 The South Brunch and City Council meeting of Monday, December 7th at 6.0. Hopefully town meeting is filming this because I've been called out for not doing the agenda review, but I can't remember when I never did, except maybe it doesn't get filmed. This conference will now be recorded. Good. I think I have to wait for that, I guess. So item one agenda review. Are there any additions, deletions or changes in order of agenda items? No agenda for items for the new business. Okay. Alrighty, well then let's move on to an executive session. Without Tim here, we don't really have the language, do we? Okay. So I will entertain a motion to go into executive session to discuss matters related to personnel, which, and at the meeting, Kevin and Tom Hubbard. I'll move so. I'll second. Right. Sorry, discussion. All right. So I will. Call vote. All in favor signify by saying I. Okay. So we are now. Asking people to leave. Friends will now be recorded. This is the South Burlington city council meeting of Monday, December, December 7th. And we'll turn to item three comments and questions from the public. Not related to the agenda. I only see. I don't know. I've got Matt Kota and someone waiting for a name. Are there any comments from the public? All right. Well, if they come in late, we'll give them a chance. Number four, then is announcements in the city manager's report. So do any counselors have any announcements? No announcements today. Okay. I didn't do much last week either. That was good. So that's all. Okay. I'm city managers report. I had a whole lot to report right now, Helen. Tom. Tom's been doing an enormous amount of work on the budget. I've been joining him for a lot of that or some of that. So all of our managers are. Really deep into the budget right now. We've got a, you know, Tom is being a pretty strict task mask or around the. Around spending. So we'll be getting that to you. I think Tom said, first meeting in January. The rest of the budget, you're going to talk about the capital budget tonight. Staff are also doing the required educational programs on harassment in the workplace, sexual harassment in the workplace and a couple of other programs. Not much going on on the outside with my colleagues. I communicate with my colleagues around the area. They're all pretty much in the same posture right now as we are with city halls closed down. And appointments for their, their clerks. As you may remember, we do have a lawsuit against us filed by a Connecticut based title company. Property title company. Asking for immediate relief and the reopening of the clerks office so that title searches can be done more. Expeditiously. I believe that there is an emergency hearing on that. Or an expedited hearing on that next week. So there are 12 of the communities across the state that have been. Named in this lawsuit and we're all working together on. On a response. So I will update the council when we. When we hear more about that. Do we think it's a bona fide suit or is it just sort of a. Harassment suit for some reason or is it. Because of impending sales that need. Research. Well, I'm sure it's the, it's the. Impending sales that need research. Tim, that's what's alleged there. It's a bona fide law firm. I can tell you who is representing them. Downs Racklin. When one of their partners. And so. Yeah, we take, we take all lawsuits seriously. And we're certainly taking this seriously. And so I'll be reporting back to you as to how. As to how that's going. Um, And so I'll be reporting back to you as to how. As to how that's going. Are we leading the legal charge? I had a very, I forgot about this. A very long conversation. With the chair from Plainfield. Who is a lawyer herself, but she hasn't practiced in quite a few years. And happened to find out about this lawsuit. And Plainfield is one of the communities named. And. I mean, she thinks it's nuts. But because they want it. I mean, I mean, I mean, she thinks it's nuts. But, um, because they want it open. Without. You know, any. And what Plainfield was doing was interesting. I thought, uh, and she had a long conversation with you, Kevin, as well. Yeah. And if you want to read the lawsuit, she sent it to me. I didn't. Share it with all of you. But, um, what Plainfield did is they literally. There's such a small, um, city hall that the, they have a clerk and an assistant clerk. And the clerk and the assistant clerk would literally. Go to the cars of these lawyers and fine. And find out what business or, or building they were looking, looking interested in and go back in and photocopy. Um, the things that they thought they would need to do the title search and then go out to the car and give it to them. Talk about, you know, trying to make. It work for the lawyers. And then they get slapped with this lawsuit. In our case, as you know, um, so crazy, we're just asking, we're just asking people to make appointments so we don't get a, you know, five or six or seven title search going on there at a given time. Uh, so Helen, you asked if we're leading the legal side of that. Um, we're not, um, the 12 communities are banding together to share legal costs. So, and, and they are hiring an attorney. I don't think that has been finalized yet, but we'll have one 12th of that cost, which hopefully won't be a whole lot. But, um, better to do this in coordination than each one of us going out on our own. Um, uh, I just wanted to say that as you might well imagine, given the, the resurgence around COVID, um, our, um, our schedule for 180 market street is starting to slip a little bit. Uh, we'll get an updated schedule from, um, Englebirth sometime in, uh, early January. But I don't mean slipping by months, but I, I do think that the Jane, the June 29th projected occupancy is probably slipping a little bit into July. Um, so we'll be reporting back more to you. Interestingly, we, uh, Paul. Connor, Justin, Rabadou and I had a, um, meeting with the UVM planning staff along with Richard Kate. Uh, today who is the chief financial officer and. They have experienced significant delays with their construction projects around the athletic facility. Oh, yeah. And I think that the, the, uh, Rook has been done or. Is largely completed. Uh, that they had to get done on the gutters and field house. Uh, and some improvements in the rest of the existing athletic facility, but, um, But the, the new arena or the, not arena, but the new event center, they, I think they call it, uh, is on hold now. Um, and I think part of that may be financial and part of it is due to, um, Construction challenges. So I think we were. Luckily we got out ahead. I think our leadership, uh, our construction leadership ordered materials. Early enough. Uh, I've been told that if we had waited just a little bit longer to order the windows, we would not have gotten them. Fortunately, we've got them all. And so, um, Good job by the, uh, construction leadership. And I want to include, uh, Certainly include Justin and Alana in that. In that category. That's all I've got. Okay. Any Tim, is that a question? No, I just had a couple of quick compliments to pay. Uh, I want to compliment Justin and Paul for rapid action on removing some, uh, rotting refuse on Williston road in front of a business that had been there for several weeks that I reported to them. So thank you very much for doing that. And also thanks to public works for applying some patching, uh, on Dorset street, I noticed. And a couple of other streets. I can't remember where they are, but, um, you know, every little bit helps speed up. Before we get into the. The bad weather. Yeah. Thanks. Thank you, Tim. Okay. I'll pass that long. Okay. Moving on to the consent agenda. We have two items disbursements. And a revised agreement to reconstruct a stone hedge drainage swale. I would entertain a motion for approval. Second. Okay. And moved by Chittenden seconded by Barrett. Was there any discussion? I just had a question. Yeah. On page three of the contract for the amended drainage system improvement agreement. Um, I was just curious if the $20,000. Was correct. I see $25,000 elsewhere. And it might just be. You know, my misunderstanding of a specific, um, aspect of the contract. But under one. A, the associate here by authorizes the city to enter into contract with an engineering firm to design the project. And submit appropriate permit applications, which contract shall not exceed $20,000. If you go beyond that, see it says shall not exceed $25,000. And it says $25,000 at the top of page five as well. Um, Megan, it looks to me. That the, um, It's design and the other is one is design and permitting. And one is actual construction. And one is actual construction. And one is actual construction. One is design and permitting. And one is actual construction. It appeared to perform their work. Yeah. Let me, I'll get, I'll make sure that, uh, Tom DePietro and Andrew both. Sign off on that. And I'll make sure that it's corrected. If there is a discrepancy there. Okay. I just wanted to be sure. Do you still want us to act on this? Yeah. I'm sorry, Megan. Go ahead. I don't need to add more. Okay, Tim. Yeah, I just want to thank the storm order division for their perseverance in this work. This is a good example of working with a community to cure a problem that's been around for a long time. And there have been many drainage and water runoff issues in Stonehenge that I've heard from some people that live there. And so hopefully all these things in this latest fix will make a difference. I think that's a good idea. And obviously it's, it's better for the tributary to. To, uh, it runs in a pot. I think, right? Yeah. Everything we can do can helps. So are we comfortable voting on this? Um, with the understanding that if. The numbers are wrong, they'll be changed. Are you okay with that? Okay. I think I read it like Kevin, but. If you double check, that's fine. So. Yeah. I think that's a good example of the consent agenda as, um, presented. So mo. We already did that. Excuse me. That's right. We did. Okay. So if you're ready for the vote, let me call up a roll. Um, Megan Emory. Hi. Uh, Tim Barrett. Hi. Tom Chittenden. Hi. David coffin. Hi. And the chair votes. I so we've approved the consent agenda. Five zero. Moving on to item six, consider and possibly appoint a new member to the library board. Of trustees. We have. Um, there are two candidates. And it says we interviewed. Both of them. I don't. Recall. Both. But. We may have. We've got two. Are they going to be interviewed? We've got two. Are they going to be interviewed tonight? Or. Alicia. I remember that. Okay. And then Dorset Heights road. They have chickens and I run by their house a lot. No, Helen. There was always supposed to be one. Oh. Two got on there. Jen Berkman. Was the other one. So that is not the one. We're considering. Excuse me. So we have, um, Alicia, Amanda. I do know that. The board is very interested in having her, um, appointed as a, you know, this is heavy duty time for them. And they'd really like to be up to, uh, Full number. So if she indeed is the only one on the, um, Up for, um, consideration. Is there any questions or concerns anyone has? Okay. So a motion to approve Alicia Lamanda for. I don't know how many year. 12. Part 12 years. Membership. From Helen. She, Alicia has been, um, Has been recommended by the library board in addition to her Applying. Yes. Yes. Okay. So I will move to approve. Then the, um, The nomination of Alicia Lamanda. Okay. Do we have a second? I'm sorry. Did someone say second? Tim said second. Okay. Is there any further discussion? Okay. Um, The role, Kevin, uh, Megan Emory. I, uh, Tim Barrett. Okay. Hi. Tom Chittenden. Hi. David Kaufman. Hi. And the chair votes. I. So Alicia Lamanda is, um, Appointed to the. Board. Helen. Helen. Alicia would fill out the unexpired term of, um, Of the, of the, uh, trustee. Yeah. The woman that we had just appointed and she. I think made one meeting and then was absent. Okay. Yeah. All righty. Um, we're going to keep track of time. Okay. So moving on then to item seven. Um, an update from Snyder Braverman on the city center, LLC, um, And their development. And I noticed Ken is here. Anyone else from. And Tim McKenzie. Alrighty. So which one of you will be. Bringing us up to date on your new plans or your next plans? Hi, Ken. Everybody. Good evening. How are you doing great? How's everybody doing? By the way, is she doing okay? She's doing okay. Yeah. That was a bit of a, that was the beginning of 2020. Oh, geez. Yeah. I both ran into the glass wall at, um, One of the new buildings. Yeah. That was a good way to start the year. Right, Helen? Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can I make you a presenter? Okay, great. You can pull up and go through whatever you want. Okay, great. Excellent. I'll do my best to do that. Um, Well, thank you everyone for the interest in, uh, wanting an update. Um, obviously these have been interesting times. Um, And difficult, particularly within our industry. Um, we actually. Um, Are here to kind of send a message that we're feeling incredibly grateful and excited that we are. Um, Doing great. Um, Over the past year, we've successfully permitted 176 units within city center. Um, and we feel like we're perfectly positioned to kind of. Advance the project in, uh, these challenging times. Um, We have a building that is a 43 unit building that's directly adjacent to garden apartments. Um, that we plan on having a closing, um, In the end of January beginning of February. Um, and that's exciting to us. And we're, um, We're incredibly fortunate that we, um, Have been able to advance and we have everything ready to go to enable that to happen. Um, and, um, You know, I think that's, um, A true testament to not only, um, Kind of the market, but the project location. Um, and a lot of people having confidence in, In, in the team and the location and the overall concept. So we feel very, uh, fortunate about that. Um, as I also said, we have 132 or 133 unit. Um, Property that has been fully permitted now in a shovel ready, Uh, directly behind healthy living. Um, and again, we're feeling, uh, Very fortunate to be, uh, well poised and able to take advantage of a shovel ready project. Um, when, uh, Things calm down with the pandemic and, And the market allows for a project of that size and capacity to advance. Um, You know, we're happy to answer any questions. Uh, we're feeling like, um, Again, things are, um, You know, it's a challenging time, But at the same time, we're feeling as though the projects that are in the best location with the best concept with a strong and experienced team. Um, are the ones that are able to advance during these challenging times that we're fortunate. Um, that, uh, we continue to make progress. Questions. I have one that the 38 units exactly are those market rate. The ones that are. That is going to be an affordable housing project. Um, we, um, Kind of made a strategic decision to, um, To pivot, um, you know, when we had a larger, We had 132 unit building that it took us about eight or nine months to permit. And when we, and we were planning on. Actually breaking ground on that project in March. Um, and obviously in March, um, Things were actually very, um, Challenged in terms of the construction industry in Vermont. And, um, we were fortunate enough to be able to kind of pivot to a smaller building on a smaller lot. Um, and during these challenging times, you know, We all know that affordable housing, um, Has had huge demand even before the pandemic. Um, you know, and now the need is even greater. So we're feeling, um, um, kind of, uh, Bless that we're able to kind of make that decision and kind of Reprioritize and advance. Um, it's, it's a project called Dover place and actually let me Pull up an image. I'll see if that. Uh, here's an image of the building. Um, and as I said, it's, um, it's directly, can you guys see that? Yeah. Yeah. Not yet. Hmm. Not how to do that. Do you get any advice, Kevin? Kevin. I heard that. I'm sorry. Um, I can, if you want to, uh, Get share screen. How about everyone? Oh no, share screen. Okay. And then open up the document on your computer. And hit share, share screen. You see the button, the share screen button is it just says screen. It's one of the four buttons down at the bottom, Mike, camera, screen and leave. Okay. Hit the screen button. Uh, saying open system preferences. Not now. The one problem is, I think it says that the organizer needs to make you the presenter. Can. Oh yeah. Perfect. Um, Well, we have plenty of time for our next item doesn't start till seven. Sorry. Sorry, I'm late. I apologize. I thought. You guys are ahead of schedule here. I know we're always late. So you're smart. Yeah. You want me to try to pull it up, Ken? Yeah. If you don't mind, Kevin, that'd be great. We can go to our backup plan. Tell me exactly where this is. People keep asking me, what's coming next? And I knew you had some stuff coming next, right in the way. This is a lot that's directly adjacent to garden apartments on the Northern extension. Okay. It's a lot. Yeah, exactly. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. Okay. Closer to Heinzburg road. It's that lot. Correct. Kind of small ish. It's a small ish lot. Um, we had. Second. Drive. Exactly. There we go. Can you see it? Can you see it now? Yeah. So, you know, it's a nice building. It's well proportioned. 