like how we're delivering our public health and safety we had a good phrase for public safety service what if I like this idea of like adding a word to the like responsive and responsible government doesn't start with the letter R but I mean accessible is one but I also kind of I'm wondering about the word equitable because I feel like it's a little broader but it would include accessible happy to be wrong about that but there's an idea and because I feel like that's an important sentiment a value more than than a city goal exactly maybe it'll show up in our yeah I feel like it's important to capture that sentiment I feel like if we can include that word in responsible and responsive government maybe add the word equitable or even if we just say like it's a part of it or if it's built into the vision it just needs to be similar I think you're right that if you do all of these other goals to accomplish your vision you will inevitably have an inclusive and equitable community I think the engaged part what Lauren was saying was really important and making sure that's captured maybe under the responsible government if that's what y'all are thinking that would be accessible I wrote down some of your actions and strategies that are coming out of this conversation as well and so that's a thought I think the engaged piece is really important I just don't want to lose sight of that because my concern is is and I don't want to be like worse if I think you're like certainly getting into that but you know with responsive responsive is just passive and what we want to do is be proactive and engage our community and engage government I like that I just want to I feel like we need to we need to own that and this is on us to engage in an equitable way but that's very fair I think that's one of our challenges with our communications is we rely on too many channels that aren't equitable and I have thoughts about how we can fix that but that's the next set of pieces of paper but I do think coming back to Bill's notion of verbs like this is where we need to be when we're setting our goals so I like Bill's idea we're talking about getting into this one and changing it to responsible and engaged government I like that with that statement in mind yeah, thumbs up to scrapping this verbiage and changing this verbiage and sort of moving the things into space okay, wonderbar so now we're down to thoughtfully planned Bill's environment which again I do think a lot of that is very planning heavy it is that was basically Mike's department just put it out no, no, it's losing our staff are you seeing our staff well the thing that gets me about that one is like the thoughtfully doesn't really mean anything like that could mean anything but the yeah well, thoughtfully was supposed to be that you had a standard well, it didn't get a majority when you first went around scrapping all right, well certainly like you said a lot of what Mike's group does and his team does is involved in almost everything because planning is a central core of one of our core functions, right so it's fun yeah yeah, I'm trying to think of like is there any reason to have something around planning is our work going to be involved in planning it will be but it could be under some of these other things I think, you know if you really have something about planning it would kind of go back to when we talked about the vision or the mission of growing you really want to set a goal of counsel's goal is to plan for a growing city that's different than thoughtfully this is something we want to see and so now we're going to make policies and things that address that that's a different kind of state of planning and built environment and I guess in my head it is it does come back to these other things like if it's planned and built environment that's about development then that's really community prosperity if it's thoughtful because it is considering environmental concerns that's environmental stewardship if it's thoughtful because it's you know because we're just trying to build more housing you know like it's all the ways that I can think of thoughtfully planned built environment playing out I think it could fit elsewhere under multiple things it's thoughtful because we want a built environment but we don't want to want it to look like those acres of identical housing right, yes yeah, that's fair great so we dropped yeah, that's really good yeah, so that looks really good and so sort of what the next part of that was to take the strategies from those goals so what I would like us to do is just to maybe 5 minutes so I can write these things in a legible way so that we we can look at what this actually means for what your goals are right now so if you don't mind we're taking a break small break for me to just write things so we're not just all staring at me while I write things, thank you we've already sort of discussed what some strategies that you may have for some of these goals would be so like again we talked about like encouraging new businesses infrastructure that is a strategy to accomplish community prosperity we talked about maybe economic development staff member that could be a strategy also to go back to community prosperity we talked about creative discourses equity recommendations that could fit into a responsible engaged community right so these are all strategies and actions that you all have been thinking about and brainstorming already so strategies are generalities on how to support your goals that you just came up with right there is one of our things that we sort of reworked that I use as an example is how do we maintain clear communication right what are our strategies to make sure that we have clear communication if that is a strategy that you all