 Hello, how? Hello. And Jim. Excellent. Hey, just in time. So let's let's call to order. It's 6 p.m. on Monday, December 7th. Call to the order of the regular meeting of the Winnieski City Council. Please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance led by Deputy Mayor Hal Colston. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Thank you. Agenda review is up next. Any concerns about the order of our agenda? All right. So now we are at public comment. This is a chance for members of the public who wish to speak to any issues that are not included in the agenda. If you are here for something that is on the agenda, I ask that you please hold for that item to come up. I believe we do have at least one public comment this evening. We do. We have Dylan Lovell. Dylan, whenever you are ready. Hey, how's it going? Can you guys hear me? Yeah, welcome. Hey, thanks. So I'm Vermont resident and I recently purchased Woff's deli over on East with a few other folks. And we're not sure exactly what we want to do with it yet. But one thing that I'm hoping we can start to bring attention to, and I'm not sure if you guys have discussed this at other meetings, but S54, the legalized tax and regulate bill for cannabis. The opt-in clause. So I just wanted to, I guess, just get that on the agenda on the next town meeting. Yeah. So that is something that we have been discussing. I think we're waiting for some guidance from the state on how exactly to do that. Jesse, would you like to chime in? Hi, Dylan. I'm Jesse, I'm the city manager. Yes, we have been tracking this issue and know that local action is needed or needs to be considered. We are hopeful, we are hoping that there will be additional guidance coming from the state or the cannabis commission on what that ballot item should look like. And we have about a month and a half to finalize that before it needs to be voted on to the town meeting day ballot. All right, awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your reminder. Thank you. Do we have for any other public comment? Nobody else signed up officially, but folks can raise their hand if they want or indicate in the chat. We will then move to our consent agenda. We have two items for approval. We have our council minutes from November 2nd and amended minutes from June 1. Was anyone not present for either of those meetings? I don't think so. Okay. And then we also have our accounts payable warrant 11, 17 and 12, 3 and payroll warrant for period 10, 18 to 10, 31, 9, 4 to 11, 14 and period 11, 15 to 11, 28 and subsequent to pay out for September. Are there any questions or concerns on the consent agenda? I would entertain a motion to approve both items. Second. Motion by Jim, second by Mike. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. So we are now at council reports. Can I start with Mike this evening? Sure. Municipal infrastructure committee or commission had a meeting last week and we discussed a few things. We discussed our tree inventory with the tree committee and Councillor Duncan you can jump in at any time through my report because you're there and you're part of the tree committee as well. And I think you know the information a little bit more than I do but I'll put my take on it. We met with some several UVM students that had a project to map out the priority of tree planting for the city of Winooski and their presentation was very well done, very detailed and I think there's a couple minor things that need to be adjusted on it. Correct me if I'm wrong Jim but I think it was a worthy presentation that should be done in front of the council so not only Jim and I know the information on this presentation but I think it'd be good for the public to know as well. They discussed some of the tree inventory and the needs in the areas that we don't have that many public trees. They went through a lot of information and I think a little bit too much for me to discuss here tonight right now. We also discussed the tree inventory and out of 870 public managed trees 68% of them are in good condition. 11% of them are in fair condition, 5% are in poor condition. So there's I think there's some room for improvement here on our public trees and then we got into the parking study just a little bit but not enough to warrant a conversation tonight. There is a link that I can share with the my fellow counselors if you'd like on the cover sheet of that and stay tuned for more information on the parking study from the Municipal Infrastructure Committee. Did I miss anything Jim? That was great Mike thanks. Yeah Mike you might work with your commission chair to write a Municipal Infrastructure update that we could share publicly with the presentation and the parking study link and all that. Why don't we move then to Jim for his updates. Thank you mayor. So in the past since we last met I have attended the housing commission meeting. We received another update on housing stability indicators which I know Heather will be covering later. So the short version of that is that we still are not seeing significant signs of concern at this point and we also were able to talk with a couple of landlords in the city to get their their take and story on what they've been experiencing with rent non-payments that was really helpful to have multiple lines of information at that commission meeting and the commission also discussed some priorities for advocating at the convening of housing commissions which Heather I don't know if you'll be touching on this in city updates or not so I'll just say briefly the housing commission convening convening of housing commissions in Chittenden County happened I attended that as well where they discussed recent legislation around accessory dwelling units and potential legislation around a statewide rental registry discussing how cities like Winooski have seen a lot of value out of this and how as a statewide model it could be potentially beneficial. I also attended the municipal infrastructure commission meeting as Mike said I think you covered it all well Mike and I'm looking forward to working with the students a little bit more on revising that prioritization plan and seeing if the commission will take any further action on it and then finally so it's almost the new year and town meeting day is coming up so I wanted to say I've been really grateful to work with this group and this team at the city and I'm looking forward to running again for the city council seat in March so I will be initiating more work on that but I'm hoping that I can work with my fellow councillors and with residents to continue to serve Winooski in this capacity. Thank you. I'm excited to have you running in. How would you like to go next? Sure I just first want to note that Councillor Duncan and I have on the same shirt which is kind of very interesting so I'll let that speak for itself. The only thing I have to report is that I have made a connection with the legislative council at the general assembly and offered our proposal for the charter change so that is being turned into a bill which I will share with the mayor and city manager just to see the draft and see what to think and I think there will be a memo that comes out with it as well offering legislative councils opinions on what we're asking to do so I'll I should get something back in the next few days and I will forward that to the mayor and to the city manager. Thank you. Amy. Hi I feel like I have a lot of updates so please bear with me because it's been a little while since we've met. First I want to say thank you to Matt Gustafson who not only purchased but went to the Dismiss house and cooked them a full Thanksgiving meal two weeks ago. According to a Facebook post that the Dismiss house put up they were very moved and appreciative of this gesture by Matt so I just wanted to give him a shout out and say thank you and I also wanted to thank Papa Franks and our house for contributing items to that meal and just also acknowledge their generosity as restaurants you know all restaurants are struggling right now and I just thought it was really wonderful that they were able to pitch in as well. Also last month I attended the downtown Winooski November meeting and during that meeting downtown Winooski voted to bring on three new board members they are Ali Nagel of course of the monkey house and waking windows that we all know Ali pretty well. Jackie Digess of the Digess Company and she was actually once a former downtown Winooski board member she'll be coming back and David Rose of Twincraft so these are great for downtown Winooski these folks coming on not only because they represent a number of different types of businesses but they're also spread out businesses throughout our city which I think just helps drive home the fact that downtown Winooski really is for all businesses not just the ones in the downtown core. One other piece about downtown Winooski I wanted to remind folks about is that they are having their holiday pop-up shop it's virtual this year and that's happening right now through December 13th you can visit their website downtown Winooski.org to shop for gifts from local vendors and many of those vendors are also offering a local pickup option so you don't have to pay for shipping so again that's downtown Winooski.org and also in November I attended the safe healthy connected people commission and the commission spent the majority of the meeting reviewing their goals from the master plan and in general they're feeling good about the progress that they were able to make so far considering that they were able to pass things like the parks and open space master plan the group saw that as a big win and such a short amount of time but the group also recognized that we have a large number of kind of bigger lofty goals that are going to take creative thinking and collaboration to accomplish things like housing solutions and food insecurity and addressing health care needs for people in our city so the commission is continuing to think about ways to tackle those moving forward and how they can collaborate with other groups to accomplish that and finally as Jim alluded to we're approaching town meeting day and I wanted to share that my city council term will be expiring in March and I will not be seeking reelection. Thanks Amy. So when we move to city updates after this I've asked our city manager to share a little more detail on the process for town meeting day if there are folks interested in running for any of these open terms my term is also expiring on town meeting day and I plan to run for reelection to also continue working with this group and with this community to move us forward. One really big announcement I would like to start with is that we have been working for quite some time towards a large grant opportunity the working communities challenge grant and Winooski was awarded this grant $300,000 over three years to help us implement the community driven vision for building more equity in our city. So really thankful to staff for working on that grant opportunity to you know folks here at the council table for contributing to that and to a ton of community members a lot of work went into securing that resource and will really set us up to like resource this work and kick it off in a good way so more to come on that. I attended finance and planning commission meetings since I last meeting they both spent time discussing master plan progress for their strategic vision area. I think at our next meeting we'll look at the results from all of the commissions and then have a discussion overall about our master plan progress. The planning commission also started to discuss changes to accessory dwelling unit. Jim mentioned that this legislation popped up at the housing convening and there are some small adjustments that we will likely need to make locally to adapt to the state guidance. I think at our next the next planning commission meeting this week we will be talking about us a schedule to move us forward and when these actual changes and recommendations will go to public hearing as they progress towards eventually happening. I attended the monthly airport advisory commission meeting on that agenda was the consideration of the addition of a voting seat for Obanewski representative on that commission. I think the discussion went well. I participated and advocated for us that item is I believe on Burlington City Council's agenda tonight as they are considering adding it to their town meeting day ballot so we should know tomorrow if that's moving well potentially if that's moving forward. And then finally Heather our community and economic development officer and myself joined the Wynuski Housing Authority board just to sort of share about the city's housing goals from our master plan and hear a little bit from them to try to make sure that we are coordinating as we move forward housing affordability in our community. That's it for me I will pass it to you Jesse. Oh Mike you have a question? I don't I have one more thing that I forgot to mention about our infrastructure meeting because we're part of the TreeUSA it's opening doors for grants and we're going to be speaking about one of those later on our agenda about the TD green space so because of us in correct from wrong again Jim because of your help getting us part of being of TreeUSA it's opening grants and in monies for us to help our green spaces out. When you when you started talking about the other grant it just popped in my head so. No problem thanks Mike. I think Jim forgot something too. Apparently I hope how an Amy won't leave me and Mike high and dry here. I just said I did attend I realized it's been a long time since we talked I have attended a couple of board meetings of the heart of Winooski foundation which was formed to solicit and utilize donations for the Winooski school district capital improvement project and they were announced they announced this month the acceptance of a hundred thousand dollar lead gift to the district for capital improvement so I just wanted to amplify and then reshare that news here the full board is meeting on Thursday for the first time so we'll have our full complement of members including community and parent representatives so really great start for Winooski and really appreciative of the donor who stepped up and has stepped into this district funding so I just wanted to share that piece too thank you. Thank you. All right now we'll move to city updates. Great thank you so let me start with town meeting day I'm excited on behalf of staff excited that councilor Duncan and mayor lot will be running again and Amy we will miss you very much but no you will stay involved in lots of other ways so brace yourself for those requests um so if people are watching now um and interested in running for office on town meeting day you need to the process is to come into the city clerk's office meet with one either either Carol the city clerk or one of the assistant city clerks and sign a consent to appear on the ballot um with the COVID legislation signatures are not needed to run for office this year so that consent to have your name appear on the ballot needs to be signed no later than January 25th at 5 p.m so we will remind folks again but that is the process for running for getting your name on the ballot this year and just as a reminder to the community the city clerk's office is currently open between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. Monday through Friday so along the elections line and along the lines of we haven't met in a while the day after our last council meeting was election day we broke several records here in the city with 3734 people voting 1400 more people than voted on town meeting day this year so it's great turnout and really exceptional work done by our city clerks not only to process the mail-in ballots but also to staff a very busy election day on on election day on November 3rd also really want to thank all of our neighbors who came out to vote on election day for their patience and compliance with all the safety protocols that were in place certainly felt a little different but everyone was very cooperative and we really appreciate that um I want to give you a couple of uh additional COVID related updates um so we did want to do one last reminder about the um COVID utility arrearage program that's being offered by the state this is for utility bills where people are have outstanding balances um you have to these balances are only for after March 1st and they have to be 60 days past due so it's really for uh past due amounts between March 1st and this fall the deadline is December 15th so we wanted to bring it to everyone's attention again um we have we are