43 units. It's a mix of ones, twos, and three bedroom apartments. Um, It's kind of has a combination of, um, It has a lot of the same elements of the adjacent building. Uh, so it'll be quite compatible. Um, This is the third building or fourth building that we've brought through the form-based code process. Um, we think that over time that's going to become a smoother. Um, You know, we feel like, um, It, it went very well with the planning staff and, uh, Came together quite nicely and, um, we're excited to start. As I mentioned, uh, we're expecting to break ground in February. Um, the site work for this project is not particularly complicated or complex. So that'll allow us to kind of come out of the ground very quickly and, you know, obviously construction in, um, The Burlington marketplace, you know, it's maybe not quite as busy as it had been in previous years. And, you know, Not only will this be able to provide, you know, 43 units of valuable housing, but, you know, It's going to be a, It's going to be a valuable source of jobs for the construction industry as well. Um, so again, you know, We're all fortunate that we had this site that was subdivided and ready to go. Um, we made the decision to kind of pivot in, um, I guess when was that Chris? It was like in May or June. Um, mid-June. Mid-June. Yeah. And, um, You know, we kind of assembled the team very quickly and designed the building and came up with full construction plans and, um, We have our, um, Investors and our construction financing and everything lined up and ready to go. Um, and, um, we expect to have a closing in February. Well, it's the ground floor commercial. No, this is in a T for district. So it's similar to garden apartments. Um, where the units, um, are, um, They're required to like the street activating components of this project are basically to have, um, Ground floor entries similar to garden apartments. Okay. So, and then the other building, I don't know if you could share that, Kevin. Let me see. Um, I don't know if you could share that. I don't know if you could share that. I don't know if you could share that. Is that still has to go through the DRP, right? What's that? I'm sorry, Helen. First place has to go through the DRP. You don't have it all designed, right? I know we're fully permitted in. Oh, okay. I thought it was the other one that was fully permitted. Both are now. Oh, okay. This can you see this? I can see it. Can you guys see it? I can see it. I can see it. This is prospect place. Um, so we spent an enormous amount of time, energy and money advancing this project. It's 133 units. Um, It was scheduled to break ground just as the pandemic hit. Um, it's the beauty of everything is ready to go. We have construction documents. We have permits. Um, We have a permit. Um, when the market's ready and things are rebounding from, from the pandemic. Um, we're going to be ready to go. Um, this location is directly behind healthy living. Um, and, um, as you could see some of the elements, there's a little park feature. Toward the bottom right of the screen. Um, there's a lot of, um, some stormwater improvements between this site. And healthy living that have been con already constructed. And that's kind of a, um, A point of reference for how this building. Sits on the site. Um, you know, and this is actually an incredibly realistic rendering. Um, you could see the design of garden street. Um, along this street. Um, this is a building that's already built on the north side. So you could see the recreation path and the sidewalk. Um, And kind of the tree bump outs and traffic comic features that are part of that street design. Um, and this. Building was really designed to kind of have a quasi commercial industrial feel with these balconies and steel cables. And then, um, you know, you know, you could see the power feature. Um, this will give a real sense of entry as you're coming from. A garden, you know, leaving kind of the healthy living trader Joe's. Um, area and entering into. Kind of the, um, The more residential mix use section of the project. Um, So we're excited. You know, obviously there's some disappointment on, um, You know, none of us expected. Um, But we're feeling very bullish and excited that we're ready to go when things are. Um, When things are ready, we'll be ready. Are these market rate? These are market rate. Um, That is, um, That is the current plan. Uh, whether or not there'll be a mixed income component right now, we're assuming that there will not be. Um, But that's our current assumption. Yep. Does anyone else have questions? Tim. So for, this is prospect place. Just have parking underground. Excuse me. Yeah. Yeah. This has both parking and has parking behind the building. As well as a full underground parking behind both kind of legs of the building. Um, If I had x-ray vision and I could look through this building, what would I see behind it? You looking kind of north, south, south west. Yeah, you would see boy, I wish I should have had another image. I'm sorry. Um, because we had a couple. Um, So we have a building that's like an L shape building and then directly behind it is a surface parking lot. Um, so all the parking is really going to be kind of shielded from the public view. At least the surface parking. Um, you know, and then in order for us to really hit our parking numbers, we have to build a, uh, underground parking garage. Um, And the other thing that I think is really important for this project is there would be part continuous level of parking under the whole building footprint. And that's for both. That's for both buildings. Just so everybody. Right. Exactly. Also has underground parking. Yeah. And for Dover place, the picture that you had, if, if we had x-ray vision, will we be looking at the old Bush on hardware store? Is that the direction that we were looking? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's the, the affordable part of the Dover. Um, it's being financed with tax exempt bonds that are going to be issued through a VHFA. But I mean, what, what is it? CHT again or. Uh, no, we're. Um, right now we're working with a, um, a private group that, um, manages affordable housing. Um, and has a great track record throughout Vermont. Um, and it's a great place to be working with. Um, Um, Is our current plant. Are you not allowed to name them yet? Um, I'm not pressuring you. Just asking. Really thought, I haven't really given a thought. They have experience in South Burlington and throughout Chittin County and. They're a, they're a well-respected group. So can you make that tower taller and put a clock on it so that it, our logo will actually match a building that has a clock. Tower on. I've often wondered that. Yeah. That's a good one. You know, Which tower is taller yours or, uh, you know, the one on show on Shelburne wrote. Well, I don't know. Um, you know, I don't like your first suggestion. No, I think that's, that's a good idea. If it's not this building, we'll have to circle back and definitely make that happen. Any other questions? Well, I just want to say that since your next building is going to be the Dover place rate, that'll mean three buildings. Plus the. Our, you know, city hall library, senior center. That will have less than a large impact in our TIF revenue. Correct. But this, the larger unit, the prospect place would have a beneficial impact on our TIF revenue. Right. Right. Well, both of them will. Both of them will just, it's just a matter of degree. This will also positively dover will also positively impact our TIF revenue, but not as much, not quite as much as a market rate. Right. Right. And what's the timeline that you see moving forward here with all of the backup with regard to availability of materials and. Yeah, I'll let Chris answer that because he's really on the front lines of that. I know that there are funny things that he's had to kind of. Face in terms of challenges that you would never really guess. Or the challenges. So Chris, let me jump into that. Yeah, so dover place our plan is to start there in February and our, you know, we'll go out. And buy all the materials starting in February. And then. We will plan to occupy that building by no later than March one of 2022. So it's basically a 12 month construction cycle for, for a building of that size. It may be done. I mean, that's in its entirety. The entire building will be done and fully occupiable. That there are weird things that are happening. We can't buy a refrigerator to save our lives. We can't. We can't buy a refrigerator to save our lives. Like. We just discovered that at my house. Yes. Yeah. I mean, we're buying them from. We're going to Lowe's. And, you know, some, somehow or another, they have some here and there. We're filling houses with random refrigerators that are pulling them out from our basements and. You know, stuff like that. So we're assuming that. In the middle of next year, we're going to see some of those challenges that we've had an experience sort of work their way out. And we're just sort of assuming that by May or June, that those, those issues won't be an issue. There'll probably be something else. One of the strangest things that I heard of about three months ago is we couldn't buy a circuit breaker. So it's just kind of a problem. If you can't buy a circuit breaker. So our electricians were going around in like. Or even circuit breakers. So that they could finish houses and. But we seem to be over that. So we sort of hit these like problem, child's and then we move on and then it's another problem child, but you know, I think the appliances will. Be an issue. We're going to, you know, for the next period of time for the United States. So we're assuming. You know, we're building houses, all the other materials, they're talking about delays, but in general, we'll be, we're buying enough materials and buying them far enough out in front. That is not as much of an issue for us. Well, you know, I think you can, you know, I think you can do that. I think you can get your electricity to China right now. So you'll get your fridges in probably six months. Yeah. Exactly. And what about financing? Are you finding the rates favorable right now? So, Right. Yeah. They're favorable right now. Commercial rates are favorable. You know, the underwriting is a bit more challenging. But the rates are favorable once you get it. So Tim mentioned TIF and so I don't know how much this discussion you're prepared to speak to it But we bonded for Market Street and my question is Garden Street is a big open question for me And that TIF clock as much as we might have gotten some flexibility coming up Could you give me any thoughts on what you all are thinking with Garden Street and how that might Factor into some of our longer longer term planning regarding Using any remaining TIF capacity that we might have before our clock expires Tim part of that or Tom part of that you're going to talk about Tonight as part of the capital budget review, but I'll leave the Tim's part to Tim. So Tom I take it your question is the the construction pace of completing Garden Street correct so We we we use lot sales to fund our Infrastructure expenditures including the road in the stormwater pieces We discovered When they were building the garden apartments or the cht building that it became a bit of a challenge with two site crews on the same site so in anticipation of Prospect place we got out ahead of Chris and Ken to build the Garden Street south segment And then the co vid hit and so we kind of we got a little ahead of ourselves in terms of our expenditures. I Can assure you that Garden Street will be completed Garden Street south Will be completed either before the Garden Street extension to Midas Drive gets completed or Before another building on Garden Street south gets constructed and and we'll be talking in the capital budget section tonight council about the connection from the northerly part of The completed section Tim's talking about actually it exists right in front of this building that's on your screen and Midas Drive, which is the city responsibility and us and some components of the southerly connection to Dorset Street as well, so We'll be talking about that It's part of the capital budget Okay night So is Prospect place in which zone is that is that gonna have commercial on the ground floor? Prospect place is in a T the T4 district. Oh, that's still T4. Okay. Yeah, yeah Yeah, so the T5 district runs From Market Street and Dorset Street So by where the Blue Mall is and the Anchorage Hotel It runs from there along Market Street all the way down to the intersection with Garden Street That's the T5 district. Okay. Thank you. Yeah Any other questions Michael Mittag did you you put your picture on did you want to ask something? Oh Megan does Yeah, and I'm sorry. Are these rentals or are they going to be condominiums that people purchase? These are rental apartments It's gonna be the manager of them Where Prospect place is to be determined and over place We're working with a local Group that specializes in affordable housing. Well, good. Well, thank you for that update. That's very exciting and We appreciate Understanding better what's going on next so when people ask us we can Answer I walk walk that route a lot. So I watch it carefully, but yeah, we're excited You know, we're looking forward to COVID being over and for things to be Stabilized and I think we're feeling Pretty blessed that we're gonna be well positioned to come out of this strong great Okay, thank you very much. Thanks guys That thank you. We're we're a little ahead of schedule. We've a public hearing warned for 7 30 so if I look at Committee we have committee reports as well as the city manager's job listing. I was curious if those two things could be done If people would like to do that we have about 17 minutes so that probably So that would you're suggesting we move down to item 14 Megan which is the approve posting for the city manager and Procedure for soliciting and evaluating applicants Okay, as well as the number 15. Okay, let's see what we can get through Well, we have a Posting for the city manager position and the procedure at this point That will be posted as I understand it with the Vermont League of Cities in towns for the Vermont market and then also posted in similar organizations in New England states And then The deadline for Applicants is What January 4th, I think yeah and our Thought was as we would organize a Small committee with some public members representing different Interests if you will and some employees to look at the initial group of applicants winnow it down and then Either the council as a full body or a subset would Do those initial interviews and then The whole council will make a final decision and I'm hoping that that could happen You know, maybe mid-February so we would really be able to announce early and With the expectation that there'd be a two-month overlap with a new City manager and our current one for the transition Are there any other thoughts people have does that and It'll be posted the write-up will be posted on our Website and I think it's You know someone who walks on water and does Unbelievable things and has great skills and knows Vermont and is aware of the Multiple challenges for the community energy plan climate plan Developing or completing city center The whole Budgeting process I I guess the whole shooting match Portable housing as well portable housing as well and sort of the balance with development and natural spaces so that There's a lot going on so I guess that's We've worked on a Description so I don't know if we want to put that up on the board or or just let people know they can go to You know the the website to to read it and encourage Anyone they know to apply I think it that's good to have it on the screen is You know people are here. Okay, Tom Hubbard. Can you post it? Please yes, I'm pulling it up right now. Thank you You see that okay Well, you have to make it I have to make it bigger to read it, but I Think it's pretty and it identifies What's great about South Burlington are? You know operating budget and how many employees it talks about the issues that are facing us that are important Managing growth that comes from being a desirable community by balancing the community's wishes to advance affordability Preserve sensitive natural areas develop and implement an energy plan and climate gold commensurate with our global CO2 reduction goals outlines the Sourie range that's a range low of 128 and high of 138 which is the current salary And have certainly experience we're really looking for experience Demonstrated in Vermont with a bachelor's degree. So that's that's what we're looking at and We're hopeful that we'll have some good candidates. It's a Premier place to be a city manager. So we're hoping that there are People out there with the skills and the energy the creativity that we are kind of used to We're expecting Okay, so don't some work. There it is. I'm moved that we approve the job posting Okay, is there a second? second Okay We could do a thumbs up all in favor thumbs up Well, wait, wait, wait, is there any other discussion? I'm sorry. Excuse me. Is there any other discussion? Yeah, Tom the question is Do candidates? Should they be submitting this Vita email there, you know, their letter and resume by email only or We have it either way down at the bottom Tim Yeah, I see that but the question is do you really want it only email or by either ways? I mean, I'm just asking that question because a lot of companies now They're not taking anything other than just the electronic submission Yeah, I think we the way HR is still working with accepting it either way, okay Yeah, all right. I'm done. Thank you Okay, you ready for that vote then. Okay thumbs up if you approve this All right, so there's five in favor of this job description and the process that I outlined I Assume as part of the motion Okay, well then we have a few more minutes for 10 more minutes Want to move on to item 15 reports from counselors on committee assignments Tim did you have your hand up? I did not. