 Good evening and welcome to the Montpellier Civic Forum and this is another series of civic forums prior to another town meeting day which this year will be March 1st and as always I encourage you to vote not on town meeting day per se but return to ballot before town meeting day or vote on town meeting day but it's really important to weigh in not only on city but on schools, on cemetery commission, on parks commission, on the public safety authority, on the budgets and on the capital budget and tonight I've got a very special one because they have people who don't necessarily have to be here. They're running unopposed. They are our incumbents from district two, my district, Connor. Well thanks very much for having us Richard. It's a great service you do to the community having these discussions and I know both Donna and I self are happy to be here and we want to even if we're unopposed we want to earn those votes. And of course you in your district, this is Donna from district one. I was supposed to do that if you pre-empted me. Donna, thank you Connor. It's great to be here. It's always good to talk about it. Okay, Donna you're the senior member. How long in council? Oh eight years. Eight long years. Four terms, yep. Making the big bucks. Yes, making the big bucks. Connor, how many years on council making the big bucks? I'd be hopefully going into the third term here. So I've got four under the belt. What keeps you guys on other than to beat Jim Sheridan's record for longevity? For me it's the commitment of seeing movement on a lot of projects I had seen stall and stall and that particularly with this council and this mayor, there's a lot of advancement. We have real set goals, we have the desire and the action to use the plans we have to go to the community's vision of being sustainable, of being advance in our social services and our social justice. And that involves around simple things like housing. Connor, what do you see? Yeah, I've worked in politics most of my career I have to say, but so it's a bit unusual for me to step into the role of an elected official. I've never hated a candidate more than myself. I'll tell you that. I get very anxious on the campaign trail. But other than I've settled in the last four years, like Donna said, you can actually see some tangible progress. It's one thing seeing something on paper, but then you see the trucks come out and see it being built and see progress made. And there's something very addicting to that, I think. But also it's just such a special community we have, you know. And I love the idea that, you know, council, we don't have our own staff per se individually, you know. So if you go by arugula at the grocery store, you're going to get into a chat with somebody about Confluent Park or something else going on. So it's a great dialogue back and forth with the constituents. And it's a community that does have a lot of opinions and I'm very happy to share them. Let's walk through some projects. See, I thought you guys were going to make the announcement on my show that something was going to happen on Savins Pasture. As I told Anne the other day in the session that the mayor did, she's running again, that my son was in second or third grade when we voted on the $800,000 bond in Savins Pasture. And my son is getting out of graduate school this year. What's going on with Savins Pasture? It stalled. And I'm glad you brought that up because when people say they're so surprised about as interested in perching land, years. I mean, your son is how old? 28 now. So at least 20 plus years, we've been trying to buy a large amount of land in the city limits to expand the city options. And people are surprised when something comes on the market and the buyer is interested in selling to the city versus the highest bidder. Of course, we are interested. It's a long term interest we've had. So I feel like we were ready for it. We planned, we considered it. We constantly the community says more housing, more housing, more recreation. I mean, recreation is right there high and people's desire. Yeah, no, I think we had discussions in council, you know, we're a community of 8000. We got a plan to be a community of 10, 11,000 into the future. We have to be forward thinking. Because what we have right now isn't sustainable, less than 100 homes sell in Montpelier a year. The average cost of rent is $1,600 a month. Who can afford that? And the only option is to increase the stock, you know, and do some developing. And I think some people are uncomfortable with that, you know, you move to a town in Vermont, and I get this like I'm guilty of it myself, you know, you think of being in a Norman Rockwell painting or something, having a milkshake with the police, everything always changes. It's always in the same spot. And that's just not realistic for a capital city that swells up to like 2400 24,000 used to before COVID. But yeah, but so we need to be forward thinking. And for the I think we're both talking about the Oast Club land here at this point. In my mind, it's a question of define or be defined, you know, we can wait. But if we wait, somebody else is going to get that land and we much less say over it. What did we learn from 20 years of Saban's pastures sitting unsold and undeveloped? What what are the lessons that we walk away with from 20 years of that? Well, that's in terms of zoning in terms of what what is what I guess one of my lessons as I hear people being so surprised that the city would act on a large plot of land for housing and recreation is that people move in and out. You and I have been here all this time, but a lot of people have it. It's a brand new thing to them. And even though we