participating as a city in the program and we have had five properties applied thus far but if there's anyone else who is interested um we sent out a stuffer with the last your last utility bill with the information about how to apply on it so you can refer to that document or go to our website to learn more additionally on the COVID front um you hopefully have seen that we as of today have partnered with the Vermont Department of Health CIC Health and a number of community partners to start daily COVID testing in Winooski for the foreseeable future this is I will say tending a future vote of yours later on tonight to use the space but we are assuming that you will allow us to do that um so this will be daily testing at the O'Brien Community Center um this week the hours are during the day um we hope in future weeks to have weekend and evening hours as well um I do want to make a point that this is a um what they are calling observed navel observe navel nasal swab testing so basically it is a self-administered test that a healthcare professional watches you do to ensure that it's a good test um and it's not quite as invasive as the past tests have been um there are many materials that are translated both about the hours of operation and the process that people will experience when they go to the testing site that are available um on our website but also through um many of our community partners um people can sign up on the VDH website to test they can also walk in there will be walk in availability every day um there also be translators on site um every day the Winooski site is up um and I do so I think this is a great opportunity for our community to continue to keep ourselves safe and healthy um I do want to take a moment to especially thank our partner caseworkers um and the interpretation coordinators at ALV and USCRI they have done an enormous amount of work in the last two weeks to partner with us in CIC Health to stand this up and get materials available um and all the languages that um our neighbors speak so huge thanks huge shout out and thanks to ALV and USCRI Ray is there anything else on testing you want to Ray has been coordinating this do you see anything else you want to know I think you got it they uh they were there this afternoon and dropped all their materials off so we're we're ready to roll tomorrow morning great thank you um one last sort of COVID related thing you hopefully saw the announcement that the Winooski Memorial Library has now opened again for by appointment service so folks can go in and look at the shelves um their browse and borrow sessions are half an hour you can register on the website or by calling 655 6424 6424 and the they have appointments Wednesday through Friday or Saturday each week so Wednesday through Saturday each week um a couple of other non-COVID updates um we did have our TIFF um annual monitoring visit um right after Thanksgiving it went very well Angel and I participated in that and Angel and Heather are currently working on our annual reporting um the TIFF visit involved the state staff as well as members of their policy board um and all by all accounts we are um doing well and on track to retire our debt and we'll be talking about that in a future agenda item as well um like many other communities we are also um concerned about our plowing operations this winter if we are to have a COVID impact on staff um so we are monitoring that very closely and working with our neighbors as you likely know for us to plow the streets we really in a big storm we need all of our CDL licensed drivers available so if we are down one or two we may see an impact on operations and are prepared to um address that as we see it um and then finally and Chief Audie jumped in here um you received a few messages from me at the end of last week about the sprinkler break at 65 when you ski Fallsway this is one of the King's crossing buildings so I want to give you a quick update on that um so we have had about 60 families about 110 individuals relocated as a result of that sprinkler break um basically there was a significant amount of water in the building that got into the electrical system and really shut down the building um those families have all been relocated to hotels in the area paid for by um Hall Keane the the property manager um Ray worked with Chief Audie and the state and the school and many other partners to ensure that those families all had um access to food over the weekend at their hotel and that those systems are in place through the beginning of this week as well it is our hope that the majority the vast majority of those families will be able to return this week once the um electrical system is back fully back online um there is likely a few units that will um need to be displaced for a longer period of time um we do believe that both both businesses in the uh property both commodities and Schaefer's deli are back open um finally it is a very probably this probably sounds very familiar to you there's a very similar sprinkler break in a different Keane's crossing building earlier this year uh so Chief Audie and the state inspectors are looking at um the products used in the building and seeing if there is a more systematic problem that we need to look at and address over time there are two more buildings that have not experienced this break currently in the Keane's crossing or um uh development so Chief is there anything else on that that I missed that you want to highlight no I think you nailed it and again just thank you to all of our partners for you know Keane's crossing their management staff ray you know the city manager the state emergency management folks um you know the PD there's several folks that played a role and uh you know we there's a lot for people to be displaced um during normal normal times so we tried to express that to the residents of um you know we don't take lightly um and and really try to acknowledge their hardships um so we're working as diligent as we can to make sure they can get back into homes as quickly as possible um with safe conditions and we'll do our part to look at the product issues and and see if there's a bigger problem thanks and that's all for me thank you very much thank you um moving to our regular items first item on the agenda a is for discussion this is about the local petition process for town meeting day so while COVID legislation did specifically outline a change in process for candidates to get on the town meeting day ballot it did not specifically address petition ballot items so while we are able to put items on the ballot residents can also petition to do so and the current state statute requires five percent of registered voters signatures to add an item to the ballot on annual meeting town meeting day in light of the public health crisis i am recommending that we sort of create our own policy without having one coming from the state on this to say that we would accept electronic signatures um so this could be in the form of an actual electronic petition or like a google form or something like that with the stipulation that the actual ballot language be included and that the five percent signature minimum is still met so that aligns to the you know sort of in-person signature process um there is also a in the state statute a due date for that sort of petition set at 47 days before town meeting day and i spoke with staff about this so we are on our january 25th meeting finalizing our warning for the town meeting day ballot and so would set our own due date for any sort of resident petition to the 21st so that the clerk's office has time to to review that and add it to the warning um i put this on here as a discussion tonight i think what we are discussing is is this a suitable process to say that residents can put something on the town meeting day ballot um is this a suitable alternative for our pandemic status and if so would we want to take a vote on it at our next meeting so i will stop there for questions i have a question mayor sure would this be just during the times of pandemic or would this be the way it would work from here on out if this does go if we do pass this this is what i'm discussing is us taking an action specific to town meeting day 2021 okay so just 2021 and then okay thank you oh jesse did you want to jump in i just wanted to jump in with a quick point of clarification everything you said is correct that um january 14th deadline for normal petition processes is to allow the city clerk to assess whether those who assign petitions are legal voters of wojcicki in this particular case it's a little different because you're using the petitions as you would be using the petitions as a kind of a data source for you all to make your decision so i would suggest if if you approve this and people move forward with it that they do try and get their petitions in as early as possible in case they're not registered voters on that list we can still work to bring those or the petition holders can still work to bring those to you with the appropriate registered voters thank you it's a good flag um amy i see your hand is raised yeah that was actually along the lines of what i was going to ask jesse so thanks for clarifying that um i think that this process definitely makes a lot of sense given the pandemic that we're in i'm just wondering and it doesn't sound like it but i just want to verify that this process wouldn't be any sort of additional burden to the city clerk it would just be kind of the same process that she would verify signatures in the past but just electronic is that correct that is correct okay thanks jim thank you i so i just want to clarify because my understanding is the petition being circulated right now doesn't include street addresses um so is it going to be possible to verify i guess the question i had maybe for the council first and then depending on the answer to jesse and the city staff is that is whether the registered voter piece is um is a requirement so as a person have to be a registered voter in the city of when you ski in order for us to um basically take action if we reach that threshold or are we willing to go with any person who is resident of when you ski because right now i just don't know and so if the answer is we want it to be registered then to to jesse is that feasible with just a zip code and a first and the last name to do i mean my recommendation would be yes we do want them to be registered voters i would like us to be able to accept name like match the name to the voter registration list but definitely jesse would like to hear your thoughts um so in normal times there's two different ways to get a ballot item on the town meeting day ballot there is the petition process which is the formal in person signatures with street addresses that are submitted 47 days in advance go through if petition get on the ballot the council always reserves the right to put whatever they want onto the ballot so you all can always make an exception and decide to put something on the ballot basically this is a um what the mayor has outlined is a proposal to um not to not require the petition process in times of covid but still have a data source for you all to advise you on what to move forward onto the ballot so that so the signatures that we would be verifying electronically we would still per the what the mayor has outlined we would still be looking for registered when you ski voters on of that list and providing you data on what came what was on the petition that was presented we can search um and carol jump in here but we can search the voter registration list by name only so we will do our best to verify those names without street addresses it's a little harder to determine um the validity of that data but it is feasible to think that we would be able to search by name yes see yes carol also the names would have to be legible in order for us to you know confirm the name um if they could either uh print their name and then sign their name would be helpful also thank you yeah i think that's a good point of clarification is this is like a policy that we are commit would be committing to as a group and that we're going to take this the similar process and say if these standards are met we would vote to put this item onto a ballot jim is your hand raised again new question okay go ahead thank you um so i i think this is the right move i think that we shouldn't be forcing people into other people's houses to gather signatures at a time i realize we're making kind of a strange pre-commitment to put things on the ballot but um i think that if the city can accommodate the additional work of verifying those names as best we can and we can get a report if there are any unsure um numbers so if we're close but not quite there but there's 10 people you can't match to a registered voter but they say they're from wanouski i think we should hear that information too um but i do think that this is uh it's a it's a reasonable response and we get the same level of um support that we would have gotten through a paper signature drive so while we can't get that relief from the legislature i'm i'm hopeful that we can do that as a city any other questions or comments from council so i would turn to the public i see we do have a hand raised so care of montague when you are ready go ahead um thanks for considering this um i just want to be whenever you decide i just want it to have it be very clear um the process so um the question around the need of addresses or not having addresses or um if just a zip code is is okay um just to have that be um very clear for the for people who are trying to get a resolution on the ballot sure so it's it's my understanding that in certain online petition um platforms you cannot collect a sweet address and so we would be asking our city clerk's office to compare name so if somebody has put in their name in zip code to compare that to our voter registration list um if they can find that name on the registered voters list then we as council could say i think that counts as a registered voter signature um but the point that was made earlier is just to call out that it's not it's not as verifiable as maybe the state process would be but that we are agreeing that this works for us for this upcoming um town meeting day vote okay so what is that what is that saying if there are sort of questions around there's there's a name they say they live in winewski but they're not found found to be a registered voter is that something that would come back to the people running the petition and we would get a list and say can you verify that these are registered voters jesse go ahead so yes kara i think how it typically works is that when petitions are filed about two weeks before they're due to the council and the city clerk commits to turning them within within turning them around within 24 or 48 hours if there are not enough registered voters on the list so if that petition was received in time um for the city clerk to do that work we would certainly turn that around to the petition submitters if there weren't enough uh folks who we could find on our winewski voter registration list okay and is um i i am not totally sure about the dates of two weeks ahead and um is that going to be written down somewhere that process yeah so this item is just an agenda this evening for discussion we actually take a vote at our next meeting in which this will be outlined if and it sounds like the body is moving forward wanting to see this come back at the next the next meeting okay and that would outline the full process and the timeline correct yes for when signatures would need to be submitted okay yes and when is the next meeting next monday okay thank you thank you uh we have another hand raised all right margaret whenever you're ready go ahead thank you um and thank you so much to to the council members for helping to clarify this process for us i just wanted to report that at this point the online petition has 346 signatures um but i haven't been able to uh get an uh aggregated list by uh area code zip codes um so that i can see how many are actually winewski but out of curiosity would it be helpful to the clerks if we were able to alphabetize the list um by first by last name to make it easier to go through the voter rolls and so that's just my question for you if we could do that we would certainly do it doesn't it it doesn't matter we just enter the name and and if they're a registered voter in the city of winewski it will pop up got it okay i appreciate you looking out though for helping make it easier for staff are there any other questions or comments all right so i will we will bring this back at our meeting next week and take an official vote