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. Yeah, okay Well, the the Airport Commission met I was not feeling well that day and so I didn't attend They did vote and it was a draw two to two on expanding the The Commission to add a person from Winooski But it's just I Did try to call in the last minute couldn't get in and they'd already taken the vote So I wasn't able to vote. I would have supported that Because I think it makes a lot of sense to have Winooski as part of that But so the record there wasn't a recommendation it was neutral, however It was clearly Discussed that I if I'd been there I would have voted for it and the city council in Burlington is Voting on that tonight and they Know that I if I'd been there I would have supported it So it really had the majority of the council of the commission the Visory Commission for the airport So that's about all I mean, I think I wasn't there for the rest of the Presentations, but you know as you can imagine everything is slow mo and We're not making much money there, but I think in the news it showed that the new Trip is is all done so The planes can Access the runway without having to cross it, which is a big safety issue Are there any other committee assignments have a trans of the transit from our transit or Green Mountain transit nothing on there. I'm no longer on there. So I don't have any Charlie Baker represents us now. Oh, that's right. Okay To that point I don't have any committee assignments from the council perspective if you all think I'm not working hard enough I'm happy to take something on but Committees to report about you're going to be our Legislative liaison So we'll keep you busy. That's later in the Conversation, okay Let's see what else can we do? Can we do this liquor license? I'm sorry Will we have a future meeting? Well, we'll be appointing members to that review board for the city manager applications If you would like to be part of that process we can Kevin has reached out. I think we're as developing a list If you would like at our next meeting he can present that to us and if you have other Ideas we can look at it ahead of time and then a few of some other Names that would be great the energy committee did ask to have someone on there and I Recommended someone from the not my husband, but someone from the planning commission So, you know if you have some other ideas of people I was looking for sort of not the Ones we've used always in the past but sort of to get some other Maybe younger or newer Thinking to go into That process So if you have ideas, please please forward them to to Kevin If you have some names and then we can win or down or whatever Would you like me to move that we enter into the liquor board? Yes. Yes. All right, so moved Second, okay all in favor signify by thumbs up Okay, we are team. I'm assuming your thumb is up. Yeah, okay So we are now Convening as the self-proclaimed in liquor control Commission We have one application the red barn market in Delhi for a second-class license Serenity building on the corner of Tilly and And Hinesburg Road, right? That's yeah, I don't think it's complete yet, but it's getting Oh, I think it is. I think it is. Oh really? Yeah. Okay. I mean I the last time I rode my bike by it probably was in late October. Oh No, I you know, I walk by or drive by every day and okay all the construction people are gone and good I might add our concerns about Giving a business the option to determine how many parking spaces They certainly put in a lot of parking spaces So I don't think there'll be people parking until he drive as overflow for that little business It seems like there's a lot Is that intersection due to be signalized soon or are they waiting for one more building to trip some Threshold, I don't know Kevin. Do you know that? I Can't give you the exact date Tim But but it is going to be signalized and I think it's gonna happen in calendar your 22 or 21. Excuse me, okay Okay Well, I had something else I want to talk about about Heinsberg road But let's I don't want to slow down the this liquor, you know vote So maybe just after we're done with the vote. We'll talk about Heinsberg road a little bit Okay, we'll let we should have enough time. Is there any other concerns or questions about the liquor license? It's just the certificate of occupancy that had still had to be completed. I believe right Right, but it sounded like they were pretty certain it would pass because it's brand new construction It seems a little odd though that we're granting a liquor permit before that business is actually up and running I don't know if that's usual or not. It seems like they're just like they they wanted to get on this agenda like right away So either the opening is imminent. Is that what's going on or I don't know Kevin or Tom. Do you know I? Agree with you. I thought it was a little odd. I I Assume that that they just want to get all their ducks in a row here and be ready to open completely when they open Yeah, I don't think there's anything more than that to it. They'll get their certificate of occupancy Terry's been out there inspecting throughout the process. So I don't have any concerns about that I just imagine they want it while they've got the time they want to get this so they can they can open with their full complement of products Okay, and they're only Tilly drive, right? Right. Yes Yep Any further discussion? So do I have a motion to approve this liquor license for red barn market in Delhi? Second and a second is there any further discussion? Okay Well, we do a roll call Dave coffin. Yes Megan emory I Tim Barrett. Hi Tom Chittman. Hi care about I so we've approved that 5-0 Motion to come out of the liquor control Commission so moved The second okay all in favor thumbs up I So we are back into the main business and Tim do you want it when we get to other business talk about Heinsberg Road, or do you want to just we have? One minute Well, let's do it in one minute. Okay, so as you might have seen in front porch forum There was a very bad accident at van Siklin and Heinsberg Road recently And I just wanted to Review with Kevin whether or not the state has responded to our request to lower the speed limits on that road And and was it going to start at cheese factory or at van Siklin the reduction in speed? I can't remember I have to check with Justin on that Tim and I will I'll check with Justin on that and get a note out to you Because I do not know if they've responded yet, okay Well Say again Helen it affected the electricity at my house. I believe we turned it off for just a little bit There's a big telephone pole there Or electrical pole There's quite a crash. Yeah Okay, so let's go back then to Item eight and this is the public hearing on proposed land development regulation amendments And we have Jessica Luisa says planning commissioner chair and Paul Connor director of planning and zoning So I think our first order of business is to open The public hearing I moved to open the public hearing Second Okay, they're all in favor Hi. Yep Okay, so we have opened the public hearing and Jessica, do you want are you gonna lead off or is Paul? I appreciate all the Information you sent us I think it made it very helpful Quick overview of the the for land development regulations were proposing In your packet you had a full red line version with all the changes shown with in red with striped fruits and additions And then in addition to that for each of the land development regulation changes were proposing We've included a blue summary of exactly what that is and that would be Really for your information and the public's information, but wouldn't be part of the actual You know adopted regulation just so just so you know what that blue part is So if we look at the first two they're related They're both to increase the maximum lot coverage on properties in the urban design overlay district So this would allow for up to a 10% increase in lot coverage, which is either buildings or impervious surface in that zone We feel like this is appropriate here in the the urban design overlay district is An area where we're targeting for additional development and we've provided provided two potential methods for a Landowner to take advantage of this lot coverage increase both of which are in line with the work We've been doing over the last few years one would be to Install a high-quality civic space according to our open space type table similar to the way that the form-based code area Is required to provide that high-quality open space from the prescribed table and the changes to that table are actually Item number three and I'll get to that in a minute The other option is to purchase a Transfer of development rights a TDR and this would actually be the trial use for something We've been talking about for quite a while, which is Potential opportunities to use TDRs outside of the southeast quadrant to further particular city goals It seems appropriate in this area because it is really an area we're targeting for Higher density development in our Areas where we have transit and other services, so then the third land development Change is the update to the open space type table where we're adding two different uses or Open space types that would be appropriate In the urban design district and those would be the pocket mini park or the snippet parklet Open space types. There's also a few changes on there to kind of flush out some of the other ones and add some additional detail Where the previous version was missing some detail as well as consolidating a table where some of the information was listed separately And then the fourth LDR change we're suggesting is to allow for electronic submissions This has been confusing for the public these last Maybe eight months where we've been as a city Allowing people to submit applications electronically due to COVID and this would kind of codify that to make sure that applicant really knows that they are allowed to Not submit the paper versions So I think that's a general overview and if you have questions I could try to answer them Paul could Are there questions from the council Megan So I'm guessing but I just have to ask you did the math with regard to the 10% and the 10,000 square feet per TDR that that would work Yeah, I mean, I guess what I would say Megan is that can you hear me? My audio was a little off before. Okay What I would say is that the Commission was trying to find a number that would be Economically approximately the same as what one might buy a TDR for currently in the southeast quadrant But as it's a new marketplace, it's it's not something we can know until people start using it But that was an objective and that was the best The best projection we could make as to how to make it approximately the same value but Since it's market driven we'll see and that's you know one one neat opportunity presented by this as the Commission explores More expanded use of TDRs through what the TDR interim zoning committee recommended is that this gives us a chance to learn a little bit from this one also That 10,000 square feet can go vertical not just horizontal. It's only lot coverage only lot coverage. Okay, correct Oh shoot. What was the other question I had? Oh, I was surprised that the urban overlay did not include Williston Road close to city center. Is there a reason for that? What's in city center so, you know, all of the form based code provisions already apply in that area. So the urban design district is trying to incorporate some of the Pieces of form based code kind of along those corridors. But since they were already in full effect in the form based code, we didn't it doesn't overlay there. Including north of Williston Road. The form based code supply there as well. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. And then and then east of there Megan. It's the residential district. In that section of between in front of Mayfair Park. So it picks up again once it's commercial over by the Kinney's and by By the guild in that area. That's where the urban design overlay district starts again because that's the commercial area. Okay, other questions. Tim. Oh Oh, okay. Are there any questions. If there's no more from the council, I'll open it to the public or there is there anyone if you wish to make a comment or ask a question. If you turn on your picture or your Mike, I will recognize you being none. Okay. Then I guess the next item would be to close the public meeting hearing I will entertain a motion to close the public hearing. So moved. Second. And seconded. All in favor thumbs up. Looks like it's five to zero. So we're out of we have closed the public hearing. So the next item is to approve these amendments. I'll move to approve as presented. Second. Okay, we got a motion and a second. Is there any further discussion. All right, so these are again the four I'm sorry. Yes, excuse me. I just wanted to say thanks to the planning commission and the planning is only for their hard work. I think these are some very thoughtful proposals and, you know, there's some small steps involved here, but some big steps and this is the first step in the one of the recommendations from the TDR committee. So I appreciate all the effort that it took to produce these these proposals. So thank you. Thank you. And I should have specifically acknowledged the TDR committee as well. They did a lot of work, including Michael who's on tonight. Okay. Well, if there's no other comments, then I'll call the roll. Tim Barrett. Hi. Tom Chittenden. Hi. David Kaufman. Hi. Megan Emory. Hi. And the chair votes I so we have accepted the. Four, I guess LDR changes recommended unanimously. Thank you very much for that's a lot. I know how much work that is. One quick question for Paul. Yeah, sure. I thought Paul that for the DRB that you were going to require developers to submit electronically only from now on. So what did something change or did that not happen or. One of the changes is the removal of the requirement for any paper ones. Okay. Yeah, so I guess in theory they could give us paper ones, but they're all pretty happy not to be giving us paper ones now. They must give us electronic. Okay, they must give you. Okay. Right. So they could I guess additionally, but that, you know, people give us lots of things. What do you mean, along with a hard time sometimes. Yeah. Thank you. All right. So moving on to item nine, we have Jessica will continue as planning commission share and she's going to present some proposed updates to the LDRs to include habitat blocks habitat connectors and several other amendments. To the environmental protection standards. So it looks like you have about half an hour. Sure. Do I have the ability to share my screen it looks like it's great out. I don't need to do it right this exact second, but I'd like to in a few minutes. We can do that for you Jessica when you're ready. So, in the last few months. Well, thanks for having us I think this is actually really great timing to share and, you know, potentially get some feedback from you on some of the work that we've been doing in the last few months. In May, we had presented staff had gotten together and we had given to the public and the planning commission is working on draft environmental protection standards. And part I'm going to be talking about tonight is, is still in draft format. I think that you would kind of requested and then an update before the final version so that's what's going on here. The planning commission has worked for the last couple months on different pieces of them and they've all been compiled. And we're going to see all of it with all the updates for the first time tomorrow night so the planning commission will be kind of internally discussing again and collecting Commissioner comments that commissioners have all been encouraged to also comment on this particular draft so that we can finalizing and get it out to the public so hearing your input at the same time is really helpful. I'd like to point out also that you know working on the environmental protection standards as well as the project and the development kind of side of things. To do that we've been talking about them in pieces, but you know it really does all wind up being one bigger picture project. So I just want to point out that although we're not talking about that development piece tonight it is part of what we're working on. And that piece does include some tools to allow for more compact development in the remaining areas. So, let's see. I think I am ready to share my screen. It's possible. Make sure I get the right one. Okay, it looks like it is so on the screen we have a summary table of the environmental protection standards that we've been working on. The ones listed in black are ones that are current zoning already has some protections for the ones listed in red or ones that we are proposing to add as new protection zones. So these are broken up into a few different levels here or categories, which we've talked about a little bit in the past and the first category is hazards. These are no build zones. They're commonly regulated across the state. And generally, as well as being important for their environmental protection pieces, they often have some kind of hazard to public health as well. You know an area with floodplain someone could get flooded out there's also erosion risks involved here. And they also then have what we're calling level one resources. These are the habitat blocks and connectors, which should be regulated in a new way. So both of these categories hazards and level one are no build zones. And in a development process would be set aside as a conservation parcel and not included in buildable area. One other piece I want to point out specifically which is new since the last time we've talked about this is the the point 2% or sometimes called the 500 year floodplain is a new area that we're talking about. We're regulating in a new way. Our current regulations have very little protections for this zone. And we