started discussing this, it's early as July, I think I saw people seem to be surprised that it was going to be on the ballot in March. And I think wow. And so I have to realize for other people, Saban's pastor doesn't even exist. They weren't part of that discussion. And I mean, I felt like what we learned that we had a lot of discussions, we had a lot of community input, but push comes to shove the owner controlled. And it wasn't enticing enough for the owner. Did restrictive zoning play a role in that initial restrictive zoning? But it anything can be a barrier if you have hesitation. So I thought because we were willing, I mean, even way before my council experiences, the council was willing to work with the owner. And we did make huge changes that allowed a lot of changes. And we thought they were right in sync with the owner. But the final thing was it didn't work. There were too many players like the land trust nonprofits. It wasn't just us and a private property owner, or a lot of other nonprofit organizations trying to put this patch will quilt together, which is a wonderful one. It works. But it only takes one slippage. And suddenly somebody no longer sees it beneficial. Land is so precious and Montpelier, you look on a map, we are such a small postage stamp of land. And you see it in a lot of what we discuss. It's, wouldn't it be great to do this? But where would we put it? It could be, you know, a homeless warming station or something. There's a lack of options, you know, and having 130 acres up there. You know, not only is it a lot of potential to do housing, new neighborhood. The other thing is we need a rec center. And if we're going to be forward thinking, the one on the one on Barry Street doesn't fit the bill. It's, but didn't we do a survey? We allocated 30,000 per survey of that rec center. And what the survey came in, saying that they wanted it within walking distance of downtown, that that was important to people. Because at the time, there was some discussion of putting it up at the rec field on Elm Street. There was some discussion of putting it on some of the land by the high school, which the high school wasn't thrilled about. And people said, no, we would like a central location that we don't have to drive to. If I if memories have not keep in mind that my wife and I are not the spry people that when we first came to Montpelier, but that's a pretty good walk from central Montpelier along that trail up to that location at the Elks Club. How do people get there who don't have cars? Well, one, I would say people on surveys, sometimes mark the box that say ideal and not their behavior, that most people drive either themselves or their kids to the facility on Barry Street. Majority do not walk. And that I feel we can support public transit and make an easy connection, one that's needed anyways. And we can make it regional that helps us afford it. The cost was another one that came across in that survey that eight eight million to 15 million for a rec center was not where people were at in terms of building a facility. That was not that was a much larger number than that. Right. Yeah, no, it was. What is the number that we have in mind right now for a recreation facility? Well, if you're if we're looking to and if it does fail on the ballot, you know, we might look at renovating the current rec center. But that's going to cost when all of a sudden done between seven and eight million dollars, you know, I was going to say to me, you know, if we could, the building is a great location. But there's only so much space we could do on it. As we look at affordable housing, it's an ideal candidate for that. And, you know, walkable would be great. And if there was a patch of land downtown, I would be supportive. But it also is depends on who you're talking about. If we put it on Elm Street, you know, and you're a kid on Berlin Street, that's a long walk to like bring your basketball, right? You're absolutely right. On that question, how much are we tired? This is a future loaded plan. You know, you're buying the land right now. But to put something on that land goes from our capital budget. And we project and again, capital budget is one of two budgets that we have done. Would you explain capital budget versus operating? Well, operating is your day to day capital is like your mortgage at home. It's a long term investment in a structure in a building and utilities underground that you pay over time. And our existing capital budget is projected out over years in terms of projects that we would like to see. And you can think of it as a queue as one now this one gets done and paid off and another one comes in. Another one slots in. So we have standards of how much capital deadness we can have. And so we keep that in mind. So we have this sort of range that's allowed. And the budgets, the bonds we have now keep us in that range, we get a little high for like two years. And then we're back. So right now, in this capital budget, we're asking for we're asking to purchase a land at the Elks. We're asking for a sum for Confluence Park. Would you explain what Confluence Park will be? And when Confluence Park will be? Oh, the when might be a difficult question. A lot of you know, whenever we talk about projects in Montpelier, the when is always the most difficult. Why do you think we keep running for counsel here? We've got to see it through. Push it through push it through. Confluence Park's been in the works for a while. And you know, I think a lot of people have come to the council and just raised their voices saying, this town wasn't necessarily built facing the river. You look at all the buildings along it and it's all away from