um oh jim sorry i was waiting for members of the public um so just to be clear we are requiring at this point a separate first name last name zip code and that's all that we need on the petition right that we would require from the petition just to make it clear like what level of information because i noticed carol you said you have emails and zip codes but margaret it makes you sound you make it sound like we have names as well so just want to make sure we have those oh we definitely need names not just emails and i thought that from what margaret said that we do have there will be names on the um any the position that they're working on so any petition would have to have the first name the last name email zip code that is correct great thank you um so just to clarify so i know what we're potentially writing up for next week yes that's the data we will collect and we will compare it to the voter registration so the intent of the council is that you are interested in that five percent of registered voters number that's right um so we will do our best to circulate back to folks who have submitted a petition if they haven't met that threshold okay yes um yeah so we will revisit this next i'm sorry i see another handout yeah um james whenever you are ready i just heard the word email and i just wanted to alert you that although you put your email address in on it on this kind of change dot org petition they won't give it back to you they will give you the full name and the and the zip code but not the email address even though you put it in oh i we're not required going to require email that's not information in the voter registration anyway so sorry for the confusion yeah um yes unusual times require a new and unusual process um so we will see this outlined in text at our next meeting we can take an official vote and that will be available to any residents who um would like to petition for a valid item this this town meeting day any other questions or comments all right we will move then to our next item b this is on for approval this is downtown to go parking which heather will introduce good evening um i am just here to do the introduction piece of this uh we're bringing forward a request from downtown wanouski on behalf of the downtown businesses for seven of our on street parking spaces to be designated to go parking spaces to facilitate curbside pickup so these would be 15 minute parking spaces specifically for to go pick up um and there is a map included in your materials and as well as a memo from meredith and this request is coming out of i think it was six or seven meetings that we had with businesses meredith and myself in march and throughout the summer really looking for ways that the city and downtown wanouski could best support our businesses to be successful in these difficult times so this is a temporary request that would go from the time of your approval until june 30th of 2021 and we've selected june 30th because there's some possibility that people will be vaccinated by that point in time but there's certainly a possibility that people can go back to outdoor dining at that time so we really just need to help carry the businesses through the winter months there is an associated cost to that which would be a little under $15,000 in foregone revenue um at 100% use of those parking spaces um but i think that it's easy to argue that keeping our business as a flow will have a far greater economic impact on the city than that $15,000 so i'm going to turn it over to meredith to add anything that she would like to add and go over her memo with you a little bit meredith are you there yeah i'm here i'm here i promise um thank you so much heather so she really said it i don't really have a lot to add except that this you know we heather and myself and um in talking with other downtowns in vermont and beyond at the beginning of the pandemic and throughout we've had a lot of ideas and quite frankly a lot of them have been put aside by businesses and this is an idea that really came to a consensus with a lot of businesses that came together um and we even got um a lot of businesses that aren't restaurants that don't necessarily need to go 15 minute spots to weigh in on this um and the approval was overwhelming so this is one of those things that we just can't ignore because um it it has consensus among business owners um in the downtown area that these parking spots are going to be located in um but also the pretty much the entire business community um just because this is one of those things that they um themselves came up with um with our with our during our discussion so i'm happy to walk through any of the information that we provided um but i think that's pretty straightforward well thank you both for continuing to liaise with our business community and work with them to find creative ways to help support them um you know this is an unprecedented situation and we are all trying to be creative and find ways to get through um i personally think this is a no-brainer based on the information that you have shared are there any questions or concerns from council mike has his hand raised hello um i have a couple questions now i've noticed on the map that the mill area and the windows could block areas have not designated any 15 to gold parking spots were they in on the conversations or can you explain why is just in that one area where were you designated part of it is they were part of those discussions part of it is that this is quite frankly a pilot just like everything is in the pandemic and part of it is because there are some significant blocks of 15 minute courtesy spaces already in those areas if this becomes something that the that both consumers the customers and the businesses are really finding wow that is actually making a huge impact more than we even anticipated then we would certainly come back to council with additional requests because i think that you're right we are concentrating these in one area but if it if it turns out that this is something that needs to that people want to expand we would come back with more with us okay yeah i was thinking of the delis and the coffee shops might be interested in having those those easy pickups yep okay thank you anyone else any uh public comments on this topic does it remind you you can raise your hand or use the chat and zoom right so i would entertain a motion to approve the downtown to go parking so moved second motion by howl second by jim all those in favor please say aye hi hi hi motion carries thank you thank you thank you all so much thank you um item c our proposed f y 22 budget overview in general government review discussion begins okay give me a quick second to set up the sharing all right are people seeing the um slide right thank you um so thank you very much for this next step in the f y 22 proposed budget process um tonight i am going to share with you a presentation about um the overview the budget the total budget overview as well as the overview of the general government operations um i also want would be remiss if i did not start with a thanks to the entire leadership team that is on um the zoom tonight so this is i have the privilege of presenting the work but it is really work that they all have done um over the course of the last couple of months putting together these budget proposals um so um i will walk through this presentation the real um you know goal of tonight is to give you that big picture of what's going to be before you over the next six meetings um to hear any questions you may have and request for information you may have so we can be best prepared for the future budget presentations obviously you can always ask us additional questions or for additional information as we go through this process um tonight what i am sharing is the actual um presentation but we have provided the full budget book linked to your agenda today uh paul has also built out the website w w w dot when you ski vt dot gov backslash f y 22 with the full budget book in its entirety as well as broken out by individual sections in the hopes that that may be slightly easier to navigate to for uh residents as they follow along with our process over the next several months so those are my introductory points so this is what i'm going to talk about tonight um again the overview um general funds all funds and then what your tasks with the questions will be before you um and then an overview of the general government operations as well so typically i start these presentations annually with um our strategic vision and all of our accomplishments in the last year to achieve the strategic vision um you have those monthly reports from us we've been providing those um regularly throughout the pandemic we will provide you another report number four tonight um and those are available on our website so i'm not going to spend a lot of time tonight walking through those strategic vision areas because quite frankly as we all know this year has been very different um so i wanted to take a few minutes to talk about how this year has been different um and what that means for our community as we think about f y 22 which again won't start until july 1st 2021 um so this year um as the world did we experienced the COVID-19 pandemic um during that time we ensured that the public safety has was and has been maintained uh without stop we maintained our essential infrastructure and services we sent out hundreds of communications to our residents um both in english and in other languages sharing information from the state and other experts uh we had 20 we furloughed 21 staff to protect the finances of the city we stood up weekly and now bi-weekly we need winewski leadership briefing meetings with um housing leaders faith leaders non-profit leaders business leaders from across the city to ensure that we were all had the same information on the same page that we could share resources if needed and we're making the best decisions we could in the interest of the residents um and finally we responded to the winewski burlington outbreak over the summer uh very quickly and we're able to contain that outbreak with the partnership of us cri alv and the health department and we were so thankful that through that outbreak we did not lose any of our neighbors so what does that mean for the future um so i believe and i think our leadership team believes that um with that work and with the continued focus on our shared strategic vision work plan we are actually well poised to come out of the pandemic as strong as ever so on the city side we've maintained our work on our significant development projects as you know we finished construction on myers memorial pool and you've heard regular updates on our other infrastructure projects we've continued to work with private developers as we continue to see investment in winewski from other housing and commercial developers all staff were brought back from furlough at the very beginning of august when the additional unemployment bonus expired so we are fortunate that we have all of our team members back and uh fully working for us some remote um as as we speak um and we have been very thankful that that team has continued to follow that our full team has continued to follow the safety guidance with temperature checks and mask masking and staying socially distant and so far have me been able to maintain a healthy team during the pandemic we hired 15 exceptional new staff people really were able to recruit some pretty extraordinary talent into the city and are really poised to take off with service delivery once we're able to fully open up again we've also angela has done an enormous amount of work to go after every COVID funding opportunity available not only for municipal operations but for our residents we've applied for FEMA a FEMA grant an elder's grant k Anderson our thrive director has been exceptional bringing in funding to support our after school and summer programming really hoping to again ensure we maintain the fiscal health of the city we've strengthened um community connections with our community partnerships with our community partners that I think will last long beyond the pandemic and hopefully we've been able to build trust with our neighbors so this budget looks different from past budgets and I want to kind of paint a bigger picture of why that's true so as most of you know and have been involved in we have been on a multi-year journey long before I was here um to envision what our community could be starting with the tax increment financing district really up to the adoption of the strategic vision in 2015 um since 2015 and that adoption we have gone through a several year cycle of um planning and making commitments to one another through all of the different master plans and um associated documents that we spent hundreds of hours of community time building we have taken three significant bond votes to strengthen the infrastructure in our community including the pool main street and the development of the abenaki garage and now we're really at a point with your direction that we are focusing on affordability and account and equity so this budget really doesn't present anything big and new we are continuing where our current level of service our current the current commitments the community has made but there are not big new asks the way there there have been in past years so uh what does this actual budget process look like um this is where we've been in September and October with your goal setting sessions uh tonight is the overview budget presentation through the rest of December and January we will do individual uh department presentations focusing on public safety community services and public works street sidewalks facilities etc you will then have a meeting to have an overall budget conversation about anything you might want to see um added to or changed and then by that January 25th deadline you need to um approve the FY 22 budget and set the amount to be raised by property tax dollars and then obviously town meeting day in March so during our goal setting process um we had the following conversation the goals you set for us were to maintain current staffing levels and service levels no we're I think we as staff felt like you were saying uh we're we're focusing on the right things keep doing those things you asked us to bring you a budget that was um at or below the cost of living adjustments you asked us to maintain our commitment in our capital improvement plan our infrastructure investments with a specific focus on sidewalks um and that if there was going to be any addition you asked us to ensure that that focused on maintaining essential services for our residents including thrive and senior services so I think it's important to start with the vast majority of our budget is our people um and who those what those kind of service areas are so as you've heard me say before before we are a small full service municipality with um fire and code enforcement public works police and dispatch community services planning and zoning and community and economic development and general administration so down to the details what you all have been waiting for for those dorky municipal people like me so this is what we are proposing so you see here what our current year the f y 21 year and our proposed f y 22 budget so we are proposing um an 8.2 million dollar general fund budget which is um a seven over a seven and a half percent increase in spending however we are only proposing a 0.8 percent increase in the taxes to be raised which means um which translates into us really diversifying our revenue streams and increasing the amount of non property tax revenue we bring into the budget by 25 percent this year um so all that translates into a 1.83 percent increase to the tax rate which would translate to for the average single family homeowner to about a 47 and a 47 dollars add to the annual property tax bill i'm going to pause there and just say feel free to jump in and ask me any questions along the way if you would like or happy to answer them at the end as well um so a few more details about what is in this overall budget um as you may remember some of the assumptions and challenges we brought to you during your goal setting session we are assuming a two percent cost of living increase in this budget uh we are assuming a 0.7 percent increase to the grand list which translates into about 40 almost 50 000 dollars of new revenue that's a fairly conservative estimate of grand list growth as you may remember last year we estimated a 0.8 percent and actually came in at one point about one and a half percent which is what allowed us to lower the tax rate we were anticipating in FY 21 health