want to look at it's up to us and the staff to tell you here's how we would do that do you like this plan yes no and also if you have suggestions this is going to be a collaborative process you remember last year we brought to you initiatives and plans this is us asking you to help us prioritize what you want before we enter our budget process before we start figuring out what the next year's planning will be and what we'll look like we're going to take your recommended strategies and propose initiatives and actions I'm sorry propose initiatives and actions to help implement those strategies so you weren't here I did have COVID I don't have COVID I am still in long-term recovery so what I really like us to do is spend some time really thinking about each one of these and do as many what strategies this is a time if you have a project or something that you'd really like to see within this plan now would be the time to talk about it right our planning director I want to call it Mike really talk to us about who just left of course talked about making sure strategies evoke one of these three things what do you want to do with this goal do you want to maintain what we have currently do you want to evolve and move forward what we do currently or do you want to transform it entirely right so those are good things to keep in mind when you're brainstorming your strategies to accomplish these goals so again this is something that staff is able to help with if this is we're coming up blank but I know not one of you is going to come up blank for things you want to see done to accomplish these goals right so this is what we want to hear we want to hear ideas on how you would like to see us move forward community prosperity so with that in mind number one what kind of strategies do you see I mean you've definitely already started on some of those and do you want you know is this a maintenance of evolution or transformation staff member for economic development that might be a strategy or and using one of those verbs does it need to be in relationship to the other goals it would be it would be direct to this goal let's pick a different one sustainable infrastructure we just want to keep doing what we're doing do we want to just evolve it more or are we going to share the thing down and do something so not all of your goals have to fix that so like if you say this is new right this is transformative we don't have an economic development staff member not every strategy that you have for community prosperity has to be transformative these are just suggestion words to think about so I wonder if like said Donna said one thing at the beginning I'd like to see the city be more involved in like social services right I think like a statement like that warrants a conversation before we get into this and I think it's a on the homelessness task force for my sins I don't think we're necessarily getting clear direction from the homelessness task force which we said today if you give us proposals we need a budget we need to know like who's providing the services we need to know where it is we need to know like how is it going to happen here or it's going to be tough for us to make a decision but I also think we need to give them some direction too because the things on the table are everywhere from you know we need another Darden park out there it's just going to cost like 5 or 10 K to at Norwich had a pretty good presentation on a two and a half million dollar warming shelter so like you know I think we owe them to say okay what level of social services are we going to provide are we going to throw some hotel vouchers on there are we going to like work with community partners to have like staffing around the clock 24-7 to make up for homeless shelters it's like a big conversation and I feel like it's hard to like come up with actual examples of that until we have a collective conversation like that what is like providing more social services like look like right I would like more of that well like I said in the beginning don't fight every battle this might be one is determine set a goal or strategy to determine a level of human services involvement the city wants to take on and set that for a future like you said that can be a whole meeting I'd like to do that sir I'm going to put a number two next to that for the maybe responsible engaged commitment to community I don't know unless you want it to go under community prosperity camera time but I would think we'd just take one goal and take strategies for that right I just don't want that to go away okay yeah I know wouldn't that be under community prosperity whatever too many cooks level of social services just on that point so I think that would be a really good bigger picture discussion that has you know I don't think that we have clarity amongst ourselves around that I do just just wanted to note that for example I know like the report the police review committee we have two recommendations of increasing staffing for peer support workers for mental health care support work and street outreach peer support work so that's an example of more social services that we that group is going to be recommending to be invested in it's like starting to move in that direction in line with the vision but it's not like how far are we looking to go with this which I think would be a good bigger picture but just noting I think there's going to be some of those ideas coming out either later tonight or are part of the like so that's a you know the whole thing about social services, human services I mean that is really a classic to say it's a great policy discussion because do you want to maintain kind of how do you want to evolve it to something a little more or do you say this is transformative, we're