are talking about including the undeveloped pieces as a no build zone. And in the areas of the city where we have existing kind of urban or denser development in those floodplains already, we're looking at implementing some kind of resiliency standards to make sure that any new buildings or expansion of buildings would be, you know, taking into consideration the flood aspects of the property. So then these level two resources to develop pieces of the 500 year floodplain class three wetlands and buffers and a category of lesser steep slopes and intermittent streams also have protections and standards written about them. But some some level of encroachment. According to the standards could be possible. So to look at some of these things. It's hard to look at a list like this and kind of get a feel for what we're talking about here so with staff and CCRPC help we put together a series of maps to be able to really start to look at what this means on the ground so what we're looking at here is a map of the city and with some of the areas color coded. So the green areas here are the southeast quadrant natural resource protection zones of our land development regulation which has very strict very little development allowed in that zoning district, as well as the orange areas here are what we're currently protecting within our, our regulations so those are the river corridors which you adopted last year. The wetlands and their 50 foot buffer, the 100 year female floodplain stream buffers, which are 100 feet on large streams and 50 feet on smaller streams shown in orange here. So this is kind of a base just for looking at some of the changes that we're proposing. So after this. I've added on the light orange areas. These are the areas that are currently conserved. This is our best estimate of conservation areas, a compilation of areas that are city or park zones such as the Winooski Valley Park District areas that are considered conserved or unbuildable. They're, they're public status, such as recreation space, third party land trust land regulatory areas such as the natural resource protection zone and 100 year floodplain district, or if they were set aside as part of a development plan as open space, such as in a planned unit development so those are the light orange areas. And, you know, generally considered to have protections in place already due to those reasons. Jessica. If there are more layers you can proceed but I'm, I'd love to see what's north of there too because there's still some. Yeah, I can try to zoom out and you know I know a lot of people have really small screens and it's hard to really show everything at once so I can zoom up so it is true there's, there's some other additional lands up here along the Winooski which are as well so for each of these maybe I can try to scroll up after you. Right so additional layers here. This may look familiar the gray areas are what were considered to be built areas. They'll look familiar to you because we presented these last winter, and then they were also used for the inverse of the gray parcels was used in open space analysis. So the gray areas of the parcels that are smaller than four acres and larger parcels with more than 10% impervious surface and then kind of zoom out the upper part of the city. Okay, so now we're starting to get into our recent work. There's a few different things shown here so I'm going to go through them so the bright green continues to be the natural resource protection zone in the southeast quadrant. The dark green is the arrow wood based habitat blocks. So both of those green zones, the natural resource protection and the habitat block areas. We have done some additional analysis and really looked throughout the city area by area to see if there should be some changes, we did make some revisions to these boundary lines based on site conditions. There were some transitional forest areas that didn't seem like they met the kind of intent of the forested piece of a habitat block. We also adjusted the edge of the natural resource protection zone in a few areas to better line up with the mapped forest areas. So the very light green, and you can see a few days a little narrow so in some spots they're hard to see. We've added some drawn in habitat connector areas. These are generally based on locations where arrow wood in their study had seen that there were connections as well as kind of an internal planning commission and staff exercise to see where these dark green habitat blocks. We're not really making the connection through another means of conservation to the adjacent forest or habitat block. So you can see that in areas where say there's kind of the orange, which is the hazards or areas that have a different protection. You know, we're not adding in that additional connection piece, but areas where there isn't, say, a river corridor or other resource making that connection we've drawn in a few of these connectors. Those are meant to be links that could be moved around on a parcel potentially in a development plan. During a development plan those connections would need to be maintained. You know, even if it shifted a little bit about where it's located on the personal. And then the orange shown here is the draft hazard areas so this includes the hazards we looked at before as well as adds the steep slopes greater than 25%. So in general, this is looking at the draft hazards and level one areas. Then in blue, we have the draft, and I'll scroll up in a second. I just thought it might be good to look at both of these together so the blue is then the level two, which includes the slopes that are 15 to 25% and the 500 year or point 2% plan. Can scroll up and see the northern piece of the city. I missed your last step there Jessica what did you say were the steep what's colored as the steep inclines. The very steepest slopes are included in the orange included along along with the other hazards such as the wetlands and flood plains. So they're, they're all grouped together in this orange. So when you did that step the oranges just got a little bit larger is that what you're saying. Yeah. Thank you. So I wanted to point out just specifically this blue area up here because this is one of the larger changes. This blue area is the ethanol and industrial park behind the airport and it is called blue because it is in the 500 year flood plain. So this would be one of the areas where we would have standards in place for any new development or substantial changes to a building that they would need to elevate that building above the flood elevation similar to how we do that currently in our 100 year flood zones. So this is a resiliency step, you know understanding that these buildings are currently at risk to flood. So if there's going to be a new building or a change substantial investment in one of the buildings that's there, you know they should incorporate resiliency into the design. And are the resiliency standards, a state standard or a federal standard or, or do we already have them in the LDRs. It's actually kind of a combination of all three of those things so okay we, we have some standards for our 100 year flood plain, which is included in the orange it's a lot of what this area up here is. We would be expanding those standards to now cover this 500 year flood plain. They are based on the national flood insurance program standards. And then we also have state models of language that we've been working with so what's been great is the Regional Planning Commission has been helping us apply those state. You know the state language to make sure we're in line with with the state guidelines. Paul, did you want to add something? Yeah just quickly to add to that same comment. The currently and for the last, at least 20 years the city has not allowed for new buildings to be in the 100 year flood plain. The state model has a section for what to do if it's going to be a new building. In this light blue area where the Planning Commission's draft is is building using that state model language but allowing in those areas a new building because it's an existing developed area. Does that make sense? So it's sort of taking advantage of state rules and what a lot of communities do that are slightly less strict than us while still prohibiting any new buildings in the 100 year. Okay, sort of like the stretch energy goals. I mean we don't need to reinvent standards if there are good ones out there. Correct. And then I think the other piece of that I just want to point out is when there's the blue kind of areas along the streams, kind of not in a big developed area so say, let's find a good one. I think some of these are steep slopes. So, so say over in this area here where there isn't a lot of development. What we're talking about doing is essentially expanding our stream buffer regulations that just say no new buildings will be allowed to be put into that area. You know, instead of reinventing the wheel there, you know, since we have a similar stream buffer regulation already in place, we're just expanding the stream buffer to cover the 500 year floodplain. Then just for perspective, adding back on to our map the light orange previously conserved areas, as well as the gray developed parcels. So these are so this is generally the whole big picture. I will scroll up just for completeness. So I guess one of the biggest changes that we're talking about, and it's kind of the one of the newer concepts is the habitat blocks. We had had the joint presentation back in February where we talked about those in the first place. Since then, we have worked as a commission to figure out exactly what's the best way to regulate those and one concern that we've heard from public as well as some commissioners is, you know, maybe that line isn't perfect. Are there ways to for someone to come forward and say I want to make a change to the way this line is drawn on my property. So we've talked as a commission about a few different potential tools and agreed on a general approach of some options for somebody who might be able to kind of request a change as to how it's laid out on the property. So those have kind of a range of approaches from simple, which could be just a very small land swap on the same property that could be approved by the DRB versus maybe if someone's going to suggest a larger change in area. You know, swap one piece of the habitat block for another piece in a different location, but there needs to be a habitat study done in conjunction with that to make sure there's no real ecological changes to the final outcome. So I think that's in both cases Jessica that an ecological study would be required. So there's, I think we have draft language that we're going to be looking at for the first time tomorrow night so we agreed on some general concepts as to how that could be done. As a commissioner talk about tomorrow but the kind of simplest one was say you have 200 square feet of habitat block on one piece of your property and you really wanted to shift it over. It's still connected to the same habitat block but just kind of move the line a little bit. That kind of small change could be done and approved by the DRB based on some criteria, you know, versus if you're talking about maybe a much larger area, you know, an acre, and you want to move it from one piece of the block to another, then you would need the assessment done. So it's a really rough overview. Okay, what's involved in an ecological assessment. So we have some draft language. There's a few different things one would be for the applicant or property owner to hire an appropriate. And then we also have a test either a wildlife biologist or ecologist to do an on the ground assessment of the existing habitat that's available on the property. Do some mapping of that and then also kind of overlay that with a map of the proposed development on the property. And then kind of write up what in their professional opinion, what the impact to the habitat block, or maybe, and then propose restoration in kind of the area that would be added. So we're not talking about removing total land area from the habitat block, but the potential for with this assessment and the guidance from the professional could be shifted. So I guess one thing I would want to add is I've, I've heard people say, you know, we can take down trees and plant new ones and something that I've learned in the process of having Jens, he'll come in and talk to us is that there's nothing like old trees. And so I just want to, you know, make sure that that is heard in the planning commission as you deliberate and I know there are other planning commissioners here. But planting new trees or having trees in front of buildings is not like having the old growth, both with regard to habitat as well as with regard to CO2, you know, absorption. So I don't have any concepts in there Megan, but I'm going to write, I'm writing this down just to make sure you know I've read it again this morning but I, it's a, I think that it's a really important concept. Yeah, I would really support what Megan just mentioned as being important to for the planning commission to consider and make sure you figure that out. Yeah, I guess the other piece of that that, you know what we've talked about is the idea that you know maybe there's some area that got included in this map because it was done with remote sensing. That's more of a transitional area that has very young trees but there actually is another piece of the property that, you know, doesn't make sense to develop but does have better trees so I mean, we talked about that concept but I'm going to just make sure that that's actually in the language. And just the integrity of the block to if we start, you know, building roads across the block where we no longer have a block, right. So, just keeping it a block is something also that I learned. So I'm going to just take, you know, ends this presentation with a council. Okay, are there. Do you have more Jessica or is that the overview. That was really my last slide and I think the the big picture, I mean, I'd be happy to answer more detailed questions or, you know, if you have anything. And fall, Connor as well. The blue area where you said it was a floodplain like an Ethan Allen drive. If somebody wanted to redevelop their property would you make them bring in fill to raise the elevation of the property or what would you do like in Florida they just build them up on stilts but that probably might not be the best solution for a warehouse or a commercial building right. Yeah, there's a few different thing one is just elevating like actually just creating your foundation to be higher. So your first floor elevation is raised in our climate we don't normally do the stilts because you get the cold. You know the cold gets under your building. And here it's enclosed or like a higher slab or using fill. So dirt underneath so there's a couple different options. Other, the other discussion is part of the regulations include what that under space might be like. So if there is some kind of open space or garage underneath what what needs to happen there, such as not putting utilities there, having a way that flow could go in one side and out the other. Is the ideal intent to have, let's say all the properties got developed the same time is to have effectively a new island that's higher. Yes and no. I think there's there's two pieces that you know we don't want to just continually fill in the flood plain either and a big piece of that because that takes up flood storage space so you know a big piece of this is that we're only talking about this happening in the areas that already have kind of dense amount of buildings and are already blocking those flood waters to begin with with all the existing development that's happening so. So I think we're not interested in building an island but we are, you know, because it's already developed it's already blocking the full waters, but just to get them up. So. Okay. Thank you. Okay, Paul. Yeah just a quick quick thing to add on since we're looking at this map that you know we've shown these gray areas a few times and they are very useful in terms of seeing areas that are sort of generally built and areas that are more greenfield but I think it's important to underscore that there is a there is a lot of redevelopment potential within the gray areas that's all city centers essentially within a gray area, everything that we've seen rebuilt on along Shelby Road. And so as we think about opportunities for new housing and for new development in the city. A lot of what we've seen in the last 15 years has been redevelopment or infill within areas that are that are somewhat built the only criteria for the gray is that if you're, you're either more than rather less than four size you could be a three acre parcel that's completely unbuilt, or that your four acres and 10% covered so there's there's a lot of areas that are potential for additional development in the gray is all I just want to add. Thank you. Monica did you want to say some. Thank you yeah. Jessica and Paul I was going to ask if maybe you could based on Megan's comments. I just talk a little bit about the difference between a habitat block and a core for it, because just a reminder that habitat blocks are not all completely core forest there is a lot of important land. It's not just large trees that still within a habitat block, and with these protections are now included. And also I would just remind that on the opposite spectrum because I obviously we've been spending a lot of times with those reports. On the opposite side of the spectrum there've been people that have talked about the insignificance of the growth in what's now called Eastwoods because there used to be a train track there. And we all now know that with the train gone for 100 years ago