insurance for municipal employees is increasing 3.3 percent this january which is significantly lower than we've seen in past years so we are maintaining that 10 projected um health insurance increase in january 2022 and then we are assuming 385 000 in local options revenue which is up from um the FY 21 budgeted amount of 355 000 um as you may remember when this was first implemented we had not a whole lot of receipts data on what this could bring in with the change in how sales tax was applied to online purchases angel and i have been tracking this very carefully and while we are seeing some shifts in local options receipts i.e rooms, meals and alcohol is going has gone down significantly during the pandemic sales receipts has actually gone up significantly as a result we think of online purchases so this assumes um an increase although it is on track with what we are anticipating collecting in FY 21 and therefore we are fairly we are comfortable with this projection for FY 22 so as i said earlier there are very few new ads in this budget so i do want to call out where things have shifted for you as i said level services for staffing the only staff ad in this budget is the new equity director position which has corresponding revenues attached to it so it's a net zero impact to the tax rate this year you will see in the full budget that the expense the revenues for the working communities challenge grant are built into this budget as are the expenses primarily in the city manager's budget one of the big structural changes we're recommending this year is moving the thrive recreation and meals program within the enterprise fund fully over to the general fund this is a continuation of a conversation we've been having for several years about those programs not supporting themselves through the revenues raised but being essential services to our community so i'm going to talk more about this in a few minutes when i get to that fund included in this budget is the full 50 funding for the school newsletter it's included here is continuing our five percent increase to our capital improvement spending annually again with that focus on sidewalks i have included in this budget our funding for the school resource officer i call out in my memo to you all that this may be a question for you to consider as we go through this process given the conversation the school trustees are having the superintendent and i have talked about this since i put together this document they have laid out a community feedback process around the school resource officer that they will not have completed by the time you need to approve the budget to move this forward my recommendation would be that you so you have you have several paths forward and we can talk about this if you would like tonight or a future budget hearing but given that the school trustees are likely not to have made a decision about this position during your conversations i would recommend you let that public process play out and make the financial decisions you're going to make as a result of that but that public process unrelated to this budget process and then we have continued our incremental increases to fund the winewski valley parks district and channel 17 which are two community partners where we are paying less than the funding formula they they have for other communities so it's a thousand dollars each increase so this is another way of looking at the general fund budget that's before you and how those revenues and expenses are broken out across service areas again you have this in a larger version in your budget book and then so today thus far tonight i've talked about the general fund but also before you is the full all the funds budgets for municipal operations so while going back eight work proposing a 8.2 million dollar general fund budget in total we're actually proposing a 15.3 million dollars municipal operations budget across all funds and you can see how those are broken out here across all funds the overall budget increase is up 1.96 from fy 21 and as we look at those funds across service areas you can see how they're broken out so the biggest portion of all of those funds is public works which does include the capital plan so it is facilities for all the other municipal operations as well then we have our tax quadrant or our sorry tax increment financing district quadrant our tiff quadrant followed by police and administration as our largest expenditures so to give you a few highlights from other funds that you will hear more about as we go through our budget hearings we are proposing to maintain the rate structure increases we have proposed in past years in our water and wastewater funds that's 3.6 percent increase in water and 5.5 percent increase in the wastewater which equates to about 13 dollars a household and 26 dollars a household focusing back on community services the community services fund and moving out thrive recreation and meals for a minute into the general fund there are two main goals to doing this one is to fully integrate them into the general fund given that those programs aren't self-sustaining through the revenues that they bring in and that we again have heard the priority of continuing those essential services by the by the council second it protects the reserves that currently exist in those funds for the library and senior center both the library and senior center have healthy funds within community services but within the community services fund with dollars either donated or raised specifically with the intent of being used for those purposes so if we don't move the other programs out we will now be subsidizing those programs with funds meant for another service area that we want to protect and then finally the rental registry does anticipate the increased revenues to reflect an ordinance update we hope to bring you in the next month or so so the look just this is just a call out that we are we have continued the leverage funds report that we started last year that demonstrates by project the non-property tax or non-rate revenues brought that we have brought into projects to again keep that affordability for the city and those details are all in your budget book by project I think it's always important to talk about reserves as we're talking about the budget what is in our savings account essentially so this is a snapshot of that as of the end of June 30th of the end of FY 20 which was June 30th so at the end of June at the end of FY 20 we have 568,000 in our reserve in our unassigned operating reserves account since this spreadsheet you have allocated 30,000 of that to downtown Winnieski but it's still a very healthy reserve that we have available to us and also allows for unanticipated needs that we may experience as a result of COVID so what's next for you all in the general overall budget picture is the weekly presentations from the department hence the final votes that you will need to take is approving the general fund budget and the warning for time meeting day approving the individual enterprise and special revenue funds for FY 22 approving a fee and rate resolution and then convening as the trustees of the Winnieski Development Corporation to receive and allocate funding for FY 22 so I'm going to pause there before I get into the very high level general government overview and see if there are any questions at this point or do you want me to just keep going and have discussion at the end keep going okay so this is a general government this part is much shorter just heads up you don't have to listen to me talk that much longer so general government is how what we classify is all the thing all the tasks of the city that support all the departments or support efforts that are kind of without a department or cross department so including we include in this the city clerk communications finance human resources equity and inclusion with the new equity director planning zoning community and economic development parking and our tax increment financing district and you see the humans that this represents so in this specific FY 22 proposal again we have the increase in our commandments to our community partners we have the working communities challenge grant integration into this full budget and we have the funding for the school newsletter those are the only changes included in the general in the general government budget in the general fund so I want to give you snapshots of the individual enterprise funds that exist within this sphere so the first the biggest is obviously our tax increment financing district our next agenda item is about this in a little more detail but I want to call out for you here what we are assuming for FY 22 so in the TIF budget in FY 22 we are assuming the sale of the development rights for a lot 7d or 17 abanaki way we are assuming an increase of an increase of $100,000 to $300,000 in payment to the winewski community development corporation with both of those with both of those things in consideration we are still able to meet our one-to-one debt service covenant ratio which is required coverage ratio which is required for our primary debt in the TIF district and you'll hear at our next agenda item that assuming that our community in vermont can come out of the pandemic and we do see anticipated development in the TIF district we are well poised to to pay off the the debt in FY 24 the next budget I want to highlight for you is the community development budget so again we are recommending that we increase the payment of this note by $100,000 this year honestly our primary purpose for that is to one we can do it within the revenue models within the TIF district to what allows us to free up some dollars for unanticipated expenses we may encounter in the business community or in community development as we come out of COVID so as you will see with this proposal we are growing our fund balance in this fund to 384,000 also in this budget is the grant match to support our equity and inclusion work we have included a $40,000 payment to the parking fund for the development of the abanaki garage and we're increasing our fund balance and then the last fund that I want to call out in this section is our parking fund and just as a reminder that the parking fund we is one fund we operate it as two because the surplus from the cascade garage which is our current garage is committed to our to TIF debt payment so we keep those expenses and revenues separate in order to maintain that system so in the on-street and abanaki garage fund the change this obviously level services level staffing across the board here it does include the debt service for the abanaki garage and you will see reflected here pretty significant losses of revenue in FY 20 and FY 21 this is certainly where we are seeing the biggest financial impact of COVID and we are increasing the revenue projections from FY 21 to 22 assuming we are coming out of COVID in FY 22 but we are not fully returning them to the FY 20 rates assuming that there is some ramp up and folks comfort with being out and about in FY 22 we will also be bringing to you in the next hopefully in January many more details about the abanaki garage and funding models we are working to bridge the kind of gap between incurring construction costs related to abanaki garage but not having received the revenues yet so we are we are working on that modeling and we'll bring that to you with parking agreements and whatnot in January and then the other side of the parking fund of course is the cascade garage our current garage this is basically a level funded budget and as I note here all of the surpluses that we experience in cascade are pledged to TIFF at this point but with the expiration of TIFF those two funds will be fully combined so the big emerging issues that we are tracking within general government are obviously the COVID-19 impacts and our recovery out of COVID-19 we are very focused we are kickoff meeting today with the working communities challenge grant team on working towards being a more equitable and inclusive community and city government that will we're very excited to kick off that work but certainly it will require a significant effort of all of us a lot of learning that we all need to do and potentially additional things we need to consider as a governmental organization to be more accessible and equitable you'll hear later on tonight more about the legacy campaign and our centennial planning working towards March 2022 we are working on a reappraisal process with the CLA dropping in Wenuski and then of course the continued work on 17 Abenaki way and that the impact of that to the parking fund and to potentially the community development fund as well so that is my presentation as I said at the kickoff to this I have the privilege of presenting this presentation but really this is work that our team has done we have an incredibly talented leadership team that has just taken extraordinary measures in COVID-19 to ensure that our community continued to be served to be served as well as it did and as always a huge shout out to Angela for whom the finances of this city would not be nearly as strong and healthy as they are so thank you to Angela and I'm happy to answer any questions we may have and I'm going to stop sharing just so for ease of seeing one another so I just want to say I'll echo your thanks to staff I know a lot of work goes into this and I think you all did a good job of coming up with a budget that does meet the goals that we gave you and to your point in this presentation moves forward existing commitments and community vision you know we're not getting off track we're not asking for anything new and so for me personally I probably have fewer questions than ever in a budget year because I feel like everything in here made sense and is aligned with conversations we had before and I'm looking forward to digging into other funds over the next couple of meetings if folks have questions on the general fund obviously now's the time if you have questions about other funds that we're going to speak to in the future you're welcome to share those now so that staff know what to come back with you also I'm speaking on your behalf but I'm sure you can email Jesse at any point and share those questions as well or if there are any specific data requests you would like to see us bring forward with our department presentations we would love to hear those tonight but you are certainly welcome to ask those at any time Jim thank you and thank you Jesse Angela and everyone for the work that went into this I agree with Christine that this seemed a lot more straightforward so I worried I was missing something but it's still a big budget and a lot going on and it's kind of crazy to think how much we're already doing and this is mostly focused on what we're doing more of or continuing to support I really appreciated the direction you're going on thrive and senior or sorry and the meals program and recreation I think that's encouraging development for the city and one one question and this is mostly just a clarification is that you know last year we had kind of the this is all the stuff we're funding in this budget and these are the things we're not and I'm curious if there are any priorities that city staff considered either because of past conversations or other reasons and kind of set aside things that councils should keep an eye on because I went back to that list and looked at what we were talking about last year and what we didn't fund and I'm just curious if there are any things that surfaced that we should be keeping an eye on you know in the next budget cycle so I will jump in hands of that but as I said the leadership teams all here so others feel free to weigh in there so I will be honest when we built this budget we were building for a level service budget so we purposely did not go through the exercise of what are all the things we would add if we could because that what quite frankly wasn't the direction nor did we necessarily think that that was a financially respectful thing to do for our neighbors having said that I think we are very much looking forward to the conversation at next week's council meeting about the master plan goals and how we invest in ourselves over time to support those larger goals of the strategic vision and really align our future financial decisions to those goals. Operationally I think we all probably could come up with you know staff we would love to see to support general operations but I think we've also demonstrated that we're doing pretty well with the current staff we have and are committed to continuing that so I don't think that there's a big list of asks outside of the investments we need to