going to suddenly create resources and capacity to deliver human services on some level and then to a level level right we need to be honest we just need to be honest I think like if we say okay you know this is the state's responsibility we should have no role in it, we should just say it you know I'm not saying that is the way to go so at the risk of being another cook in the kitchen I I don't know do you all have lists of like things of ideas, no okay, because I do and I'm worried about like I have 17 things on my list and some of them are like more detail they're more action level than this and I'm well to be perfectly honest with you the way I anticipated this part of this going is that we just start yelling out stuff y'all want to do and then staff can come back and look at where do we think this fits into the protocols that we already have and the work that we already have going what goal does that fall under that's kind of what I was hoping for is I kind of just want to like spit out my whole list and I can say maintain, evolve, transform not now okay this one goes under community prosperity but this one goes under public health and safety do you know what I mean like alright I realize that is less organized again that's fine I guess yeah if we worry about the semantics so far away I don't I apologize for cutting off the conversation about specifically community prosperity that might be fruitful in itself okay well I'm going to say a whole bunch of things okay and recognizing that you know we're going to talk about them everyone may not agree and that's okay okay explore conservation efforts around Berlin pond establish an infant zero through five year old child care program vested interest here I don't know oh my god I said exactly the same thing a year ago you were planning you were planning okay okay we've kind of said this but figure out our economic development strategy whether that's a person an employee or an outside entity is that outsourced and popular alive is that internal we just need to have that conversation I would like to this is more around budget stuff but either plan to bond for net zero plan implementation or merely start with engineering studies consider funding options like potentially bonding around Confluence park and the possibility of dam removals we have to do this anyway so this probably doesn't rise to the level of what to do with the remaining $50,000 that we we can skip that okay we're going to we need to consider stormwater utility that's maybe that was already going to happen anyway explore all ages child care from 8am to 5pm to match work hours we need to follow up on the home energy information ordinance consider bonding or revisioning the plan for the wreck building there needs to be website improvement I'd like to see increased coordination nope increase coordination with the CAN network I'd like us to consider our role in the future of 5 Home Farm way also apparently I had some duplicative ones in here it's not 17 that's great so I don't have anything more specific in this but I'm calling it it should not be called this the housing I'd like to consider I was going to call it the poly nickel housing initiative plan but it's not poly nickel it's the housing task force I'd like to explore options from the housing task force plan yeah not the poly nickel plan okay done thank you I really see this as an opportunity to hear these things for staff a lot of these things staff has been considering or working on something akin to this hearing that these are the things you want to see in your plan allows us to have a more robust plan to give back to you for feedback and prioritization your assignment somehow we can figure out maybe it'll just be when the drop comes back a process by which we decide if everyone's on board right so last year we did a really good like I think zoom allowed us to do a really good voting system for that that we'll probably put back in place so that's the next step for us to figure out I have a couple yeah so excuse me I buy a pop community center a lot of us don't have anywhere to gather for ceremonies or other things and it's lovely that the church is in town will offer spaces but for some of us we don't have a good relationship historically and just having a space that could be usable for many different cultural events we know what we need and it's lacking I know that's another thing and then I work for the Family Center of Washington County and I'm a homeless family advocate so having more affordable because that could mean a lot of different things sustainable housing for folks that have experienced homelessness or are precariously housed we can throw money in all kinds of vouchers but if people don't have the systems in place to help support them through that process and keeping them on a good path they're not going to stay home for very long so is this really housing support services probably I have housing support those services on my list some more okay Anne hit on a bunch of my Natsuhiro and Lenny and acting on the police review committee recommendations acting on our equity plan recommendations and continuing the next phase better roads prioritizing our roads and I keep speeding the drone but all our infrastructure is climate ready so I don't know exactly what this looks like but being ready to take advantage of federal and state money as possible maybe this is the year we send some of our 700,000 to have some of the appropriations like to be at both having the resources to like be in the room and advocating for ourselves to get with money and being having like the plans and the structure in place that we can act on it and the timelines that we need to and some of this has to be spent in the years I know it's hard to like