the river. But my goodness, we it's such an asset that we have, you know, and you have some of these folks who come in with these great ideas, recreational opportunities. You know, let's look at these dams. And that's something we're actually looking at right now. We're looking at the legislature at a dam analysis to see, okay, we got these three dams in town. Are they actually certain dams in town? We've got the it's the Rat Dam, the Shaw's Dam, and then the one up I like, Bear Naked Growler area there, right? You know, if you talk to the River Conservancy, they would say, you know, those dams actually might be harmful and putting us in jeopardy of flooding. So we need to do an analysis of that. And if we can take those dams out, it opens it up to all sorts of recreational opportunities, including nice park access down there, people would love to like just take their lunch during the day. It's what you keep here and as we need more park access. What part of the riverfront is Confluence Park? Oh, Confluence Park is where North Branch Dog River comes down and hits Wenuski right behind the Shaw's. So another way of putting this, I suppose, is I'm walking by the Shaw's over the new walking bridge. And then I turn right towards the walking path is that junction. If you're walking from Shaw's, you turn left or turn left. You're right on going into the parking lot. But that's Dog River. You're walking over. Right. So basically that area where we have picnic tables right now is envisioned to be Confluence Park. It is. Yes. Yep. And I think there's still some discussion that is how far back it can go, that type of thing. But I called it Dog River. It's North Branch. It is. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just total slippage. North Branch. I didn't catch it. North Branch. And I was thinking, oh, no, no, no, no. Dog River is over the rec field by the wastewater treatment plant. Okay, folks, sorry about that. It's North Branch that comes into Wenuski. So we're talking about where those picnic tables are right now. So this is Confluence concept. It is a concept. And we're working with the River Conservatory. And the city share is $600,000. The nonprofit is coming up with $600,000. I mean, this is a very expensive project. But it's going to be one of those other things that's like a legacy. It's like Hubbard Park. People invested when there was all sorts of open land. And they said, what are you doing this for? The future. And legacy, I mean, we can use Confluence Park as soon as it's done. But it should last. And it should not only that, but it should create more riverside parts. It's really the bike path has evolved into more than I think we ever could have expected it to be. So to keep building along the bike path, and I hate to go back to the Elks Club, but it does meet right there. But having the Confluence Park, when you think you can go almost by the railroad station to U32 by the time it's done, and to have all these assets along the way, it's a beautiful thing. Are we envisioning, now I'm not going into the weeds, I'm going into the water. Are we envisioning the water going higher so that people can kayak or canoe in that river? We have to do the dam analysis first. But hopefully in the next couple of years we can get that done. Kayak can. Yep, we're exploring opportunities at the legislature right now. So that is a major push forward project for the city. Things you can do on the water. I asked Ann this question, so I know the answer and hopefully you guys do. She's very smart I gotta say. She'll say yes. A TIF is called Tax Incremental Financing. And a TIF allows us to finance things such as the infrastructure under the under the road now that helped us to land the distillery over on Barrie Street. Yes. It would have helped us to construct the parking garage had that happened. Yes. Are we envisioning the TIF continuing east all the way over to the Elks Club? Well the TIF has a set territory when we apply. I'm not saying we can't make an amendment of that. Are we thinking an amendment because there has to be infrastructure out there. It doesn't currently I don't believe, right? No it doesn't. But I think we could make an amendment for it. I mean and yeah, Bar Hill is a good example. That whole area of town I think is you know, primed to build up. Right. So yeah, no it's a good thought. Because likewise when I see if indeed that Elk Club land was developed both for housing recreation then I would see save and pasture more likely to find some alternatives that will really happen more quickly because it is that development of another part of town. Again it's very difficult non-pilure it's like nailing jello to the wall. How many houses are we thinking on that 130 acres might be conceivable? Oh you see I think we part of this is the community discussion which would really take place. The answer is before you. Yeah we don't want to answer it too much. I guess for me I really look at dense housing not housing sprawled over the hillside. No I'm talking about the Elk Club. But the Elk Club I see dense housing there and maybe at least some of it. But who knows that's the public discussion. So we don't want to nail it down before we get the land. Once we have the land then we can start the discussion. And if nothing works out we can sell it. And we can take an incremental approach on this. Yes I really like with that with that amount of land you know it's you know when we're asking how much we want to put into it. It could be a pretty modest rec center built with room for expansion at the end. You know there were folks who came in and I'm not saying this is even on the table right now but it's a possibility. The jump and splash