make to further those master plan goals. Amy? Yes I also had a question related to Thrive and also just want to echo what others have said so far I think that the your presentation Jesse was very easy to understand and easy to follow and I think that what you've put forward is a very fair budget so just want to say thank you to the team for that. If I'm remembering correctly about Thrive in particular in the past and some of the recreation programs I believe we've had a conversation before that about some of the pros and cons about moving it to the general fund and some of those included this idea that we don't necessarily want to do that because we're already charging residents for some of these services so you know you have to pay a fee to take a recreation class or I don't know blanking on Thrive also has a program fee associated with it so almost this feeling like by charging them through taxes it would be like double dipping a little bit with residents and just curious if you can walk me through the thinking on how that may have changed or evolved. So my perspective on that but also I would love Angela and Ray to weigh in here is that that quote-unquote double dipping has always happened in that the Thrive and recreation staff were either entirely or in part always funded through the general fund so it was never that the full accounting of the service delivery was being totally made up achieve through the just the programmatic fees of the operations. I think the the idea here is that because the property tax dollars have previously and this is a bit of a misnomer but kind of subsidized those programs with those that staffing that by moving them entirely into the general fund we will still account for the operations we will know how much revenue is coming in through program fees how much revenue is coming in through property tax and be able to lay out those models for you but that the community is invested in maintaining those service delivery lines even if the paying revenues the fees for those programs aren't fully covering the costs of operating those programs and by moving them in we're protecting those other reserves for the library and the senior center and not using those reserves to fund the operation of Thrive or our recreation programs. The you know I think it's a worthwhile conversation the community could have about if the if we want taxpayers to completely pay for all recreation programs that are only accessed by a certain number of our residents or whether we're comfortable with some fees being charged for specific programs certainly there are lots of programs that RAISE team offers that are open access to all and we also put into place the scholarship program last year or the scholarship policy last year so we are trying to lower those barriers to entry for all but by moving them into the general fund again we're really protecting those other reserve balances and acknowledging to the property taxpayers that we are using property tax dollars to operate those other programs. Angela and Ray do you want to add to that? Yeah so one of the things that we really had discussed was making sure that we keep the programming particularly around child care affordable for people and by having to increase the fees to cover the cost to provide the service it was starting to get that it wouldn't be affordable to the people who really needed it most and so it's balancing the amount that we're going to subsidize that with making sure that the people who need child care get it with the proposed recreation moving into the general fund it is actually coming into the general fund net neutral for the recreation programs we have a new recreation programs manager that we anticipate having the revenues fully fund those programs that are really enrollment based that are more at will like I want to sign up for creative writing I want to take part in the soccer programs they're not necessities and then the meals program is one where the grants that we receive from the state cannot fund the amount of the cost of a meal they reimburse us far less than what we get from the state so that is another thing where we want to make sure that people have food that need it and that is a worthwhile thing in our opinion for tax dollars to subsidize I do want to add one comment about Angela is absolutely right about the recreation coming in in FY 22 being net neutral the caveat which means there's no tax rate impact to bring over recreation the caveat to that is that recreation currently has a $30,000 deficit in the fund so at some point we will need to determine what to do with that deficit essentially do we use fund balance to pay that past due amount to protect the other the other reserve funds of the other programs so it's not a tax rate impact but there is additional funds that will need to come in so I think for this when we get to this presentation for that conversation it would be good to see that difference as Angela was outlining here is what we would have to charge to fully cover the cost of thrive here is what we here's the gap in what the subsidy is for the meals program so that we have those dollar amounts and can understand that also personally I would like to have those dollar amounts for advocacy with our congressional delegation on those subsidies being too low are we still I'll save that for later time never mind one thing I did want to just call out for all of us you know in your assumptions sheet you shared like a conservative grand list growth estimate sounds like we're being pretty conservative on health care cost increases also on the local options tax revenue and I just wanted to call that out that is something that I really appreciate given that we don't know for sure what's going to happen with the school resource officer funds we really can't predict what's going to happen with local options tax or grand list growth given some of the instability now and so I think having those conservative estimates is a really good idea as this tax rate increase is like approaching cost of living adjustment it seems like there's maybe some room to work with so I just want to thank you for taking that approach Mike I have a question about the non property tax revenues there's a pretty that's a pretty significant increase of 25 from last year isn't it and where is that coming from yeah good question so that's coming from things like the increase in the revenue projection for the local options tax so that additional 30 000 it's coming from the working community's challenge grant grants which is you know over 100 000 it's coming from things like recreation fees coming over thrive fees coming over those that the transition of that over as well as a few other revenue projections that we have bumped up to show is the reflection of what we're actually seeing on the ground for example our zoning permit revenue line was where we've exceeded that revenue line for a couple of years so we've increased that projection slightly and the budget in your budget book in the line items if you go to the general fund revenue section you can see Mike all of those individual line items and that should be on sorry I should have had this on page 41 of your budget book until any other big ones that I left out there there's also the grant match coming in you'll see an increase in the internal transfers so that's the grant match for the working communities grant coming in from the community development fund thank you Jim thank you um so this is maybe this is a request from when we get to the wastewater fund just a discussion a little bit on the reserve and maybe this is across all the enterprise funds just be curious what it's a pretty significant change in the reserve balances there especially in the wastewater funds so just a little bit of discussion when we get to that presentation on that the logic behind that and kind of the level of risk we're taking and lowering that much and I guess I don't know if this is something that Mayor you can answer but if the finance commission has talked about because we've mentioned before in council meetings about what an appropriate level of reserve is depending on the fund is that something that the finance commission has addressed or will address not yet it's on the it's on the list of items but not yet okay thank you I do want to note that on that reserve spreadsheet the city does have a current policy of 30 days cash on hand um that is that first column so anything in that last column that's been depleting that's unassigned reserves that is um over and above the 30 days to keep us going from the end of one fiscal year through first bill collection make yes um so in perfect world we get this budget passed the first time around and then because of the coronavirus and especially because what we're going through right now come this spring if it's still spiking do you have a plan B for budgets such as the pool that may not be able to open on time or how are we going to re keep that budgetary money in inside the pool for the following year or or like for for issues such as the pool anything any programming what are we going to do with that money if we don't use it are we is it going to stay in those budgets for the following years or for other alternatives that we that we need to focus on yeah that's a really good question mike so um that is a council prerogative so at the end of the fiscal year quite frankly once the audited numbers are in where we know where those basically like where those surpluses within service area are located you could make the decision to allocate those reserves to that service area and keep them in that that pod if you will so for example to your point for the pool for example keep in mind if we don't open we see we don't see those revenues so we see a reduction anyway in those revenues but we have we have allocated some property tax dollars to support pool operations so if we're not able to open it all next summer which will be hugely heartbreaking to all of us um the council could decide to allocate about that i think it's about 55 000 property tax revenues going to pool operations to a pool fund or to a scholarship for pool or something like that in the future but the council always reserves that right to do that with any surplus at the end of the year and and we are still incurring some costs that were assigned for things like the pool so one of the things that was approved as a part of the pool project was a staff person that was hired for the public works department so that person is still being paid and and would need to be considered when making those decisions okay well it's kind of on the same lines as a school resource officer too if the public and the school decides not to have that that resource officer back but then later on decides they decide they want him back is that going to be another council decision on who's going to be flipping the bill or is it going to be on the taxpayers um well it's always on the council and taxpayers um you know i if do do you want me to talk for a minute about the school resource officer and what could play out we can wait to that to that night when we have that conversation i'm just getting in the weeds a little bit because my brain's thinking about all this stuff and with the uncertainty of what's going on you know i just i want to make sure we present it to the taxpayers the best possible budget we can for what reality is going to end up having to happen yeah so we that's yeah good question mic so um we will be sure to outline in the public safety presentation the options for the school resource officer and how different um different decision points may play out with the budget um i think what this budget presents in my opinion but it's it's yours to now take and change and critique and add to or whatever you would like to do this budget allows us to continue our current level of operations including the operations we had through the covid spike this year and that we're currently going through and also freeze up some dollars for unanticipated community development costs through not only the community development fund but also through our healthy reserve balances so if there are additional funds needed to support businesses or community members that there is some kind of savings account there to do that um and it allows us to do that within um you know within a relatively affordable increase to the community um certainly it's not you know huge jumps forward in investment or new projects or new initiatives but it allows us to maintain the status quo with a little bit of play and flexibility jim this is my last one i promise um the final piece just on the um woosky community development corporation uh increase in the transfer or the repayment of that note um and it's it seems like the primary motivation is to give us flexibility if we are in march next year and it looks a lot like april of this year um and we need to think about some kind of aggressive supports for our business community and our community in general if that doesn't come to pass or if there's an sufficient federal and state funding to um offset those impacts what do you envision for the process for reprogramming those funds do you already have like a fallback plan or is that something that council will be looking at in march or april um what's your thinking on those uh additional funds if they are not needed for covid oh that is a great transition into the tiff conversation in my opinion but i will uh enter quickly and heather and angela jump in so the cdc fund is really the the um recipient of that note the tiff owes back to the historic cdc that you know all are the trustees of so that is repaying about a million dollars worth of uh principal and associated interest so um at the end of the tiff district in theory that cdc fund goes away but for the caveats on how those dollars are spent that that that um debt covenant as you may have remembered from seeing in the past the dollars have to be spent for those purposes which are fairly broad um but over time the council is going to have to determine how to use all of those dollars whether it's for covid or something else in the future you know one time expenses or other similar expenses in the future um so as we increase now that we free up those funds earlier as you will see in the next agenda item we believe we can fully repay that note by the end of 2024 which includes in that final year an almost $900,000 balloon payment that will be additional funds for the council to program not tax capacity it's not it can't offset the general fund but it can go to support other community development activities so over the next three or four or five years the council in the community is going to need to allocate all of those dollars so this is really just accelerating the repayment and lowering the balloon payment at the end and not necessarily planning to spend that extra $100,000 within the coming year right so we don't need to reprogram those funds within this year just um if they're needed this year they're available or f y 22 they're available right and actually technically it's catching up to our repayment schedule so historically we were scheduled to make $300,000 payments a year um and we scaled that back with the uncertainty of Abenaki and with the lawsuit about spinner when we when we were trying to make sure we met that one-to-one coverage ratio now that the financial health of the TIF is looking better we can resume that original $300,000 payment schedule thank you any questions or comments from members of the public again you can raise your hand or use the chat in zoom I don't think we have any phone callers any other questions from council I feel like we might be ready for the next item so let's do it let's move on to item D which is discussion about the tax increment financing district overview and planning um something I just want to say before Jesse takes us through this is that you know we've this has come up from time to time in these meetings that when we pay off this debt we're going to see this new revenue for our city and we should be thinking about this um like future planning before you know we get there to that date and and we haven't done we haven't thought this out and how it should align to our vision community vision and so I thought it would be nice to have this overview right now um this is not meant as a time to make decisions but to see what we're projecting what we may have already kind of committed ourselves to or like said we think we'll use this revenue for um what we're already using it to pay for as you'll see some like salary expenses are already coming out of there but also to keep this in mind as we talk as we're moving through this this budget over