turn on the dime and be like let's do this big infrastructure project we weren't planning on so I think hopefully like thinking as creatively as possible about what we could front load restroom facilities listening to us kind of saying like having a more better plan and acting on it touching on what you were talking about about this plan which is our position I guess I'll just add to a few things only because there's a lot of pieces of paper going on but maybe I'll add a little more detail to some of my thinking of what we're talking things that have been brought up around communication I think what we need to do is create channels and methods of communication that are equitable and accessible and owned by us that complement other channels of communication thoughts about how we can do that I think that relying on too many external platforms to get our message out doesn't necessarily need that responsible and engaged community goal that we have you know and mention bonding for Confluence Park but I would sort of broaden that a fair amount to say that we should prioritize the space both near and in our rivers for economic development and environmental stewardship reasons I think a lot of that relies on a relationship with the state and the land that they own in the city and what are their long-term plans and how is it used and how much of it is paved it's tied in the stormwater it gets really nuanced pretty quickly but I do think that that's like a broader picture that we should approach studying the removal or being involved in researching the potential and what it would mean to remove the Bailey Street Dam is a perfect example where there's contaminated soils upstream from that it's not really serving a purpose but these things take a lot of time so starting these first steps I think even beyond the Confluence Park in our conversations I think now is important to get those pieces moving Cameron that's not a bullet point at all I'm so sorry those are two under bullet points but I do think having that broader perspective is really important and thinking about the relationship that we have with the rivers and the contaminated soils that are in those rivers I think that's really important to echo what Lawrence said I look at grant readiness relative to COVID but I think it's like that ship is sailed relative to COVID I mean the unemployment is done it ended last week will there be more who knows but what may be coming should hopefully will be coming infrastructure bill and that is in a couple different phases I think being prepared like you said and ready to ready to engage in that process I think is really important and I do think trying to be turning it around a little bit to be a little more specific I do think it would be it came up in our last meeting but prioritizing with you not just saying the roads need to be better but I think it's really important from an engagement perspective and safety and all these things that we task hopefully can task DPW to create a long term plan so that we're not just playing whack-a-mole over and over again and I'm talking about the roads I understand that what's under the roads is a couple different things but how can we look at paving and having a plan and really communicating that to people so that it's not just a constant it's never there's a sense that it's just never going to get better and I think if we had a plan and evaluated appropriately for it that it would go a long way and I think that it goes hand in hand with what potentially could be other infrastructure grant funds that could come through this federal money et cetera and I'll just add a check mark to supporting what Alec and what Dan at Montpelier Live are doing around supporting the recreation economy in our city as an economic driver because I think that we are, like I've said before, uniquely situated here because we have such a strong downtown we may not have a sea mountain out our back door but we have a great downtown that people can come back to at night and that's a real selling point and I think a lot of businesses are seeing that as a reality so supporting that effort as well so not quite 17 but you know I tried I can write a little few more I think rather than like specific staffer for economic development consider a range of options for it like okay here's three ways you can go that'd be a pretty good discussion to have one of which could be a staffer but I think there's a number of ways we can do that and as part of that I think we really need to look to aggressively this be a separate bullet attract a couple more anchor businesses in town here you know like losing Nicky is a blow and you know we have ideas it's like wouldn't it be great if we could bring Vermont law school here we're just looking at Burlington but then I don't think we have anybody to like follow through at this point and like have those discussions so having that kind of discussions it's some of my businesses to come that benefit working families I hate that people have to go to Walmart or something to buy a pair of shoes for their kids like you know I don't know how you actually put that but do you have businesses in Florida that we're going to do so that's a couple economic development ones I looking at vacancies in town I don't know what they look like right now as far as an average city center but looking for ways we can fill up storefronts I think and I think I would have like floated vacancy tax before that might be too extreme with COVID going on but things like that how do we fill up the air drain rate it's a time to be provocative we need to take a closer look at micro transit I think and how it's functioning I think the concept is fantastic that you know we can pick up folks who have accessibility issues