folks who want swimming facilities swimming two swimming pools in that proposal. You know it was cost prohibitive at some of the places we were looking. But over time maybe some financiers come to the table. Maybe that's an option. You know I'm not saying it is. But at least we have options then you know. What else is in the capital budget that is a noteworthy project. The wastewater recovery facility. Our energy. Yes that's that phase two so it's not only more efficient but it also deals with right now. Phase one did a tremendous job of taking I'm going to call waste burning it to create energy. And also reducing value. Also reducing truckloads that we had to carry sludge away because we're now taking care of it. But the next phase is also a further level of reducing toxics being given out. But now give us odor which is terrible for that part of town just terrible. If I understand correctly. And of course I do. There's also another building that's planned to be heated by the byproduct of the waste treatment plant. We use that methane to sit and heat those facilities that approximate to it instead of having them heated in a conventional manner. And I understand that they're planning another building. Well yes it's not just what's there now. We are but also ultimately will gain revenue. So it'll be not only taking care of its energy needs but giving us revenue to apply elsewhere. It's really like it's a part of city government that I think we take for granted left and right. But you know important to give credit to the four employees who work there. We just want a huge national award on this you know. It's really innovative thinking here. And the commitment they have you know as we were looking even at COVID it's like what if city employees go out. What we have done if like our four wastewater treatment employees went out there you know. So that's the type of stuff you have to consider. But it really as far as you know our commitment to environmental justice you know the investments in this wastewater treatment plant are you know really already paying dividends I think with what we're getting out of it. What about the water treatment plants on the hill. The drinking water exactly is there anything wastewater drinking water right. Is there anything coming up on that one. Any any required changes. Well not right now we went through some and that's another one both of these plants are so high tech it's awesome. And when the public once in a while gets a chance to come in and tour them do it. It's fascinating. Just fascinating. Yep we have talked about maybe having like city days where members of the public can go into some of these facilities and really see how they work because. Because then you really know when you turn on the water what it took. My eyes were popping out of my head on that you know. And they make it interesting they do. What's the status of the wood chip project. We take that wood chip pellets. Yep the wood chip firing plant. Over next to the transit center. The underground heat. Yes the district heat. Right what's going on with that. Not enough and we would hope to have more partners but I have to just back up this to me is a good time to say. In two thousand and twenty mark two thousand and twenty when we saw very clearly just how quick. In December January and February before the pandemic was declared. How much revenue we were losing we started cutting. And we lost staff we put people in furlough we stop projects. We did the same in two thousand twenty one. And leading into twenty two budget. So this year we're able to start putting things back on the table. That we have the revenue to cover. And we're not being outlandish we're just replacing what we lost. What would an example of that be. Staffing. That we're going to replace people who had left we didn't refill those places even when people came back from furlough. We have a energy. Personnel that really needs to be we need someone who's looking at all of our buildings for maintenance and energy improvements. Is that the new staff position. Yes we do we hope you know like many things it's hopefully a smart investment to the future. Where that position can actually pay for itself. But even if it's not it's taking us to our sustainable goals. We put these goals out there and a city council members every week we talk about them they're on all every single agenda item has a sheet on it that says what gold does this relate to. What cost does it relate to. And I wish people would pay more attention to those that are attached to the agenda. Because they really tell you the thoughtfulness of those projects. The energy audit that's required before you sell your house. There was a lot of resistance to that. That's a non-monetary right. If Cinder and I were to leave this town that would be free to us prior to selling our home. We wouldn't have to pay anything to do that yes. Right. That's correct. There's a tool online you can go on and anybody can find out that right now. It really we talked about how few homes are sold in one pill a year about a hundred. 