the coming weeks you may notice like future needs and so I want you to to be thinking about here's what we might have in the future as you're seeing needs arise in you know in our CIP and our capital planning needs or in at the end of the um working community's challenge grant and then having to fund that um and then also keep in mind just other conversations that we've had you know funding the housing trust fund um we have other capital projects that are down the pike at some point um we've heard about some needs from downtown Manuski so as you take in this information and work through our budget process like there are a lot of different things that this revenue could be used for and so want all of us to be getting a broader picture of that and then we can revisit this after we settle on our FY 22 budget um and have a deeper discussion bring our finance commission into it so just some context there and I will pass it over to Jesse. Thanks um yeah so no decision tonight just trying to give you some baseline information as you both go through this budget process to have the master plan conversation at your next meeting and make decisions throughout the next couple of years and I'm not I'm not going to go through all of this paragraph by paragraph but um we'll focus on the highlights and again thanks special thanks to Angela for her work to put this memo together um so first I think it's really important that you understand the assumptions that we're making as we model the TIF on a regular basis we this is a model that Angela and I look at probably on a monthly quarterly if not monthly basis just to make sure we're on track to retire this debt um so the assumptions are really important to us so in our current model we are assuming that we receive the full payment for 17 Abinaki way we're assuming seven million dollars of new grand list growth in the TIF district that is a very conservative estimate for um lot 7d if for whatever reason lot 7d doesn't move forward we might see that at um a different development along East Allen we have built into this model the tax rate increases associated with the school bond votes as you know we we retain 98 percent of the school revenues in the tax in the TIF as well this is more talking than I have done in a long time folks um on the municipal side we are only um modeling a half a percent increase in the tax in the municipal tax rates um over the life of the TIF um and then we are assuming we are going to continue to make the general fund transfers and we are going to fully repay our primary debt the TD bank note and the subordinate debt of the PCOR notes and the the CDC notes to ourselves um which would result in that almost million dollar payment in FY 24 so with all of that we are assuming we would end the TIF with about a 300 thousand dollar surplus for lack of a better word that likely we wouldn't be negotiating with the state on how that would break down between ed fund and municipal fund so then we include our actual current TIF forecast we do call out what is current city operations that is funded through TIF revenues right now so that is that general fund transfer to support um downtown maintenance fire service police service and some of the administrative time and then in the note CDC note repayment we are funding portions of Heather Paul and Eric's positions as well as you know grant matches and things like that so assuming we want to continue to support those things we have to take into consideration those expenditures as we take into consideration the revenues returning in FY 25 so on the last page of this memo we outlined uh what FY 25 and beyond might look like this is just a set of models several years into the future so again there's those three revenues that would be returning to the city that's the million dollars of property tax revenue on the municipal side the pilot payments um and um are some interest in income investment investment income we receive so it's about 1.5 million in total revenues and then if you look at what are we are currently potential expenditures so what we are currently funding through the TIF or um you know uh keeping the what we developed through the working communities challenge grant the main street investment the remaining um available amount minus those expenditures is about 322,000 again these are projections into the future um so there are almost unlimited things the council could decide to do with all of those revenues um we you know we could invest in ourselves like we're proposing through main street um we do periodically hear people talk about returning those dollars to the taxpayers so I just want to did a very rough analysis of what that might mean by the grand list so if we were to return those dollars to the taxpayers that's just the million dollar property tax payment you can't do that with um it's not the same calculation with pilot payments etc what that would mean is in that f y 25 basically the tax rate would decrease because we'd have a million new dollars of revenue into the budget and therefore in that year property taxpayers would pay less than they had paid the previous year um and how we have um kind of outlined that here is looking at the grand the grand list by land uses uh so commercials commercial properties duplexes industrial properties single family homes etc and used an average calculation of if we return that million dollars what is the savings folks would see in that one fiscal year 20 um both for the million dollars of property tax in the middle column and then the far right column if we were to return the available amount minus the continued investments that we are currently making out of the TIF district so that's a very high level summary again not for any decision making but uh for background information over your next conversations Angela anything you want to add there Angela made that last section much more useful to you than I initially had it no that that's about what we've discussed we're coming on to the end very quickly well thanks for walking us through that I did just want to piggyback on the last piece there about if the money was returned but the other way the other way I've heard this discussed is that it was an investment to mitigate tax increases and so another way to look at it could be do we use this just to mitigate increasing the general cost increases that we see for level services even so there are a lot of things this revenue could be used for in the future and we should think about that and talk about more in depth and decision making as we get further out and get through our master plan goals discussions but now is the time for questions Amy can you just remind me for the main street what ratio we're looking at the that number representing is that 50 percent of that we've allocated are we at 60 now it's percent of the hit so it's it's all of the general fund costs needed in that future year so it's not to have any more property tax impact for main street and so it's a it's a little over it's over 50 percent for just the property tax revenue returning John do you want to say that a different way no I think that covers it yeah I think so we had always when we were talking about main street is always a maximum of 50 percent so I think as we modeled it it's right around half a million dollars that would be utilized in that funding Mike I got a question I we keep here on two sides either we give it back to the taxpayers or we reinvest it is there a projection of any middle ground where it's good for the city and good for the taxpayers has there been is it even possible to have a middle ground so it's good for both well I would reframe that a little bit to say when you say it's good for the city yes there are things we want to do but we hope that all of those things that we want to do ultimately are good for the property taxpayers so it's trying to further that agenda but but your question Mike that is exactly what I was trying to achieve with that far right column on the third page of this memo if we returned a portion of the proceeds to the residents and then reinvested a portion into main street and working communities challenge grant and whatnot what is the average return folks might see because I think because it's been so long I don't I don't even know if if some of the residents are still living in Winooski that when this all process but I think it'd be a good gesture to have a win for the rent for the taxpayer that have been here through this whole experience and are waiting for the big payoff so to speak um thanks just so I just wanted to jump on that with the statement that I made earlier about mitigating increases and so we could return money and then we'll probably raise the rate again the next year right so one way to look at it could be like can we use this money to keep us from having to raise the rates for some amount of time and just to kind of jump on that I mean I would think about can we at least mitigate the impacts of and we're getting into more of the discussion probably than you want to but can we at least mitigate the impacts of maintaining level services right like we have $30 or some odd $30 some odd dollars that we're increasing this year and um on a given home can we pay for that portion and anything extra is paid for from the TIF or from a tax rating increase I could see that as a way to kind of balance between still being able to continue to invest in new programs while also basically mitigating the costs of just having to keep doing the same thing like just continue to do the same thing always cost us more money very unlikely to can cost us less money to try and keep doing the same stuff so I could see balancing between paying for that piece of doing what we already wanted to do but still been able to invest in some modest new things as the split between those two directions as opposed to just you like you said a one-time tax decrease that then goes up the next year yeah so these are all different ways that we could approach this revenue and that is good to it is good to keep this in mind as we're like working through another budget cycle seeing what needs are because we are going to have to make these decisions at some point Christine if I could just jump in for one more second and highlight something I've been before I do I I think it's very interesting to look at this data by land use type I think that there's always a big focus on you know mitigating the impacts for residents which I think is very important it is when you look at the how it would actually be played out in property tax dollars the biggest the biggest recipients of the return are commercial and industrial land use users which is not necessarily the intention of the council but we can't change the property tax rate for homeowners or renters versus commercial or industrial there's always going to be one tax rate for everybody so I just want to call that out because when I was doing this analysis that really jumped out at me about that you know a four thousand dollar return to one group and a three hundred four hundred dollar return to another group oh there you have something to add I just wanted to ask in that analysis it looked to me like that was per property so if you think about some of the property owners you know there I can think of owners off the top had that have 20 properties you know some commercial ventures that have 20 properties so that only exponentially increases the amount of the ratio of that that would be going to certain people as opposed to homeowners as a whole right yeah that that analysis is meant to be the average single tax bill for a single family home or the average single tax bill for a commercial property not the aggregate of the the company good point Jim um could we that's that being interesting uh additional column on that table um I think from thinking about the can we have the aggregate not just the average return right so you've taken it and divided by the number of property owners um I'd be curious what the end is on that and then the total any questions from members of the public any other questions from council on this data what we're looking at great so again this was just on for discussion before we move on to item e I would like to call a three minute recess so we will reconvene at 803 only eight more items everyone all right how are Jim are you all back yet give them a moment all right we shall reconvene we are at agenda item e and an update on our legacy campaign will Paul be presenting Paul will be presenting I will be introducing though um so just to remind all of you we came before you back in I believe it was January or February of 2020 with a rollout plan for the legacy campaign leading up to our Centennial our hundred years anniversary of the city in 2022 so we were all prepared with a timeline that started rolling this out in March and then COVID hit so I am introducing tonight a much revised plan that Paul Sarn has really taken the lead and run with to allow us to roll out the legacy campaign in what is currently a remote and virtual environment with an eye to a future when we will be able to gather again to celebrate our Centennial celebration so I'm going to turn it right over to Paul he is really taking the lead with this and has done a fantastic job so I'm excited for you to see what he's worked on thanks so much Heather I promise this one has a lot less math no offense Angela try to be brief about it first let me thank you for the time tonight to present you this overview I thought first we could start with just a brief recap follow up on Heather just said if you remember in 2017 we went out to bid with our marketing branding RSP and awarded engage strategies this was a competitive process we saw a lot of really great interest in the project in 2018 engage strategies and their team delivered our new brand and the framework for the legacy campaign you'll remember their CEO Mike Bento he presented you with their findings at the previous council meeting we really enjoyed working with their team and we're very impressed by the whole process in 2019 we were able to fully implement our new brand and launched a new and improved website that was an important step in professionalizing and creating a central location for the campaign's content and the rest of our branding rollout in 2020 and beyond we are aiming to begin generating content and standing up the centennial celebration committee leading up to when you skis 100 year birthday on March 7th 2022 just as a quick reminder the campaign's focus recognizes when you ski as vermont's opportunity city and is built to celebrate our 100 year legacy of welcoming and opportunity our story as seen here as a direct reflection of the community feedback we received during the development process I know it's kind of a lot a lot here to put on a t-shirt but we'll figure something out so essentially the campaign is split into two main parts the first of which are features to highlight our people places and traditions through multimedia storytelling features will include any story that highlights personal and collective experiences of opportunity and welcoming process will allow for people places and traditions to be featured through really any kind of format allowing talented community members to showcase their photos their videos there are writing you know any anything that really that really fits and you know stuff that the community members are comfortable doing there's an infinite amount of content to highlight and we have a lot of experience already working with like students and organizations on these sorts of projects we've seen really great creative writing essays photography podcasts all kinds of great stuff that you've seen thus far a couple of familiar examples of obvious highlights would include things like waking windows a halloween and when you ski the evolution of our downtown and obviously the countless stories of all of our neighbors we've compiled a list of features to start but we'll be using a multitude of functions to showcase our cultural and historic diversity one of those functions is to partner with local media for features we think there's a tremendous value in their storytelling expertise and I've already begun conversation with UVM's community news service I'm sure you've seen the when you ski news so far it's a really cool startup really great project that works with students to sort of showcase community voices we think that'll really help expand our capacity for storytelling and just exponentially expand that function another function will be to partner with organizations who can directly connect us with stories from our students and our non-english speaking residents our seniors business owners and pretty much