up a town hill road and bring them right to their doctor's appointment but right now you go in the app and it's like two hours wait and like people aren't using it so why aren't they using it you know what can we do to pressure AOT and other departments to give the resources or give resources ourselves to make sure that's a successful program because it's you know I think looking at staffing levels in every department some of this probably goes we're going to have bad outcomes unless we have a full police force here like that's how bad stuff happens and forget like coffee with a cop and interact and develop a beat and a rapport with people and I think we're probably at a bad place with staffing levels there similar like with DPW we can throw all the money in the world and say like fix the roads but if we don't have the people to do it that's a problem in itself so staffing levels up and down there let's throw in a fun one just to finish I dropped the ball on this a few years ago but I think we should have a sister city that gives us a cultural exchange with an international city for our kids like let's do something fun only if it's a city that has scooters listen I wrote them scooters and deleted it but I don't think it's going away forever now we got jerseys for month of year I've lived and worked in a scooter project city and it is a nightmare I lived in one for a month and it was the best thing that ever happened it was land up in rivers land up in trees you know the history of scooters here I don't even know if I want to get into the history of scooters okay okay yep yep yep it was the best thing that ever happened to us we don't have to agree with everything that's said it's down to us I wrote down scooters we get to vote later I'm going to be looking if he doesn't put a doubt on it are you ending with scooters? I'm going to end with scooters okay I really think it's important that this when I talked about partners for holistically human services with multi-ages and needs I'm really thinking about having somebody consider the table to offer a token financial carrot and staffing so we have somebody around the table with all these regional groups that have so far not gotten this anywhere with any what I call temporary housing and that I really feel we need a temporary housing facility with services that's a real regional partnership with all the community cities and the nonprofits and the state but we can't have it I don't feel unless we have the right person at the table and I don't expect our committees to do that I think we really need a professional there who knows what they can offer and be credible at the table so that's how I was approaching that as multi-services and not just temporary housing but from there lead into other things like childcare, senior centers just all sorts of stuff once we have a presence there but I think as much as I resisted us being a social service provider that we ultimately will have to put our staffing and our money there to make it happen that I think there's a real shift that an order for us to do that in a holistic way and a regional way so we're not carrying the full load so from that then I think we really need to also go into the public safety regionally and really commit to being a partner there and I think there's a lot happening that's already there but I'd like to see that stronger I definitely want to see restrooms God do I want to see restrooms and I'm with that I really I mean I used to unpack when my kids were young six months in Europe and you could pay a dime to take a shower you know bathrooms they were all over the place and so it just seems that we could do something not only with a public restroom for toilets but have one or two showers there I think that we've underutilized the transit system and I'm afraid that because of pandemic we won't ever see what it could be the outside space alone by the shared youth path could really utilize so that takes me to the Confluence Park I want us to really be more active in that partnership definitely remove the dams Root and Park should be moved it should be moved it should be moved and that we really also by the same token I feel we've backed off our city guys who have meant to get parks throughout the whole town that means across the river and when I say city parks I'm especially thinking of parents with young kids and seniors so they have a place to sit but also a topic and have simple places to play whether that's just sand things to climb on it can be very minimal and be very very helpful and so along with that not only do I want parks everywhere but I want to pick up what the parks commission and Alex wants to do is making the parks at destination that the city definitely needs to redo that website and just want to shake it up until I go on it and I can't imagine how any residents find anything because I certainly can't and that with that we really become serious about marketing our parks I mean we've gone away I think just advanced so much with more trails connecting the fight fat fat bikes fat bikes the fat bikes have really been successful and that we need to really market it by the same token sorry Alex we still don't have the signage that we need and so they don't think people yet get that the North Branch is really a conservation path that's why we ask dogs to be in a leash that aren't because we don't want the wildlife to stir and if dogs are in a leash and people stay on the path believe it or not the wildlife adapts and doesn't leave so I really really like to see us to get back to that mission the other thing is community events of the multi-age community events I love Earth Day so Halloween I don't know what it's called volunteer there and that's the most multi-age I think of anything