80 percent of them do that already. So it's a pretty small number of people we're talking about. But I think it like it's an important conversation starter. It's important for people to get in that mindset you know. As they're buying a house to think what they can do. And you know like like Donna said we had strong community commitment to the 2015 net zero goal there. And I think unless we're making steps towards that progress it's not worth the paper it's written on some of these goals. One more in the capital budget before we go into operating. Barry and name. That's in the capital budget. It was one of those projects that got pushed aside when revenue started slipping through the pandemic. Would you explain a couple of things. One this is going to be a traffic light. That's 25 feet away from another traffic light. What was the thinking between that and a circle. A little mini circle. I'd have to go back. I thought at the end of the day the analysis showed that the circle would have been too tight. Although I'd be a big proponent of generally. Yeah I lost that fight. I'm a roundabout person. I was there for the first one on Maine and spring. I mean I think I've been in Europe all sorts of small roundabouts. But the roundabout at Maine and Barry not only was small but it had the railroads. And the railroad was the real final. And I'll tell you Tom McCartle who was head of former head of DPW sat there in front of city council and he looked at me because he knew I wanted a roundabout and he said Donna this is because I in order to do a roundabout well you have to have the joining intersections roundabouts. So you're talking about putting a roundabout on Maine and River. On River and Maine. And then have a traffic light over on Barry Street. What's Scotch to Maine? Well no they all would be roundabouts. You start at Spring Street coming all the way down to Memorial and they'd all be roundabouts. And Tom went through the money and I said okay I yield. We are going to go to traffic lights. So if we're going to go to traffic lights now we're going to do the smart traffic lights so that they react to one another. So they're not on the same timer they're in relationship to one another and the traffic at one another. So if there's no one who's trying to turn south or north on Main Street from Barry going out or up then that light will remain dormant. That's my understanding. Yeah it's pretty interesting technology. Yes it is expensive technology but it really makes sense instead of having these jam ups because you have every light timed a certain way. And then the light at State and Maine will adjust accordingly. Yeah all four lights. Right all four lights. Is there any discussion again of the round the mini roundabout by the library because that's another one that that people have talked about. No see the main because it's difficult to get out of school. Maine and Barry Street had its own scoping study so there is still one sitting there for a demo what the group decided through that study was they wanted a roundabout by the library but they wanted to do a demo first and make sure that it worked for people and pedestrians. Because the concern about roundabouts with a lot of traffic is it may not give pedestrians enough protections especially those who are visually impaired. Or children. Children. Well yeah for children actually I find roundabouts safer because it allows you to go one part of the roadway wait and then the other part of the roadway but that would be a demo but that was part I mean the whole Maine and Barry Street had a lot of components so one we've carried forward we're waiting for the other ones for the next round of revenue is the traffic light because the traffic light would then affect everything along the way. The master downtown plan was going through and then all of a sudden the world shut down for several years and also there aren't as many people in offices downtown you know projected forward and the like is that master plan then included both the library as well as Barry and Maine. Is that master plan going to be rethought through? Now you're talking about the downtown. Yeah the downtown master plan. A lot of different components here because you have the city plan. We have a lot of master plans here. Yeah yeah and certainly I think when whether it's a year out two years out it'll need to be re-looked at. Things change. It's a good point Richard you know like you go downtown and it's getting better I think but it was tumbleweeds for a while so you know again like I said we swell up to like you know twenty some thousand that hasn't been the case right and we're following very closely at the state level to see how many of these state employees really are coming back because I think you know maybe they haven't seen productivity drop in some of these departments a lot of people like working at home and that's a major blow to our downtown businesses it really is. What about the Rialto bridge? The bridge across on State Street there was talk that that would be refurbished in several years is that on schedule? Yes it's actually connected to the work on East State Street because we couldn't do the bridge until we dealt with the underground utilities at the main and East State Street entrance and so one of the bonds is for East State Street and all the underground utilities. Are we concerned that we're playing whack-a-mole on sewers? That as sewers and water pipes bust you see them rush over you know and do spot patch work and our sewer system is ancient in some cases I think on Berry Street they said it was wooden you know what people don't seem to want to own up is as much as we've said the ones that have bursted over the winters have been the younger pipes because they have not lived up to their profile when they were bought at the time. What does younger mean in this context? It means that there are actually some sort of I'm going to say plastic but that's a big word. Is this younger being the last 50 years? Yes, yes, oh yes, oh yes, yes so and you can never and that's climate change folks that's where we're back to net zero it's climate change the constant range of temperature the freezing, thawing is very very hard for pavement. I mean we live in a town shaped like a starfish five hills here where the temperature regularly drops below