everybody in between you can see a really short list of organizations there but you know just as much as we do that that list does not end and there are plenty of people to get directly connected to I think though one of the most exciting ways to get these features is to have community members suggest them directly features can be submitted on the legacy campaign page through a custom online form we're building out or by phone or email they'll likely be a multitude of options for people to be able to do that you know the whole the whole thing there is if you have an idea or somebody you want to feature or even yourself we definitely want to hear about it the second and equally important part of the campaign is to put together what we're calling the Centennial Celebration Committee who will be planning all of the related events committee membership will be generally open we're hoping members of council and the downtown organization and the school district will join really anybody who's excited to help tell Winooski's story will want to get involved healing guiding criteria that we're sort of looking at right now for those events should be centrally planned around the themes of welcoming an opportunity we're definitely open to all kinds of event functions like exhibits and murals public art music performances historic tours virtual events any other kind of creative ideas the community might have obviously for now planning will have to take COVID-19 into consideration just like everything else we are optimistic for in-person events as we get through the pandemic and closer to 2022 I've heard a couple times this evening people mention you know what if we need to shift gears this obviously it will also be modular in a way to accommodate for that the committee will meet virtually on a monthly basis to start and those meetings will be open to the general public our hope is that the events planned will be a true reflection of the community and their experiences suggest to give you a visual reference to the whole framework you can see that there are two really easy ways to get involved with the campaign either through our ongoing features or through the committee we're certainly hoping that people will want to get involved with both so we're hoping to launch early in the new year when the landing page goes live it can be found at when you ski bt.gov slash legacy visitors will find the overview of the campaign upcoming features the feature suggestion form an interactive calendar of events and information on the centennial celebration committee you can follow along and view the features as they go live by signing up for email updates on the website where you can connect with us on social media and from porch forum as people do we also plan to create a custom legacy section of the school newsletter I think I made a record time this evening on a presentation so thanks again for your time I'm happy to open it up for questions thank you Paul I was actually thinking about this recently and being like I wonder how delayed this is because of our inability to have public events so it's nice to see an update here I am looking forward to this launching early in the new year and seeing what the committee and community contributions come to there's a lot of opportunity here and also ambiguity as we see what what folks have to offer are there questions or comments from council Amy thanks first I'm really excited about this campaign and I would love to be involved so you can count me in I recently watched a documentary on PBS about Dan I'm blanking on his last name right now so sorry Higgins thank you yes it was a great documentary one thing that it really educated me on as a somewhat newer member of the community is the painful part of our past with urban renewal and you know you probably don't have all the answers to this tonight but I'm just wondering if you all have thought about how we might receive some of that feedback and if you anticipate any hesitancy with some of our residents who have been here a long time from maybe wanting to participate in the legacy campaign because of those kind of more painful memories that's a that's a really great question I think you know with everything being couched in welcoming an opportunity you know certainly welcoming all experiences is the goal of this project and you know sort of taking those on one by one and seeing you know if there is a compelling story to tell there that really showcases opportunity and welcoming I think you know we're obviously open to to all of that you know in the in the time that we have sort of put this idea to the community and together you know it's been it's been tremendous feedback we've heard lots of exciting suggestions and people have already you know they have a list of tons of people to feature and so we're pretty excited about the positive feedback that's great thank you help thank you mayor Paul you know it appears to me that a lot of this effort will be about storytelling and and capturing stories that have been lost has there been any conversation to collaborate with Vermont PBS which has storytelling as one of its strategic goals so yeah in that in that slide where you know we were talking about partnering with media organizations Vermont PBS is huge we are thrilled that they have moved here they are now officially our our neighbor we've partnered with them for through a couple of different events downtown Winooski also just recently partnered with them for the Halloween event and as Amy pointed out they just produced that great documentary on Dan Higgins they are an invaluable partner they're amazing we'd love to partner with them in any capacity that they'd have us for sure great yeah you couldn't show all of the potential community organizations and partners on one slide that we have it'd be tough supposedly yeah either questions or feedback any questions or comments from the public all right well thank you so much for this update Paul thank you moving to item F this is on for discussion approval if we are ready job description for the new equity director position and Phoebe will introduce welcome it's nice to see you so we are asking the council to approve the position description including the title and purpose for the equity director position so I will just introduce it and share a little bit about how this position came about um the job description was developed based on the working community's challenge grant goals and action plan which hopefully everybody is pretty familiar with at this point um we created the role out of a clear need especially after discussion with the leadership team for a dedicated staff member to collaborate with the leadership team and the community on the grant work as well as manage the grant itself it's a large grant and it's a lot of work that we're engaging in so we got a lot of feedback from when you see leadership team as well as feedback from the community to develop the job description and that specifically came from community partners who work with refugee and new american communities as well as community partners who do work with those living in poverty and those who do racial justice work we also took a look at job descriptions for similar roles and people working in equity diversity and inclusion positions and other municipalities and organizations and a lot of those roles existed not so much in vermont some exist in vermont but a lot of them exist um regionally and nationwide so there was a lot of research and kind of gathering of data around the major responsibilities of someone in this type of role so the general consensus after we collected community feedback was that this is a really big job and it'll be a relationship with the leadership team that's based on mutual support and also will require a lot of flexibility and trust building with the community and community partners as well as flexibility based on continuous feedback over the life of the grant and beyond so i would like to open it up to any questions that anyone has nice to see this coming on the very next agenda after we receive this award so making progress um i will just share that having participated in some of the discussions around this role in the in the grant planning process i think it is well reflected um and i did see a lot of the outreach that you put out to our other partner organizations to get feedback on that it was a very robust list and i appreciate that you made that effort to get that continuing input and i i'm very comfortable with what's on here you feedback from other counselors or questions jim um i'll echo that having listened to some of the discussion around the position this really does reflect um the kind of nexus that we need to make the various pieces of the working community's challenge grant work from my perspective um so i also acknowledge it is a huge job um as we've just tried to interface with this uh set of partners in a much less formal capacity takes a lot of work and so to formalize this is going to be a lot of work when you've looked at when you did this kind of comparative search both regionally and nationally um did you find that this uh overall scope of work is pretty par for a position like this or do you usually see this being more of like a small team or i guess i'm just curious if this can be embodied in one person given we are a smaller community but with a lot of partners that's a good question i think i think it sort of was all over the place there were a number of um municipalities that had actually added on diversity equity and inclusion to somebody's existing job title um and role and i think that you know those were probably on the smaller side um but i think it depends on the organization i know that at least regionally one one person that i um that i actually got a lot of feedback from was taisha green who has this role for burlington um and it's it's very similar um to and i actually got a significant amount of feedback from her and and took a lot from her job description and put it into this job description just because we share so much um with you know burlington from a community standpoint so i think it varies one of the other things that i've noticed popping up as i did the research for this was that a lot of municipalities are standing up equity and inclusion commissions um and that was actually i think far more common than seeing this job title um and i think you know i don't know i think maybe sometimes those come first and then it ends up with um you know an equity commission maybe recommending that an equity director or somebody with this specific job title is hired but um that was sort of especially in vermont that was a little more common to have a specific commission focused on this work rather than a staff member does that answer your question help uh thank you mayor um when i read this um i'm reminded of the role of susannah davis who is the director of racial equity for the state and um you know when i when i get down to the um to the last uh sentence it says this position will work closely with the equity council and city leadership um i'm just wondering if it might be worth considering a more connected role to the equity council because in the case of susannah she actually has a um racial equity task force which is a body of people that you know um support her work and i'm just wondering if if it might make sense to consider how this position would be as opposed to working closely it it it leads the equity council or it's more directly involved with that work um and to use it as a you know resource of support so that's just a thought if i could chime in on that since how you did not participate in these discussions as yes um the the discussions were around like this staff would be the liaison for that body would be working directly with them and create receiving support from them as well so i think what you've described sounds like what i heard in previous conversations although the language here may be a little more ambiguous yeah and if i may add the challenge we have is we don't have an equity council yet and so i think we also talked about this role as um really helping to generate and sustain that uh council through its first year and i'm hoping that this model can be helpful for making it more likely to succeed given there's a high risk endeavor um if it's done poorly then that if it is done poorly could be damaging instead of helpful um so i'm i'm optimistic that this person would be able to set that council up to then support them how i think that's a really great idea and mike your hand is raised i have a question i see that the funding source is through the grant itself what's the duration of the grant i don't think i know that three years three years three years three year grant that's great hundred thousand a year plus thank you mayor can i jump yeah jump in so i want to go back to jim's question about the small team versus one person and i i do think um it's important to call out that we we need this is a huge amount of work and we need expertise on staff we don't have that expertise we need somebody leading this charge and you know not only being grant manager but an expert and a connector i think we as a leadership team really understand that we all have a lot of work to do as well not only to support this person but also to identify how we need to structurally change how we offer services um across the city um so i don't want to give the impression that um this is for the leadership team this is a checkbox and we hire this person and they go off into their office and do this work that it really is the intention that this is a peer of the leadership team you see on the call tonight and that we will all be supporting the work and doing our own work in parallel um so i just wanted to it's not it's not just one team there's the there is a small team that will all be doing this work any questions or comments from members of the public are there any further questions from council does someone want to make a motion to approve this this evening so moved second motion by house second by jim all those in favor please say aye hi hi hi motion carries job description approved thank you um thank you everyone oh sorry moving on to item g agreement amendments with north end studios and c i c help to enable ongoing covid testing jessie already alluded to this during city updates please continue hi level um so one just sincere thanks for approving that job description will allow us to post it faster and get it out there and this is a huge moment of opportunity for our community so thank you for that um on this agenda item so two main goals here and apologies that this is coming up upon you so quickly without any um runway this has all happened in the last probably 10 days or so um so we have two main goals one is to um bring daily covid testing to wanouski to our residents so they have the best easiest access to that testing in a culturally appropriate way uh two was our ongoing work to work with north end studios to um have them true up their past due rental balances for their the space they use at the abrasion community center so with those two goals in mind what these two agreements do is um basically take back from the north end studios through the rest remainder of f y 21 the community room to have the city take back control of that space lower north end studios monthly rent we will then immediately turn around and suddenly set space to c i c health which is the contractor doing the covid testing for the department of health so moving forward in f y 21 we will get full rental payment as budgeted for north end for the o cc um in order to um move north end studios forward as you can imagine they faced very significant revenue challenges this spring with um the stay homes stay safe order and the inability to convene people and bring people together um so we've been talking to them for a while about some rent forgiveness um and how to keep them as an active tenant so their agreement um includes forgiving the april 2020 rent when they were really in shutdown mode and could not operate um and then if they true up their remaining balance by the end of the calendar year we will also forgive may 2020 and the penalties and interests that have accrued so basically choose them up it gives them motivation to pay as much as they possibly can right now and then sets them on a trajectory through the remainder of f y 21 to be able to keep up with the rental payments so it's really hopefully achieving two big community goals of uh ensuring that revenue stream and quite frankly in my opinion more importantly getting daily testing into a new ski um so that's the high level of summary happy to walk you through the math or the contracts