that is an extremely vibrant and important forested habitat. And we've been very mindful and what we've been doing in terms of discussing any movement of anything that it is very protective of the habitat as a whole, but I don't know, Jessica and Paul there was something you want to talk about about habitat versus core forest. I would generally say, and I think the point that a couple of counselors have made of, you know, sharpening making sure that we sharpened our pencils fully but the criteria for determining for a for a for a biologist to determine whether it's appropriate to build in a portion of a forest block and then and then add to one elsewhere does take into criteria does take into account the quality of that area. And so if it's a recent transitional area and it's only been, you know, started to come into the forest in the last decade that's very different from something that's been a core forest area which typically means it's at least 300 feet away from any development and so it's typically not 100% but typically it's more. It's a more mature forest area there. Okay. It looks like color zero that phone is on I don't know who it is so if you would like to ask a question I guess you may all right. Are there any other questions. Okay, well thank you very much that it's kind of good to get a little heads up on what you're still working on and where you are and I hope our comments were helpful. Okay, and we would welcome any additional comments you have like I said we are going to continue talking about this, you know as early as tomorrow night so if any of you have an impressions or comments you could follow up with us afterwards as well. Okay, my impression is you are doing a terrific job so you and your team, along with the along with Paul's department so thanks very much for your very very hard work, it's been a it's been a long, long haul on this one. But thanks. You're welcome it's a big team effort. It is. Okay. Well thank you very much all of you. Moving on then to item 10, an update on preparation of a climate action plan and that's Paul Connor. Hi folks. I was just going to give you a short update on the climate action plan. As you, as I'm sure you recall a couple of months ago the energy committee gave a presentation to you followed by one from Lou Brzee, and we said we'd go back and and see where we might be able to take resources to think about tackling the climate action plan and beginning to take steps to fulfill the council's 2017 resolution. So, we've, we've been sort of looking at a multi pronged approach, and I've met with the energy committee, a few weeks ago on this and have had a couple of great conversations with their chair Ethan. We're looking at potentially doing sort of a two phased approach to developing a climate action plan. The first phase which we think we could take on in the first half of next calendar year so starting in the first half in January, February timeframe would be to work with the Chittin County Regional Planning Commission who we had reserved some time in our budget and in their budget to help us on projects to be determined later to help us build the framework. They have helped a number of communities to prepare what are called enhanced energy plans under Act 174 the past few years ago Act 174 was the one that allowed municipalities to have a greater weight in state public utilities commission proceedings for new our generation facilities if a municipality has prepared an energy plan that takes steps to meet the state's energy or sets it sets puts in place a plan to meet the state's energy goals which are the same ones that are contained within the council's resolution. It's the the advantage to an approach like that is that the Chittin County Regional Planning Commission has helped to collect some data including for us already, and there's sort of a general skeleton to the whole thing. But that doesn't necessarily tackle all parts of the climate action plan it doesn't necessarily cover the, the adaptation portions of it or the mitigation, but the good news is that we have work in those areas to through our Chittin County, the Council has its mitigation plan and other works we think we can bring these things together. The objective in the first half of next year under this plan would be to reaffirm the, the Council's resolution and then assign some targets by sector of energy. So transportation residential municipal commercial industrial and set forth a series of next steps and into what are the specifics that are done within each of those sectors to to really achieve energy reduction and that's where this would sort of hand off to part two. You know I think one thing that we've heard loud and clear from the energy committee is it's all great to have a plan, especially conceptual plan but unless there's specific actions associated with it, and unless there are a lot of community buy in in the subject area. So it's a plan, not, not something that that's terrible. So, what we'd like to do, beginning in next fiscal year to tackle the, the, the energy by sector, and, and the biggest piece of the puzzle in Chittin County, excuse me and South Burlington and around the state is transportation. And so we're, we've had a conversation with the Regional Planning Commission about putting in as one of our transportation planning projects next year, which we do every year under the unified planning work program, tackling the energy portion of transportation energy. And that would mean looking at, and, and developing specific tools for increasing electric vehicle usage in our community, having targets and having specific actions for having a modal shift away from single looking at, you know, I think some of the hard questions in our community are going to be, we're pretty substantial employment center, which means that we draw people who commute from all over northwestern Vermont, and what's our role and what can we do to address those those commuters who are, you know, to a certain extent the responsibility of the host town but they're also, to a certain extent our responsibility from a emissions and carbon perspective because they come here every day for for work. So that's, that's sort of the outlines of it. We, the very first step is to put together the grant applications to the Chittin County RPC. And then we're putting together a small working team with the Energy Committee to really make sure that what is being put together something useful to everybody here, and really start the community dialogue and, and when we get into the next issue, really working with the various partners that it's going to be important to work with business partners and developers and landowners, all the various organizations. Okay, Megan, you have a question. That sounds excellent. And I, I really think it's important for our, you know, our economic growth committee to really be, you know, informed as well as engaged. And I would just like to know the timeline that the CCRPC is giving as well as what you see with regard to the committee and the steps moving forward. So, in terms of step one, we do have time reserved in this fiscal year so now through the end of June. So we think that we can make some pretty substantial headway in the first part of this. So I guess my caveat to that is, and just to be, you know, honest and real is that we think that we can get their help and working both on the data side and directly with our, with our committee. That said, in terms of city full time staff we are currently one person short in our department so I want to be realistic about that too and not over promise and under deliver. In terms of the next stages, the, the unified planning work program is due next month you'll be seeing it. The request the decisions are made in April and the money becomes available starting in July we don't usually start July one but sometime in the late summer would be when the more detailed plans starting with transportation and possibly one other sector. We might be able to look at funding for but that's going to be part of the council's budget discussion over the next month or so so that's where that's where we think we're at. You know, I think if we had unlimited resources we'd say let's take the whole thing on let's do a 12 month project starting today with a single budget line but we're trying to be cognizant of some, you know, some real that we don't have unlimited financial resources. But that it's an important subject area. Up beside staff time would be the cost driver. Well, I, we're, we're expecting that for the transportation side we're going to need some expertise, both in terms of analysis and in producing some some really useful both data to support things, some actual plans like, you know, we don't we don't have a south brolin to the park and ride plan there is a state, there's a there's a regional one but we haven't really explored where could we put a park and ride plan that's an actionable. Excuse me park and ride location that will take some consultant research to help us that kind of thing and then and then presumably when we haven't really gone this far with the committee. Messaging is also going to be really critical here how do we communicate how do we. Thank you. I just have a comment and an encouragement, I mean, this is a lot of really, it sounds like good conversation and discussion. But I do think that we really do want some immediate action items to and not make it a plan that is a long term plan. You know you really don't make any progress that is measurable. So that's sort of the other piece that I know is really hard what do you do about transportation in a community that's like you can get it done tomorrow. That's the challenge but in some ways, to me, that's what the conversation needs to be that's what the plan is what can we really get accomplished that will make a difference. And not just have a plan that is money wide or statewide or, you know, the national answer to address carbon. Yeah, no, I think I don't need to be negative at all. So it is well taken and transportation especially is really hard because it's about changing, you know, both the structure of our community and habits, but there are some short term things we can do with that. The part of the message from the energy committee is that I've received is, let's tackle the small things but let's not, let's not only do the small things because the small things aren't going to get us all the way. You know, the last presentation you just got from Jessica talking about the 500 year floodplain is part of the same conversation. It's, it's preparing for a, you know, where somebody might have regretted building 75 years from now. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. I think it's a good question. I think it's actually that there is some conversation in, in part of the Hanifords, the new Hanifords to make part of that a park and ride. Is that just a rumor? The before we, I know it's something that these cast members of the social network that given us this, and our medias that are being pre-approved, the ability for them to, for Hanifords to reassign a bunch of spaces to be parking rides, to be a parking ride in the event they were ever interested. It wasn't something that they were specifically asking for but we brought it forward. conditions so that they didn't have to ask, they didn't have to go through a bunch of hoops in a future time to get it done. So, you know, it's not as far forward as, to my knowledge, as we'd like, but at least it's removed future obstacles. Okay. Thank you, Tom. So, Paul, I just want to say, I'm hoping to get on transportation in the state Senate and I'm really excited to talk about a lot of these issues. I really agree completely, to get people out of their cars, you got to make it convenient and to look at parking rides that are amenity-oriented, near conveniences and with Lyft and other on-demand services coming online, there's some real opportunities to change our transportation emissions. I also just, while I have the floor, caller four and five, if you're dialed in, I'm hearing you clear your throat and snort and stuff. So, if you want to mute yourself, it might make for a better listening environment for everybody else. So, if you're dialed in, caller four and five, please self-mute yourself if you wouldn't mind. And to do self-muting, it's R5 or star six? How do you do it? You're just on your phone. There's a mute button on your phone. Yeah, but if they're not on the cell phone, I guess they can't do that, can they? Yeah, if it's- I think Kevin can mute them too. Kevin, you can have the power to mute them. Well, you got caller five to four to leave. Nice job. The last thing I'll say on this- I know that wasn't your intent. The last thing I'll say on this, which speaks a little bit to Councilor Chittenden's point about shifting the way people move the patterns. I do want to put a plug-in for all of the tremendous work that this Council and Councils before have put in making the steps to see city center be a reality. That's the kind of land use pattern where people will be able to and are already walking to the grocery store, walking to the coffee shop, hopefully at some point, walking to their job or taking the bus there. And that kind of land use pattern is in some ways the most significant thing that we can do in the transportation world is make it so that at least some of the time they don't even need to be in their car to begin with. Right. So a lot of work still to be done, but just want to acknowledge that that's a massive climate project, as well as all the other things to be done. Great. Well, thank you. Okay, if there's no other comments or questions. All right, let's move on then to the preliminary budget discussion on the operations budget for the new library. We have three people, Jennifer Murray, Patrick Laduke, and Ted Lensky. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Good to see you all. Good to see you. Good to be here. Is Kevin or Tom going to share our short presentation with us, or should we be trying to do that from here? Tom, do you have that up? I don't have it up. I think if you just make Ted the presenter. Yeah, I can present it. I'll make Ted the presenter. Hold on, Ted. OK, you should be all set. Thanks, Kevin. One second before I figure this out. Well, I can start a little bit. There we go. And I'm going to turn most of this over to Ted. But I'll do a quick overview of what we want to accomplish today. First of all, thanks very much for the time. As was said in the agenda, this is a preliminary budget review for the library. As you know, the South Brompton trustees have a finance committee that works closely with JETA for every year to look at the budget and do what we can do to make sure the budget is sustainable for the city and functional for our citizens. Obviously, this year it's a dramatically different task with a new library coming online. Our objective today is to do a quick slide on how we got here. The excitement of a new library opening up. And then Ted's going to review the staffing plan, the hours of service, and the programming pieces, and then what that means for the budget for FY22 and a little bit beyond that with some highlights of some one-time costs that have to be in the budget to kind of open the doors. But we want to highlight those because those will not be ongoing costs that the city will have to bear. So our goal is to share this with you, be as transparent as we can. Look for your feedback, your questions. As we go back to continue to work on this and fine-tune it before the final submission to you all. Any questions out of the gate before we get started? They'll check out machines. That's an interesting concept. Yes, as you can imagine, that might be something that costs a little money, but might save money in the long-haul from a staffing perspective. So let's go ahead to the next slide, Ted. If I got it here. OK. So this is a little bit of a rehashed stuff you all already know. We're obviously very excited about the opportunity to kind of open up a new library. Back when we had this kind of boat in front of the citizenry, we had a really robust turnout with a lot of people saying, yes, they wanted a new building. They wanted a new library. So we're really excited about the access to knowledge. You heard me say multiple times when I've talked to this group that this is a really exciting opportunity for us to kind of really solidify the center of democracy for our community. The library is where everybody can come in and get access to information, debate topics, talk about how we want to be. Obviously, the work that you all do as city council and all the committees that you kind of endorse and authorize, do their work largely out of that space when we're in a non-COVID space. So it's a really exciting opportunity for all of us in the community. I really promote engagement, use of technology, and we're really hoping to expand the collections that we have. We've got 20,000 people in our community and the ability to expand that collection from all the different interests that we have is gonna be really important. So we're just excited about moving that forward. Obviously, as we looked at this plan when we had a little star in our eye when we get the vote passed, we knew that we'd have to staff and program it for a much larger community. We obviously know that the economic situation is different than we thought it was gonna be when that happened. So we've taken a couple of really, really hard looks at what we have to do to open the doors in a facility that is much larger than the one that we're in right now for all the safety and security reasons and the programming reasons and how do we fulfill the community's expectations for this new library that said yes to it without kind of going all the way to the culmination