zero and we've got the rivers converging so just like you're saying it's climate change can impact Montpelier at a disproportionate level I think than the rest of the state of the country even even this winter I mean they're just I mean driving over here there were probably 12 sections that were at least a yard wide maybe a foot thick that was just hollowed out the asphalt just crumbled the rest of the row was fine but there was this it's the weather I know that when John Holler was mayor one of his pledges they came through with was to put together a fund that would be allocated to road repair every year yes it's steady state right didn't we skip that during the pandemic and so we instituted it so that's back in the budget and we're making substantial investments in roads we not only didn't put the money in the steady state but we didn't have the personnel to go out and do the work people don't realize how much our DPW does the work on the street and we didn't have them there to do it it's been tough and as we get some of this ARPA money to re-plan okay stop that's the acronym alert what is ARPA oh okay American Recovery Rescue Rescue and wow that's awful isn't it yeah American Rescue Plan Act and that goes into the operating side or the capital side capital okay yep and what we can do is recoup some of what we've lost at Revenue which the parking meters alone oh it was astronomical what we lost yep let's go into operating and the operating side is what can I I want to go back just a little bit Richard because I really all during that time the past two and a half years when we're cutting things down constantly hearing from people roads roads roads and not accepting why it wasn't happening now we have bonds out there trying to recover that and and these bonds represent really a small part of how much money we're applying to infrastructure I mean I brought pages here just in case you have questions of all the projects roadways that we over a million that we just projects we just stopped so I want people to really realize that the bonds are there because we were responsible we didn't have a deficit the last two and a half years but there was a lot of work that didn't get done Montpellier's a city is not static it has constant needs well let's stay on Bonson if we were to build a 15 million dollar rec center I'm drawing that out of my head that's okay yeah what are we pushing off that's 15 million dollars big that's been in the planning for a decade we're going to defer something because this hasn't been in the planning for a decade it's something new what types of projects would we have to put off in order to put something really significant in their place well we actually had in the the bond projection vision that's the 20 year plan you're talking about we had about six to eight million for the rec center okay so we start by that's one project that we do have budgeted right in that vision and likewise we're looking at revenue we're going to get when we do all the phase two of the water recovery facility so that we see some revenue actually coming in not just capital money going out so it's not necessarily that you drop something but you look at your whole 20 year scope at what's falling off and what you can put on to me the rec center has to be a priority you know you go outside we're living in a place that snow is on the ground six seven months a year sometimes the pandemic has taken a tremendous I think mental health toll on some of our children in this community and just having that outlet to go there you know play pickleball play a game of pickup basketball or something in these like hard winter months especially when you're isolated yeah it's worth its weight in gold I really believe that and the child care people forget that through our rec department we offer city child care and we have many more demands and we have space for and that would be another thing that I feel really really understated and having the bigger correct place let's go to operating because that's that's as we run through this otherwise what we'll do is we'll go line by line and we'll have this show two hours long while you discuss line by line the capital episode you're a capital budget sorry sorry sorry how men the operating assumption on this budget is that it's at a seven percent inflation rate does the city assume that people's wages have risen seven percent in the last year as cost I think you have to divide it what's going to be reflected in your tax bill and that's with the schools coupled with it you're looking at one point but the schools are reducing simply because we're coming off of a different agreement that we had earlier which is cutting our school I'm talking about the city side of the budget the schools came in at 4.5 percent as their increase the city is coming in at 7 percent yes because we're restoring but at the same time as you said we weren't getting the same services last year that we had because personnel was laid off and now we're coming back accounting for last year so we're going to work the staff hard but the thing that I find amazing is every year that I've been on council working to stay under two percent increase two three percent increase and the school budget whoa so everybody was so reacting to the total number I thought they never got the city credit for how low we kept our operating money and this year we're up we're up to make up for the last two and a half years it won't continue that way we now have recovered what does next year's budget look like can we go down again down again to a three four percent increase well yes I think we'll be lower the yeah but it is important to like you said we we flatlined it last year you