I've seen but I'd like to see things that are not just kid based that they're really multi-age based which means they have to be accessible to people who can't walk along ways or stand on their own and all that kind of physical as well as mental endurance that there's a way to make things more short term that both kids temperament and could get through let's see what else I have here go go go go yeah I just have to say one word DPW has made all sorts of plans for the roads and life happens they've never been able to do it and if it's not the money disappearing it's mother nature knocking us off our block so I think that indeed we can do another plan and they are working on it and that's one thing that I think has been unfortunate is that the capital improvement plan committee hasn't meant and the first time that most of this council has really seen about pavement and the index was the previous meeting council that they did presentation on but that committee sat there and made road priorities but then you'd have a break then you'd have this freeze thaw the highways crumbling the technology is so limited and it's like we got pavement and everybody sort of then backed off and kept not improving the technology so it's so frail I mean it's amazing all this traffic we just assume this pavement but it's not durable it's just not and so I think we have to accept that and I think Zack really was trying to get that across in the five year life of a road can you imagine that millions of dollars five year life but that's the reality so I just feel like we need to educate ourselves in our community so much better about things like that and keep offering it again again the presentations they do a council do it elsewhere whether it's about the roads or whether it's about every all of our business when we really see that there's a lot of I'm gonna call cross the fence gossipy and need some real facts we should offer a community meeting people may not come but we offer it gee we've seen this discuss we want to talk to you about what we feel is our reality of what happened or our reality of what's going on and I think the more we can do that as a council in our departments the more we will engage and we'll never do enough no matter how much but I would feel better if we really started looking at the more controversial things and just meet it head on and say here we are I can remember Tom DPW he come to these hearings on neighborhoods yelling at him and be so calm and just do diligence and I know all the department heads do that but just I just remember Norsefield Street it's like whoa Harrison Am Saturday morning 9am and we just have to take that on more aggressively I feel just show up whoever comes here but we're offering ourselves to talk about these things if people really want to know that's all you want to go first yeah I just got a few things evaluate the tax stabilization program and figure out if it's meeting their goals and if it's not what we could do to attract businesses to the city with housing one of the things that we talked about was one thing the housing task force that our last meeting did spend some time talking about what are the few things that we could be asking the city for and we're going to hear be hearing from them I'm not sure exactly but we have nothing coming up but but get some but consider having someone the way economic development departments do have someone to affirmatively work with and recruit and try to get housing developers to to build so affirmative outreach for housing is a if we want to get more housing we need to preserve the housing we have now that so I would say consider regulating short term rentals there there's a tremendous impact negative impact on the rental housing stock from the short term rental industry possibly couple that with the proposal that I saw to encourage to work on some kind of short term rental develop if people can you say that one more time short term rental develop getting their B&B not to put it in people's houses but build an Airbnb building obviously we're not the city not going to build it I heard about recruiting people to serve on city committees and boards and my former daughter in law many years ago was invited to this effort that the city they were living in was doing where the city would get all the nonprofits and city boards and committees that are looking for members and do outreach to employers to other community groups to say come talk to us we're going to have a town committee fair or something come and let us make a pitch to you about what you could do if you were to be one of these 28 city boards so that we don't just put the notice up and nobody signs up or the only people who sign up are the people that are already on who are mostly really good but also might want to have a break and some of those people might be thinking well I have to keep signing up if I don't if we're going to develop more parks make sure that we are maintaining sufficient staff resources to service the parks that we're going to have maintain the funding for the housing trust fund that might be the thing but we just love it well there's certainly no shortage of things so so we're definitely not going to get to a point of voting tonight but what we did last time and I think this is helpful as I sort of drew the chart out is we came up with your goal and then we wrote down all of the strategies some of them may be staff supported and some of them may be council coming out of this list that you had and then what we could do is a straw poll vote and then I could bring this to you instead of a fully fleshed out plan to look at so this would be the first step so we would see what has the majority of council support to include in the plan so you had let's say a bunch