of what we thought we were gonna do because it's just not economically feasible right now. So I think Ted's gonna walk through all that with you and show you what we think is the right approach to get the doors open. To serve the community the best that we can when those doors open and then ramp up to what we would call the fully staffed, fully programming space over a period of time. So I'll stop there and I'll turn it over to Ted for the next steps to the slides. Thanks Patrick. Good evening everyone. Again, as Patrick mentioned, we want to balance the hours of service, the cost of those hours of service as well as the programming aspect. So we took an approach of looking at the staffing, looking at the size of the library, looking at the service we wanted to provide and came up with an approach that's phased in beginning in fiscal year 22, with the second phase in the second half of fiscal year 22 and then looking ahead to fiscal year 23 to try and balance all of those aspects, the increased space, the need for access for the citizens and try to work that out. So we're proposing the increase in the current approved FTEs from eight to 11 in fiscal year 22. And by doing that increase, it'll support the hours of operations we're proposing. It'll support some expanded programming to help out with children and young adults after school programs as well as digital platforms. The additional meeting space that we are going to need to schedule and manage, that'll be part of that as well. And the key thing here is again, we're increasing the space of the library from about 7,800 square feet to over 20,000 square feet. So that square footage needs to be from a security and feasibility and helping out the citizenry needs to be staffed appropriately. So we're looking at balancing again, all three of these aspects and we wanted to come up with an approach that in the environment we're in tries to balance all those together. So we're looking from an hours of service perspective is if we have the additional full-time equivalence in the first six months of fiscal year 22, which would get us to about 10 and a half FTEs being open for about 40 hours a week, Monday, Tuesday, Friday, 10 to five, Wednesday, Thursday, 12 to seven and Saturday, 10 to three. Again, we have looked at trying to make sure we have some after work access for people as well as a steady schedule of a Monday through Saturday schedule. Then looking in the beginning in January of 22 for the last six months of 22, we would increase that with an additional half of FTE and try to expand hours to 48 hours. So this would allow us to be open in the evenings, Monday through Thursday, 10 to seven, 10 to five on Friday and then 10 to three on Saturday. And then we wanted to phase in this approach. We know that we wanted to build towards this and try to minimize the amount of additional salary in the first half of fiscal year 22 to try and help the city as they try to manage the overall costs of all the other departments that were supported. We did look ahead to fiscal year 23. We see a potential add two more full-time equivalence to open up the library to 61 hours, which would increase to a Sunday service as well as some longer evening hours on Thursday and little more expanded hours Monday through Wednesday with some additional earlier opening on Friday at 9 a.m. So this is the basis for where we chose our starting or our evaluation of the hours of service. So we looked at the financial implications of this. Again, we looked at the fiscal year 22. You can see the staffing numbers increase about $120,000 or about 26% compared to the fiscal year 21. And then you can see the other costs. We tried to very much minimize some of these other costs because dominant cost of the library budget is the staffing component of it. We do have some costs in here for technology and for equipment. And that equipment is a one-time cost of additional computers and also self-checkout machines with the goal of the self-checkout machines to be something that we can do to help facilitate the circulation aspects of the library. And if you look at the right, again, we're trying to look at this as square footage per full-time employee. You can see that we are proposing obviously by the increase in the square footage, there's more coverage by the employees that they could see. But we're also looking to make sure we balance square footage per employee. The second chart on the right is salary costs per full-time employees. We're trying to make sure that we add, any salary we add does not add a significant amount to the cost so we can make sure we manage the salary side of this, it's this over 70% of our costs. And then they try and look to increase the hours as we go along here. So again, trying to balance the needs of the community, the needs of the building itself and the needs of the staff to make sure they can support and provide the necessary time to the people who are visiting the library. I volunteered at the library this year and I can see what the staff has done in this environment when they were open. I think Jennifer and her team should be commended for the service that they've been providing in a difficult environment. And I think that that's seeing how the people who visit the library really need the interaction and the service that the library provides and all the programming and all the program, the digital aspects that we provide. It's very exciting to see the new library as a new member to the community moving here earlier this year. I'm excited to be a part of it and I see the great things that Jennifer and her team are doing. Any questions? Ted, can you just clarify? I'm sorry to ask you this question because you and I went through this before but the header on the second chart salary cost per total FTE that we had that labeled differently before? Yeah, that changed as the header was really, the chart is explaining the total hours per FTE hours. We do have a chart that's part of this as well as to show the salaries per hour open. So when you look at the hours open because of the amount of hours pre COVID the hours open, salary per hours open will increase in the beginning when we go to the 40 hours and try to open with the additional people based on the square footage. But over time, that is gonna come down as well. So again, we're trying to balance the salary cost per open hour or salary cost per full-time employee. All of these costs we're trying to see in the short-term and fiscal year, beginning of the year and over time through the later half, the second half of fiscal year 22 into fiscal year 23, those costs will continue to go in the positive direction. So lower cost per open hour and lower cost per employee. So the employees we're bringing on aren't adding much to the cost of the basis of the salary cost but we're getting coverage from those employees while the library is opening and providing service. So again, this is the preliminary look we have. We wanted to give you a snapshot of this to get some thoughts and comments so we can go back as a finance committee and also as a library board to try and make sure we optimize this to balance the needs of the community and the needs of the library. And Ted, could you just highlight on that last bullet on the one-time costs where they could probably find those in the budget above that? So they're in the equipment line that's located right here in fiscal year 22, the next to last line of the line above the total. So that equipment cost is about $26,000 for the self-checkout machines. We do have a lease option available on that for a five-year lease option. For the full value of that lease option would be about 36,000 over the life of the five years. So for this first pass of the budget, we have left the $26,000 one-time cost in. There is an option to do a lease over five years but it'll be a more total cost based off the lease option. That includes the fees and the service to support the self-checkout machines and the computers in there are for the employees upgrades of their current computers that are in the budget. Thanks Ted, I think, and this is just, for quite a, this is kind of the last slide we had. We didn't wanna spend, bore you with too many slides on a PowerPoint on a Monday night, but as you can see, I think that's why I highlighted the second chart down that our trajectory long-term while we are seeing some costs increase, the cost per hours open and per empty hours is gonna be trending the downward way, which is a really positive thing. So as we get to full services and we get to fully serving our citizens where the cost is gonna be going down in that sense, even though the actual dollar amount may be going up for a little while till we size up. So many stuff are there to open up for questions and Jennifer, obviously to give you an opportunity if there's anything you'd like to make sure that you highlight through this conversation as well. Okay, are there questions? Jennifer? No, I think that Patrick and Ted have done a really good job of pulling this together. I will make a comment that one expense that we have that's in a different line than equipment, I think it's in dues and subscriptions is that we're also looking at software for room reservation software because it's gonna be a big staffing piece to have to manage the reservations for seven or eight rooms. And so that's something else that we've got in there is building that in so that we can maximize the staff use and also be able to get people doing their own reservations online and having an electronic resource that helps us with that. Okay. Any, are there other questions or comments? This is really helpful to see and to understand. It will be a challenge in the upcoming budget but this is I think you've been very realistic in my mind. I mean, I haven't poured through this and don't know every line item but it seems as if you've really thought carefully about a number of things. I might add a question about the checkout machines and wondering what their lifespan is and that potentially doing the rental or leasing part might be smarter even though it's more money over time in five years, you're gonna have to replace them anyway. I don't know, I know nothing about the machines but to me that might be another thing to think about. Yeah, we can definitely take that back. Yeah, and we're getting more details. The proposal came in last week after there was suggestion was made on that so we can pursue that a little further. Well, that's just a thought. Tim, is your hand up? Yeah, thanks for the presentation everybody. Is there like a phone app that we could download and just take a picture of some QR code on the book or on the ISBN number and then take a picture of a QR code on a desk that says, this is a checkout transaction and then you wouldn't have to have anything special and you're using the Wi-Fi in the building. Just a thought, I don't know if that exists or not. Anyway. Well, certainly libraries around the country and the world are trying all kinds of new things. I can... You don't want to have to recode all of your books with some special bar code or a QR code. No, I don't. And I originally was planning or I was looking at trying to do self checkout just using a laptop and a scanner instead of actually buying a machine to do that. And that's something we can consider but when we're using the self checkout machines they are designed specifically to be integrated with our circulation system. So it means that not only is somebody checking out an item, but they're also getting the receipt. They're also being reminded about things that are overdue. And a lot of that adds value to checking out the materials for the public. So I can certainly look at some, I can look at some far out options but that's kind of the farthest out I've gone and I've used that before in a library and it's fine, but it definitely does not give you the full picture that you might want when you're checking out all your materials. Well, the other part that maybe I could add on there Tim to your point is that if we were to buy even if it becomes something we have to replace in five years, the technology may have adapted and be more effective and more efficient and cheaper as well. And I remember when I first bought a VCR and not to claim my age, they were expensive and after a little while they were really cheap. I can verify the lifetime of these but my understanding from something that I read is that it's closer to 10 years. Oh, okay. And we own it outright at the end of five if we decide to lease. Any other comments or questions? No, thank you. Well, we really appreciate this. It's very helpful and really good information and clearly you are, you got your pencil sharpened. Well, you don't want to find it if anything does come up, you have questions. Thanks very much for the time. And you do have a new member that we voted in tonight. So you're awesome. That's great to hear. All right. Well, thank you very much. You will. Move on to item 12, overview of the capital improvement plan. And this is Tom Hubbard. Tom, if you're talking, we can't hear you. Yeah. Sorry about that. So I was just wondering if this was large enough to view. Well, I'm looking at it on my iPad because it's not big enough for me, but I'm fine on my iPad. Is that helpful there? Shrink a tiny bit more. Shrink it? Just a tiny bit. If you have a custom, you have a zoom out. You guys are on the wrong way. Well, a little bit. I don't know. You have a slider bar that you can use to the zoom or is it you have a custom zoom amount? Not that I'm seeing Tim. Okay. Oh, it must be it. It must be a Mac or an Apple product, huh? Thank you. I didn't mean that. I'm sorry. You just have to move left to see. You have to move left to see the beginnings of what the words are. Okay, fix that. Well, maybe I was just a bit here. I guess I'll have to do that. So I'd like to begin by just thanking Ted and Patrick and working with Jennifer and the board in presenting a preliminary budget to you. As you can see from the impact on that, it's gonna be a major cost driver. One of the major cost drivers that we look at as we build the FY 22 general fund budget. And what I've tried to do in the memo that I outlined to you on Friday was to just give you a sense of what some of those major cost drivers were so that as we look at the CIP, you can understand some of the decisions, decision-making that we're doing at this point as we continue to work through the budgets with the different departments. So the impact with the library budget is just under $200,000. Our healthcare increase at 5% is about $120,000. The current agreements with the bargaining units, a little over $300,000 property insurance workers comp, that's gonna be about a $90,000 increase. And then probably to be prudent, we need to take another look at the local options tax and probably decrease the amount of revenue that we anticipate in fiscal year 22. That could be as much as a $250,000 hit. So just those items alone right there is about $950,000 that we kind of need to find within the general fund and certainly influenced us as we started going through the CIP. So this page one of the CIP here is all general fund items. So as we look through the highway, we're as much as we would love to take the paving to a million dollars in FY 22, we don't think that's gonna be feasible. In fact, we're hopeful that we can keep it at the 750. The fleet replacement is currently at 250, but Justin knows if there's places we got to go to look at things, this is a life cycle expectation, replacement of trucks and vehicles that he has at Public Works, that we may have to revisit that number. And the Emerald Ash, again, a proactive effort that we're trying to undertake to basically remove and replace up to the 770 ash trees that we have throughout the city. We've left that at 100 for now, but again, that's an area that we may have to look at if additional cutting is needed. The fire and the ambulance in the equipment line there, we're looking at an IV med pump and some cardiac monitors that need to be replaced in the ambulance vehicles to be able to maintain their certification with their paramedic licenses that they have. The communication tower is the payment on the upgrade to the radios and communication system that the voters passed several years ago. As we look at the police station, the financing of the debt service, this is the portion of general fund money that needs to go into it. As you can see over the next couple of years here, that's gonna peter off and eventually be left to just the local options tax share of that payment, which is $360,000 a year. And the police impact fees, which is another $110,000. So this is the general fund share and that will continue to go down over the next few years and eventually go away. I believe the police station will be totally paid off in 2032 vehicle replacement. We've cut it just a little bit. That will get the police department three new vehicles and fit up in FY 22. Again, an area that we may have to come back to and look at if additional cuts are necessary. 