know yeah to give people a break because we know it was in the bend out of this on the back or the years we reduced but I fundamentally don't think you can cut yourself out of a economic downturn here where we're putting in our investments for the future whether it be the energy coordinator some of these other items and again as we said in the beginning looking into the future where we can increase housing stock and hopefully make this a more affordable city because we're not we're not on that track right now but a couple cuts isn't going to do it I think that's you know people have to get that that in their heads though yeah because I mean I wish I had the percentage and I was going to actually go look at the chart in the budget our finance operator gives us these charts but we're like 80 almost as high as a school in personnel cost we're about service our cost is about people as it's always been as it's always been so you can't just you know whack them away and still give the services because people want the services the police department how many police are we down to at this point I know we normally like to staff at about 17 we've had a couple come on lately but we've had a couple go off lately so so I think I think you'd have to ask the chief but I I think we're one or two down we were a lot more than one or two down I would say more like two or three yeah we're down to 13, 14 for a while though yeah yeah is that a concern well it is a concern but it's a national concern right it's a tough job it's well it's a tough job and it's always been difficult but it even before the pandemic it was getting hard and after the pandemic and doing it it's been much much harder now you know we're returning back to the capital but should we keep coming I didn't do it you did it then we have body camps yep coming in would you explain that policy and the need for body camps sure I mean I think you know no matter who you look at I was even reading an ACLU study on it the more transparency the better whether you're the officer whether you're the person in any sort of interaction there and we've been able to get it down so it's it's actually on a cell phone rather than this really expensive equipment they would have broken the bank of the past here so with this storage you know I think it was going to break the bank of the storage component of us terrible the technologies come a long way Chief Pete's brought a lot to the table so I think we really are moving into the 21st century hopefully with body cams and you know it's rare it's rare but in a case where it's you know they said versus they said the body camera you know often does a good deal of good I'll tell you I'm glad the conner's here because I've been opposed to the body camera I feel it just puts an attitude out there and the wrong focus I want to see us building relationships and the how does the body cam do that when I've got a cell phone that I could point at the interaction myself well the the body cam is out there I feel because we are hearing from young people who are taking I feel the national mindset and we need to change that and if the body cam will help people see what's really happening both for the police and for any citizen then we can do it through the phones but the previous body cameras were so expensive and the storage so expensive I didn't feel it was worth the investment but this has changed now you have not only the body cam but I understood that the data transparency issue was way expensive to be able to slice and dice that little data that we can generate in the village of 7500 was that the case yes yes well yes but I you know I think all of this moves towards more trends I really want to hand it to Chief Pete you know whether it be restoring coffee with a cop which we just brought back you know to having this community engagement officer which is a new position in the budget I think our department is very responsive to the national picture here you know they are just as disgusted some of these officers you talk to as anybody else with some of these like atrocities that are happening across our country and Chief Pete seems like somebody who would hold his own department to a higher standard but Tony did as well absolutely absolutely Tony goes to former Chief and Brian is continuing that right and and there's something written into the budget for another social worker if I remember correctly or more hours right and in the last budgets a social worker was budgeted in along with Barry you know and the thinking if I can interpret the thinking was that a lot of police issues deal with the skill set that really is beyond the training of police yes mental health absolutely we really need mental health experts and that we're going in that direction and we're investing more in that direction yes and this is always a slippery slope because as we get involved more with mental health and social issues which are needed it's hard to balance between what's the city's responsibility and what's the state's responsibility and we feel the state has really dropped the ball on some of this stuff you know caring for this population we've put eighty eighty some thousand in recently just to make sure people aren't freezing on our streets that they have a hotel voucher when the state isn't there to give them one so it's an investment but is it an investment the city should be making or does the state need to step up I really think they do in terms of our addressing the homelessness the structure next to the art store in Shaw's what was the thinking behind moving something that was away from the public so it's still somewhat close so it was hundred yards away or something on that level up to our