if you'd like um and thanks to Ray for his help with the logistics here as well thank you um questions from council Amy just to clarify the 31 000 that's owed is that all from this calendar year from march on yes more or less yes it is all from this year there are some disagreements between the parties of the payments they have made in the last calendar year what they've been paying in their minds they've been paying different months in our mind the the newest dollar in pays the last dollar due so we tend to allocate it back um but in their mind they just have skipped over paying for the second half of f y 20 okay i think that's helpful for me to understand just because it shows that they were making their rent payments before COVID right so that's not that it's not like this is a trend um and it really sounds like COVID was the main contributing factor so thank you for phrasing it that way they were not initially making their rent payments and then kind of caught up as COVID was hitting or like started paying as COVID was hitting and then really fell off in the in the march to june period this fiscal year they have started paying again so they've started paying august september october november so they're kind of truing up now with a gap from the stay home stay safe period so they are paying on time now but for this past due amount like you have a question yes so okay so they're paying now does that mean they're back in operating or they still shut down because of the stay safe home order um they are operating uh to a certain extent they're obviously not having you know hundred people weddings and things like that that are not allowed by the governor's orders but they have much like race team has figured out some ways to do things virtually and and take out food and things like that they are operating at a more limited basis and if they sign this lease what was the lease duration for for risk this year all right for fiscal year 21 so this amendment only speaks to fy 21 but the lease is a whole how long does that go right it was a five-year lease so i think there's angel i'm looking at you to make a face of me if i'm wrong but i think there's three more years after this year on the first term okay not to sound sensitive but it's a city willing to take on the loss if they don't make it i mean they're making payments now but what if if they can't get get going again full capacity is the city willing to take the loss so nothing in this agreement undoes the termination clauses we have in the existing agreement so if they're unable to operate in the future we do have the ability to terminate for non-payment and some leads to somebody else thank you any other questions questions from public all right do i hear a motion to approve the agreement amendments so moved second motion by mike second by how all those in favor please say aye aye motion carries thank you big win local daily testing item i another approval this is a grant vermont afterschool youth council which ray will introduce all right oh i think we did only miss one i skipped one i'm sorry item safe routes to activating communities 2021 from memorial park all right so this is a grant through the safe routes partnership program which is a national program this is obviously the safe routes to park wing of that it is funding for support of a technical assistance effort over a period of time and then eligibility to apply for um $12,500 to support the project that you developed kind of through that technical assistance period the wrinkle to this grant is that it is only eligible to non-profit agencies so we as a municipality can't apply however we've built a partnership with the park district minisku valley park district um who is willing to act as the fiscal agent for the grant so we just wanted to come here tonight and really get council's blessing to sign off on a letter of support because this is going to be work directed towards a city-owned park um but the funds for this grant will not hit our our books technically so we just wanted to get the the sort of relay from council to move ahead with the project given that it will impact memorial park um and again for folks who didn't get a chance to read the cover sheet we are looking at um improvements to wayfinding um trail development and connectivity for that park um which is a pretty as we saw in the park sign pretty underutilized um park today so i feel like we just approved the open space parks master plan which specifically called out these things so way to go on quickly taking action on those recommendations are there any questions or concerns from council on this i have a quick question does the W is the memorial park is that part of the vfw can you tell me what yep sure it's the um it's the natural area down behind what's affectionately known as the carpet factory so it's where the cbd processing plant is down there okay i'm sorry thank you yep no problem that would make sense though mike i should name of that park um any public comment all right do i have a motion to approve the safe routes to park so i'll move okay okay motion by mike second by jim all those in favor please say aye aye motion carries and now we're on to vermont after school youth council grant all right and here is one that we are coming to uh asking for forgiveness versus permission normally we would like to come to you ahead of time before we apply but this grant came at us pretty quickly um since our last council meeting and we applied um and we're really fortunate actually to be awarded um the grant so it is a grant that's going to run through june 30th of this year it's um the nine thousand dollar total grant um which will be four thousand dollars to go towards stipends for um youth participating on a youth council and then five thousand dollars that that council will sub-grant out to community projects that youth are um kind of developing and voting on through a participatory budgeting process so this really checks the box that we have talked about for a long time of figuring out a more formalized way to get youth engaged in the work that we are doing so we are very much hoping that this will be you know something we start with library recreational programs and have these youth kind of helping to advise on the development of some of those things but then could see this parlay into future ways of getting more youth engagement at in other parts of the city which i think would be really exciting um you know i know we've talked a lot about commissions i think that's an area where it would be great to see this kind of push into so um we were very excited i gotta give kate nicoletti um accolades here our vista this is her first grant application that she sort of took a lead on and had some great support from myself and Nate and Jenny but did a great job and one for one so Mike your hand is raised and what Ray what's the age groups um so we are gonna i think be figuring that out somewhat with the vermont after school folks there's not anything listed in the grant materials but as we're looking at it we're thinking grades six through 12 so middle and high school age um and the idea being that we have a smaller number of younger kids that we could sort of groom up into leadership roles over time with um support from some older kids so we're thinking of trying to cover that middle and high school spread um and we're going by grades here because ages for us sometimes are a little bit um off from kind of traditional ages because of folks arriving here and being at different levels of language acquisition or educational attainment right but they will be chill they will be kids i mean under 20 right i mean i think i yes i think we'll be focusing on on younger people young adults and kids i'm excited for this this is great i think yeah it's it's an exciting program for sure any other questions uh public comment all right with someone like to move to approve after school youth council grant it's all moved second motion by mike second by amie all those in favor please say aye hi hi hi motion carries forgiveness granted thank you very much thank you uh next up is item j another grant this is td greenspace and john rusher will introduce thanks everyone um special thanks to counselor duncan for his work to date on this grant and and really bringing it to our attention so um if i if i miss anything feel free to jump in jim um so this request is for grant authorization to apply for a td green space grant in the amount of up to 20 000 there's no match requirement for this grant um and and this is associated with the arbor day foundation so you might remember we um we became a tree city usa arbor day foundation is is the group that sort of administers that program so the purpose of this grant funding is to support um this is taken right from them green infrastructure development tree plantings forestry stewardship and community green space expansion to advance environmental and economic benefits so uh and with that the theme of this year's grant is building resilience green infrastructure solutions for communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 so we're you know as mike mentioned earlier we're we're positioned pretty well for this grant given that we are a tree city usa and this grant does treat low to moderate income communities as preferred so we do have sort of a leg up for this application and then as far as the scope of this grant um counselor duncan and the tree committee they put together some options to review um which i've listed in in the memo um so besides your typical tree planting options um we're looking at potential planting and program support for things like shade tree planting emerald ash borer programs uh tree stewardship programs um and there's a few other kind of focus areas that are in that memo we ran this by the municipal infrastructure commission too to get some feedback on um they seem supportive of pretty much everything that you know all the options that we presented um and this grant application it's due december 18th i believe so pretty quick turnaround to get that in and then all work pretty much has to be done um by this time next year so any you know we couldn't apply this to say like main street or something like that where it's you know future future construction it's it's a quick turnaround so um counselor duncan if i miss anything um feel free to jump in but that's that's pretty much the the gist of this grant i will only say that this grant is only available to us because we became tree city usa and that's like the it makes us really competitive in vermont because you can't even apply unless you meet certain criteria and we're one of uh less than a dozen communities in a state that meet the criteria so we really are competitive and um having td bank in town i think helps a little bit so any questions from council howl did you i saw you go off mute no i'm sorry no cool mic you also unmuted i was just waiting to oh let me just any public comment all right would someone like to move to approve the td green space grant application so moved second motion by jim second by mic all those in favor please say hi hi hi motion carries a note to other counselors follow jim's lead find us grants actually i feel like how may have also done this for us in the past so um item k housing stability update with heather that jim gave us a headline for earlier yeah um i am not going to go through this this is the quarterly report um of the same housing stability indicators that i look at just to give us an early detection system for if we are looking at something like an evictions cliff what i want to add is that as jim mentioned we had a couple major property owners um come in speak with the housing commission as part of our review of the housing stability information and between the two of them it's over the two people who came in it's over 300 units that they represent and between them they said that there was exactly one tenant that they were looking to evict and the person that is in that situation is someone who maintained their job throughout but simply stopped paying rent in march and hasn't paid since and has not responded to any outreach or attempts to assist them so there is one eviction that they were aware of that would be going forward but generally what we're seeing um based on this data is that we are not on an imminent evictions cliff um but i will say this i'm seeing that more people have been able to pay their rent um over the period considered here part of that maybe because vermont used our cares act funding in really useful ways with the rental housing stabilization program with the mortgage assistance program and those programs are about to run out um so i would say that overall the systems that were put in place have been working but we are seeing growing concern and less confidence among renters that they'll be able to pay their upcoming rent despite the fact that more people were able to pay over this period and i think in part the uptick that we're seeing in covid obviously raises concerns for people that there may be shutdowns furloughs etc so still very much worth monitoring but between having the two property owners come in and having deke from the wedewski housing authorities speak with us we are not overall seeing an increase in evictions coming at this point but we'll continue to do these monitoring reports every quarter i'm happy to take any questions that you may have thank you for the overview questions from council jim this is mostly just to kind of reinforce that point around i think my takeaway from hearing these stories is that what was done worked and all of those supports are no longer are going to be gone by the middle of the month um so we know we heard about the enhanced unemployment benefits the payments to households the cares act funding um and those are all kind of sun studying so uh and also the discussion of the housing commission centered around the fact that housing is usually one of the last things to get cut from your budget so as we see meals on wheels reliance go up food reliance go up um that this is going to be the the trailing indicator not the leading indicator so thank you heather for continuing to compile this data on a regular basis i think i'm glad that we're keeping an eye on this and it was somewhat unique among our gathering of housing commissions to have wedewski taking a proactive monitoring role so i just want to appreciate that as well um yes i think that that takeaway is really important to consider if there isn't more uh federal action and more funding available um we could be having a different discussion and i'm glad that we will be able to you know look at this again next month and and keep on keep on on top of things any other questions any questions from the public well thank you heather um and we will move to our final item l a 2020 plan report out uh jesse can talk to us some more uh so i won't really um the only thing i do want to draw your attention to here that i did not i failed to mention city updates is that we have reconvened weekly um huddles with vdh the city of berlington and our community partners as the coven numbers are um increasing to to just make sure that we are all coordinated on messaging translations testing sites um out of that came our daily testing site here in wanouski so i just wanted to circle back to them make sure you all knew that we weren't doing that um happy to answer any questions on about the updates on here again the new text is in red but much of it you have heard about tonight any questions from council also glad to hear that those huddles are reoccurring given the situation thank you for sharing that so i just had one thing to bring up and that's i think when you you worked with staff to put this together we had had this sort of discussion that this would be in place for maybe six months and then we would have our regular priorities and strategies discussion at a you know bigger picture level and it is just feeling to me like that that is not appropriate anymore and like this is what we're working with for the rest of this fiscal year um because the situation hasn't improved right so just wanted to pulse check that with everyone else here definitely agree i think from staff's perspective we feel like this is a good summary of our priorities um and so i'm not sure much would change if we revisited it at this point any uh public comments all right any last thoughts or questions on item l so this brings us to the end of tonight's agenda i would take a motion to adjourn so i'll move second motion by mike second by jim all those in favor please say aye hi hi motion carries meeting is adjourned and thank you all for your time this evening thank you one thanks