45 on the taser and handguns, as you can see, this is a cycle of about every seven years that needs to be replaced due to changes in technology as well as support agreements through the company to be able to maintain that equipment for us. So it's split over two years. So this would be the first year of that. And then the communications, that's for different servers, their software licenses and some hardware replacement that they'll need in FY 22. The reason there's such a huge jump in FY 23 is that's the year that Sean is looking at the body cameras and not only the cost of the body cameras, but more importantly and more significantly the cost of the storage to be able to file all that data. Recreation and parks, there's some additional improvements that we're looking to do at Overlook. A little bit of the sidewalk repair is as you probably recall, we were able to repave that and put some plantings in this year. There's some additional plantings that will be going in. The repair to the sidewalk area is the amount of the 15 that's left in there. And then at Samansky Park, this would be for the refurbishment of the tennis courts down there and multi-use also the pickleball courts. IT is basically a pretty standard cost these couple of years here for replacement of hardware and some of the servers that we have. The public art, continuing to try to fund that at 5,000 both for permanent and temporary art displays throughout the city. This is our bond payment and we're still wrestling with the number here in terms of where we actually need to be. So we'll continue to work through that number in terms of debt for city center. One is gonna speak a little bit to that in a little bit here. That's the general fund. As we go on to page two, we're looking at projects and items that are funded with money outside the general fund. So as we look at FY22 again, this cost here is the $360,000 that comes from the local options tax and 110,000 from police impact fees that pay the balance on financing the debt on the police station. The vehicle replacement, this is money from revenue, the revenue line that will come in to, as you can see, you can understand why the police vehicles need to be replaced in the frequency that they do. We get about $1,000 a car by the time they go out of service, but we pay about $25,000 for them. New. The building stewardship fund is something we implemented in the current fiscal year, 21. This is money that will go back into the police station for maintenance upgrades and repair. They're getting to a point now where some of the carboning, some of the tile, some of the rooms need a little bit of refurbishment. So that fund is established to help accomplish that work. I don't know if we can keep that at 50 for this year or not. This is money that used to be paid out for the fit up of the second floor where the CJC is, where the vet center is and where the second floor conference room exists. South Village soccer field, that's all money that's been coming in through impact fees that would pay for that. We collect the rec department collects money from field use fees that would fund the baseball dugout replacement. We're looking at using rec impact fee money to be able to replace the bathrooms that are up there. While we still know that we'd love to have an indoor recreation center up there. We know that that's still a bit away before we're gonna be able to look at that. So we really need to do an upgrade to the bathrooms up there that are gonna provide the facilities that we need and have needed actually for a number of years to be able to service the events that they go on up at the park. So that would come out of rec impact fee money. When you talk about upgrades for the bathrooms, is that providing more or just making the current facilities better? This would be actually replacing the bathroom structure that's at the pavilion building up at Memorial and it would substantially provide more restrooms, mainly for the women, but also for the men's rooms. Okay, thank you. Yep. We're looking at doing some additional upgrades to the dock park once it goes in and it will go in and fiscal year 21, money out of rec impact fees. And this would also help to enhance some of the dock park area down at Farrell Park as well. Again, funded through rec impact fees. The open space projects and the bike and pet improvements Ashley has put together a really good memo that I will forward along to you that you can have and begin to look through these projects and she'll be back in front of you on January 4th to go into a bit more detail on these. All of these projects, both with the open space and the bike and pet have been reviewed and approved by the committees. These are all funded with outside sources, the open space projects funded with the open space fund and the bike and pet projects funded through the, sorry, through the bike and pet bond issue that was passed again several years ago. There's money in here to, in rec impact fees to kind of bring the indoor recreation center to a point where it could be ready to go before the public for a vote in the future whenever the council decides the appropriate time is for right now there's a placeholder in 23 and 24 for that. Again, that's just a placeholder at this point. The energy projects every year we put 10 and 10 into the stewardship and facilities review just to do any improvements to the existing buildings that we have throughout the city. City center, Alana will talk to you in just a few minutes including the garden street that we spoke to earlier that we'll address. And then Justin will be before you again on January 4th to talk about all the different enterprise funds and the projects slated for FY22. All of these individual feats and the summary that you're viewing now is available on the city website. It will be up there right through January 4th till we come before you again as part of a public hearing on an amendment that will ask you to approve for the CIP which would allow the FY22 portion of the general fund money to actually become part of the FY22 general fund budget. So again, all of this is available currently online. I think I included the link to you in the memo on Friday and we'll make sure that as the public looks for it that they're able to readily find that available. So I think Alana if you are on maybe speak or Kevin as well, speak to the FY22 garden street project here. I don't, oh, there's Alana. Yeah. Alana's on. So there we go. Okay, so I'm sorry I'm on. So good evening. I hadn't actually prepared anything but essentially for city center, there are several projects that are ongoing of those, Wilson Road Street, St. Garden Street, the pedestrian by school access at I-89 which is not currently funded beyond CIP financing. And obviously the library, city halls, senior center building on garden street is really the one that's next up for funding meaning that the entire project is at 60% design. It is a fairly large project. It's 100% to district eligible for district financing. However, this is a very uncertain year. We did receive an extension of in the timeframe during which the city may incur debt from which was 22 and is now 2023 because the amount that is being asked and because it's a multi-segment project, it's the between Dorset and the edge of the South Burlington Realty Project which you looked at today. And between which they name Prospect Place and then if you go to the other end of their project, it's between what they're calling Dover Place to Midas Drive. So that's segment two and then segment three is the White Street, fixing the White Street, Midas Street intersection to the Hinesburg Road, Hinesburg Road, Patchin Road intersection with Williston Road. So three distinct segments and we're proposing that the council consider requesting authorization for debt for the first two segments and not going west to east, the first two segments being the Dorset to the Prospect Place or the end of the Healthy Living Road and that is a more of a minor intervention. It's really adding sidewalk to the south side, adding street lights to the south side, connecting the waterline so that there's a loop service. So and that ensures that with the future build out that we'll have adequate fire safety with water pressure throughout city center. And then the northern segment, which is again at Dover Place through Midas Drive and that segment is a full depth construction, reconstruction of a new roadway, including stormwater and streetscape and utilities underground, et cetera. So together those two projects are those two portions of the overall project would cost just over four million is our cost estimate at 60%. Of course, we would be looking at it closely and just making sure that those numbers are correct. And so the proposal is that that question goes to the voters in March if you're in, if that's something that is supported for beginning construction either at the end of that year or early in the following year, but that would allow us to go out and get bits for construction and line it up. Is that March, 2021? Yeah. 2021. That's what we're bringing to the council tonight is a lot of just explained it Helen, the council needs to consider and decide whether or not you wanna take this four million dollar, 100% TIF financing, connect Garden Street all the way through question to the public in March of 2021. And the TIF money that we have available would carry that? Yes. Go ahead, Alana. Yeah. So the TIF money that comes from the Snyder-Braverman developments or the upcoming, not the three projects, but if you look at their overall development that would carry that project. It's not as we've shown before the money comes in and build slowly. So we do have an upfront carry, we'll be carrying debt in the beginning until there's the full-bought build-out. And the $860,000 that we typically put aside in our kitty, that's enough to fund those. All right, are there, do you have more? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. No, I think this is just to introduce the idea but not to, I don't think it's, I think it would be something that if you would like to consider, we can bring you all the numbers and data and everything to look at it at a future meeting. Okay, and I think in addition to what Alana just said, we need to think about the ability to incur debt for the TIF district. We of course, as Alana noted, have an additional year now, but that means we would have to incur debt by March of 2023, calendar year 2023. To do that, however, as a practical matter, given that we fund these projects and our debt through the bond bank, the bond bank issuance in the late fall of 2022 is when we would have to be in to get approval for that, we would probably have to go to the voters in an August or maybe September of 2022 timeframe. So the reason we're bringing this to the council tonight about the Garden Street connection is because we anticipate that you're gonna need to have another vote which will probably likely be your final TIF vote in March of 2022. And that could cover the Lake Street, Williston Road, malfunction junction there. It could cover the bike and pedestrian facility going across the interstate. It's unlikely that we would be coming to you with costs for a parking garage, and but there may be some stormwater improvements in that vote. So my recommendation to you is that you strongly consider taking this to the voters in March of 2021, this four million plus or minus question, because it's likely that you're gonna take something else to them in March of 2022. Obviously we're three and a half months out from the vote. There are various warnings and public hearings that have to be held and general education of the public about what the project would be. And so we're not asking you to make this decision tonight, but to consider it and possibly make the decision at your meeting on the 21st. Okay. So let me be clear, Kevin, there's no, this is just permission to use those funds. There's no tax implications, correct? Well, it's permission from the voters to incur that that will be paid off by the tax increments financing that will come in future years. Yes, but it has to be paid more. We're not going to have to pay more. In the nearer years, we're gonna have to pay. Yeah, but we've got that money, correct? Yeah, well, Tom, Okay, Tom. Are we paying for the library with a reserve fund and then thinking about paying for this too? So David. We're gonna have to see a full story on all that bondage debt and the TIF income. We need a separate presentation on that, don't we? Yeah, we can get you that presentation, Tim. That would be good. David, are you finished with your questions? Cause Tom has it, Tom. No, that would be good. Okay, some more information, Tom. Comment to Dave, it's general obligation debt. So the risk we run is if for some reason the buildings that we saw pictures of tonight don't get built, we would still have to pay this money. And that's the case for TIFs. So if we have confidence that they're gonna get built and that things are going forward, which I think we do. And I just wanna confirm with a question which I think I know the answer to. So I'll just make my statement with the question. I'm under the impression this is 100% TIF-financeable and this is a public roadway just like Market Street. We bonded from Market Street, Market Street made sense. It passed with a overwhelming support. It, this road needs to be built to deal with all the congestion issues. And if we don't get this passed by the voters then that means sooner or later the taxpayers are gonna have to pay this for this entirely without the benefit of 100% TIF-redirection financing should the buildings come in. So I support bringing this forward in March. I think it makes sense for all the reasons Kevin stated by no means do I wanna push this or push too hard for it. So I don't think that makes sense but I think the voters in March will be ready to consider another TIF vote that is 100% financeable from the TIF revenue should they come in. There's my piece. I just wanna say that we need to look at a best and worst case for the fill out of that entire project in terms of TIF revenue, right? If they build a lot of affordable housing we're not gonna have the income stream that we thought we were gonna have. And so far they've built three buildings now and there's a fourth one where they couldn't definitively say there wouldn't be 100% affordable housing. I love affordable housing but it's not what we anticipated for city center if I'm correct, right? And what our anticipation was in terms of a build out. Especially the TIF- Affordable housing doesn't mean 100% affordable housing. I mean, and they didn't say but it would be a portion of those apartments. I'm just saying that we gotta be careful here and look at our best and worst case scenarios because I don't wanna be caught with our pants down in 10 years and not have the income stream that we need in order to fulfill the obligations that we voted for in the near years. Well, I think we're all with you on that Tim. And I think we're also saying we need to see this laid out worse and best scenario and some harder numbers. I heard Brayverman, Snyder Brayverman tonight being very excited about the 133 units at the prospect place. It's all permitted and they, while it isn't going in tomorrow, they anticipate, I can't remember what date they said, but... February for the first building. Right, but that's affordable housing but the bigger one, which would generate even more income but is dependent on markets, on Garden Street. So, if you wanna develop, don't we have to build the street? So people can get to their place of where they live and where they might work. We will prepare that presentation for the 21st. You're meeting on the 21st and so you can, you can assess that risk and consider it then. But we just wanted to give you a heads up tonight since this is on the, this is on the CIP. We wanted to explain what this is and what the options were as it relates to timing. Yeah. And I appreciate Tim's real concern because there's some discomfort I have as well in terms of just coming out of a pandemic and kind of launching forward with this, even though it's paid with tip dollars, it's still, it's an unsettling time. And so we may need two bites at this apple to get this pass. So, I mean, it's almost important that we try it in this March, in some ways to see what the appetite is or the understanding of the public. Is there any federal money for this like there was for Market Street? No, there's, Market Street was an earmark that Senator Jeffords got the city 14 or so, well, longer than that, 16 or so years ago, I suppose, maybe longer. And it was not a otherwise federally funded project it was an earmark, and the earmarks are done now. So, Alana, is that reasonably correct? That's accurate. Certainly, federal funding may come back at some point that would probably extend the life of the engineering for the project considerably. And then we have used some impact fees for this project as well. Well, we can get it all laid out so we can have those questions. Are there other questions people want addressed in the presentation, Megan? With regards to the police, that was, had some local options taxes. Now, I believe it was, yeah, the debt financing, right, the financing debt service, yeah, 470. It was at the top of that page there, 470, yeah. And you said it was local options tax as part of the source of funds to cover that, right? And you were talking about having to really be conservative with projections for that local options tax. Could you talk about that a little bit more? Sure, so right now, Megan, in the current budget, we have a projection of about $4 million between both the sales and the rooms and meals tax. $360,000 of that money is committed to the bond payment over the course of the number of years that we have with the bond up through 2032 that would have to be paid. So first and foremost, any local options taxes that are collected have to be attributed to the bond payments first. And then the balance goes into revenue to help offset the rest of the general fund money. That's where I think the $4 million probably needs to come down to 375 or 350. 8 million seven. 