commercial downtown it was at a very tight intersection on the bike path there where you would have a lot of kids coming from school and there'll be some interactions there but you know we we don't want to you know this is a population that's often discriminated against and we don't want to push them into the shadows you know it's it is a structure that you know everybody should be able to use and there but but everybody isn't using it it's not being used by families right but anybody has a right to well come on they do they do Connor and I tell you I go up there every every week or so and talk to the population that's there and hear about some of the issues you're homeless not just because of some of the factors that people think about I think it's painted with a broad brush these are folks who are like victims of domestic violence in some cases folks who have really been lost by the system you know with severe substance abuse issues acute mental health issues and of course we're not equipped to handle that as a city but we have to be compassionate and not just push them out you know it's right and the city council didn't move that shelter of its own I would say own motivation we heard from citizens who really wanted to be able to use the bike path and not have that confrontation but by moving it out to a park which we hope then to do more with we're hoping that eventually these individuals who are without a home right now can be integrated and share that shelter do you see tent camping on that facility? but they're not by and large they're not sleeping there but they are spending their daytime but when the weather becomes conducive do you see homeless tenant campmen on that site? tent tent tenting? yeah as they have if we're going to the camp and policy the policy states you know if there's no shelters to go to public land can be used for camping except for park land which is ruled by the park commission and that is city that's where it gets city controls well actually the it's still city property doesn't matter who governs it it's city property so legally the park can be camped on if we can't offer them a shelter somewhere else does the park commission agree with that? no they mean that they have oversight in the charter but the law of the land has oversight of whatever we have in our ordinances and the courts have said they have the right certainly you can go to court we can have our own but let's talk about a positive we're constructing we're constructing beds for those people down on 302 over in the twin cities so in theory we are alleviating the need for sleeping out in the public because we are offering additional space for people who don't have beds to sleep in so we are affirmative in that that's the positive way of looking at it right but we really need the heavy state partnership so that when people first starts sliding into their cars and out of their house they get help as soon as possible because once they become really unhoused and a lot of them uncard they really have such stress of just living day to day it's harder and harder to provide the services that they need and for them to use the services that they need and we do provide money to community organizations through our community fund that addresses not enough I really want to hand it to another way and that's another way then we'll have stepped up stepped up when nobody else wants to and they've been at the homelessness task force they serve on the homelessness task force in some cases and you know we've seen some real positive results and twin city as you said we hope it puts a real dent in the population there because nobody should have to be sleeping and they have enough land there to expand see and hopefully it will and they'll have a hub of services so within that facility it's not just beds and housing but it's also services will be there and we're picking up the social worker working with the police so that we can steer towards that I mean we have an organized plan it's not as if sure we're rushing to put people in the parks sleeping we just don't have the resources that's the problem but well the problem is bigger than the city can handle alone it is it's a regional are we addressing it regionally Hunter is Barry involved with the planning on this actually Barry just just established a homelessness task force along with ourselves so there is some coordination we invested in a countywide study we just gave fifteen thousand dollars I believe to the countywide study looking at the root causes of this and how we can work better with the cities it's because you know it's a lot of folks are going back and forth between Barry Berlin and Montpelier we need to we need to treat it that way well I want to thank you for coming and discussing this for those of you have a further interest Donna is going to read from the capital budget for two hours a dramatic reading a dramatic reading for the capital budget I want to thank you for watching the show and I urge you to vote and that doesn't mean coming out on town meeting day it means either returning that ballot early or coming out on town meeting day and engage yourself make sure that you're civically involved when is city council coming live again can you show up in the chamber I don't know our next meeting is remote it's next week to be determined yeah okay what about the mask policy talk about the future what's going on with the mask policy in the town it's the 11th isn't it when it will be reconsidered 11th of March we reconsider that every 45 days yeah for the governor's order so it's possible that the schools won't have masks and the city will it's possible it's possible at that thank you very much for watching