of things about economic development there might be like 15 rows here right but the ones that should be included in your council strategic plan which again doesn't mean that they're not going to get done but the ones that have the majority of the council voting for them right would be included in your strategic plan and you're still giving us a limited number of votes to help us yes I would need to come up with the exact number but yes you'll have the dots next time yes I think they would be you have the dots with us but we didn't expect I don't think quite this many which is good this is fine right so the dots may be a digital straw poll where we do it independently you send it to me and then we bring it to council and talk about it publicly and do the formal voting so this we'll have to come up with the plan but I hadn't planned coming back to y'all until October with the fully fleshed out thing but to me there's definitely room for another step in between that where y'all could hear feedback about these ideas we can make them public obviously with the agenda and then we could make formal votes on their so I think we can think of a process yeah of course so under the category that you have their strategies when it says council versus staff is that like council like council generated versus staff generated they'd also be on the same list or actions because some of these are strategies some of these are actions so we're going to layer all this into the way that it makes the most sense and then put in the stuff that we know are in these other play ends that we've already talked about see where there's duplication but I guess the only question I have really is is there anything you know right now this is just assuming that everybody's idea is everyone else is fully rewarded and I don't know how we if we want it well that comes down to you one further question I kind of assume that there are some things that maybe this is a bad assumption but there may be some things that we kind of either have to do right we'll sort those and so I just hope that when we get to voting that we don't have to vote on those those should be separate because like yeah you know don't want to waste a vote I would like us to come back together live after that initial vote because I don't think we did last time and I really missed that for any sort of final selection oh yeah we definitely had to do all of it over zoom and it was the worst so I'm not saying we do any of this over zoom this will all be in public meetings we get council meetings would be a council agenda item where we sit down talk I mean I thought you were going to send it by zoom survey that's fine for the initial yeah just for the initial to narrow it down right so the other thing which is you know I'm thinking as I'm looking at this and I'm looking at the staff over there is you know this is back to my plane so where do you want to go when you get there and how much do you want to pay for it because there's a lot of really expensive stuff here yes and it's all great but you know at some point we're narrowing down now and I don't know how much you know how much work you want done or when you're going to want done to put money to these things because and then some of these have you know follow up so they're great ideas but then what is the I'm going to pick on one because regulating part-time that might be a good thing for housing what's that going to take for us to do we're going to have people checking that what's the ongoing effort for that what's the cost of that effort how many what does that program look like it's a great idea but at the end of the day it's not going to do what we want or we better have to just invest in getting more housing we need to think of how we sort those there's just one so a lot of these is what's the ongoing effort that goes once we've done this what's the left what's the annual cost so I mean first of all I think there might be some like clubbing so that will help like I know that the first time I did this there were like a bunch of things thrown out I had no idea what any of it meant like is there a point and there's things that have even come up recently like this Berlin conservation where there's like this time sensitive unique opportunity that's popped up of some land adjacent to city owned land that like I'm just like it would be helpful for people to understand what the proposals are but yeah Berlin conservation or name and so probably a lot of them did I understand that there's going to be like a conversation go through some more slides here and I'll show you sort of what this all looks like you mean you voted last year my first year I think there's another thing to add just before you do this is that this as you know those of you born this will once we set this this will guide our activity will guide the agendas but stuff still comes up it kind of goes back to that what's urgent maybe not important but it's urgent like we said so we may at some point have to have an agenda item kick in for our purchase of land and so the only question is how does that meet is you know is that an environmental stewardship is that you know is that consistent with our values and our goals or is that just something we're not interested in so probably we'll have to be talking about purchasing in the park so how does that fit into where we want to go where's the money coming from like I feel like it's a slightly unique year in having that you know little bit of city money that you know so if there's things like engineering studies or things that are like one time expenses that we could front load and like that set us up to even if it's like two years down the road that we're going to have the funding to do it or whatever but I guess just like how is there a lens of this unique moment of that plus there might be like a set of things that would be priorities if we get state money for it but otherwise won't be but like what would we need to do to be ready for that and like so that would be a good way to sort that out too and like ways we could think about different things well and so some of that would be now and some of that would be when we actually get to the budget and we try to put all this stuff in and we said okay now we have real now we see budget reality okay let me do that I have one thing that I thought of that I want to get on the list people didn't go for it last time but I'll throw it in ah sneak it in last minute 16 year old voting for local elections oh right statue of councillor McCullough hahahaha can I just I just want to make it clear homelessness task force has to have some recommendations coming out in the next couple weeks here so I didn't include a bunch of specifics on this because it would have been too late but we will be bringing we have to do it so connecting all of these things together which I think gets to sort of Lauren's point so that y'all just established your goals which was really helpful I have six right you've also come up with a lot of strategies right so we will be putting all of the strategies that you've put forward and staff can put forward in sort of a into this matrix right you also came up with a lot of activities that could support those strategies so we'll put those and other things that staff recommends to get those strategies done and then the things that we didn't really get into but staff will be presenting to you is recommended action items to accomplish your initiatives that would accomplish your strategies and accomplish your goals so what we'll probably look at next time is strategies and initiatives we won't get down into the action because that's very in the weeds for y'all right so hopefully we'll be able to come to you with actions that support your initiatives that support strategies and goals right so the things that will be I'll be asking you to sort of straw pull vote on electronically and then we'll bring to council next time is the keys these three buckets and so I think that's really the we've changed a little bit in the next steps here together because this was a lot which is great and amazing so but this is a lot to sympathize so what we'll be doing is doing that first pass of those first three layers plus that mission and vision statement to start workshopping together and that allows for more public feedback about the things that you discussed tonight and we'll give the public a way to see sort of those things outlined and weigh in on their prioritization as well so I am excited so my first goal for first draft was October 13th that's still a goal for a first draft but I will try my goal is to put this on your next agenda thank you thank you this was very exciting and I really think this was very successful so thanks y'all really grateful I ask this to talk anytime like if that's a blind up part never ending list of ideas with no money to put to them you know that's not what this one is about that's right visioning is the important part yes before we before we adjourn and so if we're done with this yes I'm done if y'all are done if you feel done we're done okay so without objection wait what I'm sorry there is objection that's what I was saying oh I'm sorry I was like spacing out there for a second stop talking it's a little distracting thank you go ahead before we adjourn because there's question and raise about the appointment of the counselor do we want to schedule a special meeting sometime between now and the end of September 13th which is 10 days after 17 17 sure I'll double check it 13th is Monday yeah well it's business so I was just going to suggest so it's 17th if you go business but anyway as soon as possible there's going to suggest a special meeting on the 13th can I go that should work for me no it doesn't I'm not sure why you're shaking your head is that because we should I'm saying it's fine that works for me oh no I'm sorry I was just kind of I just made a tennis appointment what do you mean 6.30 I'm going to Barrowing Tennis and it's late and the day is 4.30 but I'll just change it I can't do anything okay good how's the noon on Monday that's better that's fine yeah I had something there but that noon doesn't work for me noon doesn't work for me but you don't necessarily need me for this on the 13th I'm available you're available and we can work for me I mean we have the what's the latest we can do it I think to err on the side of caution the 13th would be the latest we can do it would one yeah so that's what we're talking about the 13th so Lord you couldn't make it it's a very better time I could do 9am also 8am you're in school actually I could do 8am Monday I could do like 8am or 8.30 yeah on the 13th 8.30 okay how's that for you Connor 8 or 8.30 you don't want this fine we have something at 9 8.30 please kids to school there you go we'll have to be a physical presence we'll do that here but it'll otherwise be here well you could come here if you'd like but it'll otherwise be zoom there'll be a zoom available we have something big at 9 so it shouldn't take more than half an hour I will be zooming I would probably come but if I'm the only council member he's coming I might not yeah me either that's why it helps to know what people plan to do zoom zoom zoom zoom zoom 8.30 a.m Monday zoom in person one agenda item to address the issue that's I was thinking that I was like oh yeah we gotta do it okay so we're clearing 8.30 13th any other business before we're done okay thank you all for the time yeah it was fun now without objections we're going adjourned