375, yeah. Right, in 3 million 700 or 3 million 800, something like that in FY 22, it's to be a little more conservative about what we project will be able to get in. Still a lot of unknowns, obviously, but I think bringing it down a little bit would be prudent at this point. Oh, the reports today that I heard is projected, rebound in the second half of next year. So let's just hope that economists know what they're talking about, right? Right. But they're guessing right. So are we clear we'll have this presentation on potentially adding this as a decision or a question for the public? And then are there any other comments about the CIP? Tom? So somewhat related to this, I've just received an email today and I think you might all be aware of this. I'd love to hear Donna Kimbell, but I'm pretty sure the state's gonna give Allen's flexibility on when they hold town meeting day and if they wanna do all mail in, but we'll have the ability if we wanna push this out to April or late March, I'm pretty sure that's gonna come down the pike if that helps us at all in getting ready for this bond issuance or this is asked. Right, well, we'll have to budget some educational money. If in fact we go forward with this. Okay, well, we'll wait till the 21st to get some more information and we'll need to make a decision then. Is that your expectation or need? I think so. I'm gonna, they'll try to get a schedule. Tom's got a schedule for the budget process, but we may need to have Andrew put together a schedule for when we need to do public hearings and all for this. I suspect it may still be possible to make a decision on the fourth, but I don't wanna take a chance about that. So we'll have that for you on the 21st as well. Okay, well, let's make sure the agenda has a chunk of time that's big enough to have a full conversation. Megan? Yeah, I just wanted to ask and hopefully encourage us to really reach out to both the energy committee and the economic development committee to be advocates for this TIF vote. I think that just as Paul outlined tonight, the city center is a critical piece to our energy plan, climate action plan. And it's also critical to our economic development plan. So I would hope that those two committees and the members of those committees could really be active advocates for the vote. I would encourage us to invite both the committees to join us for that hearing or that information in December and then be part of the hearing process as well. I agree with you, I was just about, I was gonna say the same thing, so good. Great minds, Helen. You bet. Okay, are we done with the overview of the capital improvement plan or are there other additional questions or concerns? This is gonna be a tough budget year. Whoa, that's all I'll say. Item 13, identify and discuss items for legislators for upcoming sessions. So Tom, get Joe a pad of paper out and take some notes. You probably do it all. There's a session tomorrow evening, all the four sub-brilliant reps and Michael Strockin and I, I don't know if we were planning to communicate this to them in advance or what we're gonna do with this list, but I certainly want them to hear it as well since they're much more experienced and savvy on these matters. Okay, so Kevin, take it away. You have this is a long list of stuff, huh? Yeah, so you got the memo from me about some of the issues that have been recommended. Let me see if I can pull it up. Sorry. Because being perfectly transparent, I haven't read it. So I'm reading student papers, not Kevin's memos. Maybe you should read his memo. I can do that. Student papers and shared. Use a red pen. Students are much more interesting. I never use red pens, Tim, it intimidates the students. First off, look at the margins. Oh my God, they're awful. Oh, stop it. Watch it, Tim, or I'll mute you. Yeah, exactly. And if you don't, I will. So we start with the police department and the memo that Chief Burke sent out. One of the challenges that we have and continue to have is in mental health is that there are people falling between the cracks. There's no, while community outreach is doing an outstanding job of addressing people's needs at the point of contact, when they're on duty, there are still people falling between the cracks because we don't have a 24 seven crisis center that will take everybody. The emergency department is an option, but they won't take people who are violent or are part of their issue is that they're drunk. Act one won't take people if they're violent or if they've got mental health issues. The correctional facility will take everybody unless the people have figured out how to get out of that, which is to claim that they're having a heart attack or a stroke or some medical issue, which time we have to transport them back to the hospital. And so this is what the chiefs have referred to as the as the rodeo. And so by default, these people who have needs are their treatment is happening in the backseat of a cruiser. And that's no treatment at all. So we need to be working with the department of mental health and other providers to try to figure out how we can get a 24 seven crisis center. And so this is as much about policy, some legislative policies that will need to be changed or and facility. So it's a combined issue. And it's a county issue too. Yes. This is not just South Burlington. Oh, this is a state-wide. It includes everybody. If not national. Yeah. Our police are dealing with it as our Colchester Essex and oftentimes the person that is in the rodeo in South Burlington tonight is in Essex or Colchester tomorrow. So it's the willingness of the war and this are the public to allow people to fall between the cracks. And I don't think we should be there. And so that's the chief's number one issue. Also use of forest legislation. The chief met with representative Rourad who's leading the effort in the house last week. And there seems to be some progress in talking to Martin about some refinement that needs prohibited restraint needs to be possibly amended for a response in the situation of deadly force. Again, these are all in the chief's memo. Tom referred to the body worn camera technology that we have in our capital plan for fiscal 23. The cameras themselves are not the big cost. It's the storage. And we need to find some creative ways for the state to subsidize or otherwise create facilities that allow storage for all the communities because it's likely that there will be a mandate for the use of body cameras. I don't see why Amazon web storage wouldn't be the solution for this. It's the cheapest way to storage large amounts of data. There's gotta be a simple IT solution for this outside the proprietary nature of those cameras because they're just ripping people off. Yeah, it's really the storage, Tim. Yeah, I mean, if that's a solution then I think it should be a statewide solution we could all participate in. Okay. On the planning side, S237, the big housing bill, some of that didn't pass. We can get you the Vermont Planners Association position paper on that. This was Senator Sorotkin's bill that he spent a lot of time on. There is gonna be an effort that we understand for statewide rental registry. If that happens, obviously that would address some of our issues in South Burlington where we do not have such a registry. And as far as Act 250, I imagine that will be another effort to go back and address a lot of the Act 250 amendments that were not passed in the end. We certainly are interested in trying to find ways to ease the permitting burden in our designated downtowns and village centers and in fact, our new town center. So that's something we wanna ask the legislature to consider. One of our biggest concerns is not at this point legislative but it's regulatory is the continuing threats by the Department of Environmental Conservation to deny us the ability to deposit and spread class A biosolids on land. Now we spend, and you'll see this in Justin's budget, we spend a lot of money on alum and other chemicals that reduce the toxicity of biosolids so that we can achieve class A standard to be able to spread them on the fields. If we don't, if that's denied us in the future, we will have to spend probably more than half a million dollars in transport and disposal at a landfill. Now, we're one of the few communities that can do this if we may even be the only one but it's bad policy, we think, to ask us to improve the quality of our biosolids and then deny us the ability to land apply and just throw them into a landfill with all the other communities who aren't achieving nearly as high a standard as we are. And so this needs to be, DEC either needs to back down or the legislature needs to come in at some point and allow this to continue to occur. Really, this would be a half a million dollar additional expense for us. And quite frankly, we're very proud of the work our department is doing, not only on this, but on phosphorus in the lake. Different issue, but we're the leaders in the state on both of these issues and this would set us back considerably. Justin notes that a couple of highway and road programs and paving programs that we're hoping will be reestablished or increased. Justin also reminds us that, and this is not necessarily a legislative issue but our legislators should be aware that our stormwater, our wastewater facility managers and staff need to be included as essential employees without water and sewage, we're in deep trouble. And so when we talk about first responders we should be talking about first responders but as we're talking about getting the vaccination and access to therapeutics and so on we should also be talking about our wastewater facility staff. And then again, frontline employees for relief money down under the, oops, how did I get that to work? Under miscellaneous, the Chittin County Public Safety Authority, the communities have agreed to fund the cost associated with fitting up 19 Gregory Drive for the consolidated dispatch but we need help from the state for the technology piece. It's $750,000. This is going to greatly increase the efficiency and the response time for emergencies and lead to more consolidations across the state. And we think this state needs to be part of this discussion. So we're gonna be asking the state, we being the board of CCPSA to come in with $750,000 to cover the cost of just the technology piece of the overall capital budget for the consolidated dispatch. Is it too late to ask for CARES money for that right now? Yeah, CARES money is really not programmed into this sort of thing, Tim. I tried a month or so ago, I'm gonna try again probably this week and we'll see. This is first responder improvement, right? It's really, I mean, it's very much related. You gotta spend it by the end of the year. That'd be great if they could just write us a check, right? It would be, you know, they're even in South Burlington, there are times during the day, in fact, right now, where we only have one dispatcher on. If we had, if COVID-19 had or does affect our dispatch team, we're gonna be in real trouble. And every other community that we're working with and CCPSA is in the same position except Burlington. Burlington never has less than, I think, two, but even there, there's a vulnerability that is huge in public safety. And consolidation will be what gets us 90%, 80% of the way to eliminating it. But imagine not being able to take calls and dispatch on public safety folks or have great delays in doing it. It's the linchpin of how everything else works. And so we need to move forward with this. Earlier in the fall, I guess, for winter, I guess for the winter, MADA had reached out to find out what our views were on continuing the effort on the regional governance of Burlington International Airport. So that's in your memo, state ownership possibly and regional governance possibly. And she has agreed to go ahead and reintroduce that, I think, as a study bill. And then lastly, last week, you saw the announcement from the tax department that they're looking at a potential 9% increase in the property tax for education. I mean, it's just, you all know this better than I do. It's crowding out. It's just pushing municipal needs off the table. We're gonna be working very, very hard to get to an acceptable budget for you on the municipal side. But when the education's coming in at 9%, possibly on the property tax, something's gotta stop here because this is just not sustainable. We all want education, but across the state enrollments continue to go down. Yet year over year over year, we continue to have significant increases. This is the biggest one for a couple of years, but still significant increases. Of course, this will probably get pushed down somewhat, but still anything above 5%, 6% is, there's gotta be something left for municipality. So those are the issues that we have identified as staff. Counselors, you may have other things that are important that we can add on to this list. Well, I think, can I talk? Can I go? Yes, you may. Okay, I think it's an excellent list, Gavin, and it's very realistic and it's somewhat daunting. Tom, I think it's gonna be very important and it will be very ideal for us if indeed you are involved in the transportation and capital expenditures areas, transportation being perhaps most important. I see the airport on there. And as you reminded me last year or the year before, I chaired a study back in 1984 to do this very thing. So it'd be 94.044 only three and a half decades ago, kind of like city center. Maybe now's the time you can make it happen, right? The only thing I see that I don't see, Gavin, is we have discussed off and on about getting a greater share of our local options tax. Did I miss that or is that not on the list? It's not on the list, Dave, and it's a great catch. Well, let's get that on there because right now we get what? 300 and what? On a non-COVID year. Well, we get 70% which yields about $4 million. The state takes the other 30% off the top plus about an $80,000 processing fee. Oh yeah. And they don't do that for Burlington, right? So it's just something, yeah. So we get about 4 million bucks of that but we pay the state 80,000 bucks to process that 4 million. Is that what you're saying? Yes. I forget. Right, and they won't even tell us who it's from. That was the other piece. There's no transparency. So it'd be helpful to know which members of our community are contributing more so that we can somehow adjust or consider that accordingly. Yeah, and I don't see why we're paying an $80,000 processing fee. And I don't see why we should only get 70% of what our businesses generate. I'm not sure which parts of this battle we can win but I think that we should try to get a better deal out of that, for lack of a better term. Good, I'm glad you brought that up. Maybe you can write something up and add it as number four under other miscellaneous maybe. That's where it fits. Will do, absolutely. Good catch. Any other thoughts people have of items for the legislature? I think it's a great list. Good luck, right? It's a big one, yeah. Well, get them, Tom. That's why we elected you for God's sake, right? You and Sir Rockin' bring the whole bacon home. I'm gonna do my best, Dave, I'm gonna do my best. We need the whole pig, not just the bacon. Good line, Helen, yes. Okay, so if we're done with that, we've done item 14, 15 and 16. Is there any other business? Dinner. Dinner, oh, Megan. Thank you. Today I received a letter from the Vermont Air National Guard regarding the Restoration Program Restoration Advisory Board asking if I would like to serve on the board. Did any of you receive this letter? I haven't seen today's mail, so I don't know. I haven't seen the mail yet. I received the same thing. Oh, maybe we should talk about that because it might be worthwhile to have a counselor on the board. Uh-huh. And since more than one of us has been, maybe all five of us have received these, it might be useful for us to discuss that. And what is the title of the Restoration Program Restoration Advisory Board? And they're asking, first of all, if we need to establish this board for the base? Yeah, they didn't, it's a critical part of conducting a successful environmental investigation and cleanup program. Oh. So it has to do with the, you know, brownwater pollution and all that stuff, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So the questions that I need to answer and maybe all of us need to answer is, do we think there's a need for this at our base? And if so, would, you know, we'd be interested in serving on it. December 18th, however, is the deadline. So I know, I just received it today. I would have contacted people earlier. Our next meeting's the 21st. And this was from the air guard? Yeah. Who's, is it from Adam? Who's it from? David. Shepchick, yeah. David. Shepchick. Colonel, Colonel Shepchick. I'll send you an image of it right now, Kevin. Okay. Do you want me to reach out and try and get some more information? Or is the letter self-explanatory? I don't know who they contacted. So I don't know if this is, I mean, they talk about, you know, public engagement, but did they reach out to us as counselors? Have they reached out to members of the public? I certainly don't want this to, you know, just slide past us and nobody respond if this is really addressed to us. Well, Kevin, why don't you reach out and find out? Maybe there's actually been some other people like Justin or something who have also been invited. I mean, I don't know what kind of technical expertise they might want on this, or if they're just looking for a, you know, to cross the T that says, yeah, we reached out to the public and had two meetings and we checked that box off. My guess, Helen, is that it's part of their requirements under their federal programs, funding programs that they have community input on these things. But let me reach out and find out more about this and get some of Megan's questions answered and then get back to you right away. Okay, and then do you want to, do we want to have like a real quick discussion on the phone on this? I don't know. I mean, yeah, that's fine with me. I mean, Tom and I, you know, he's going to be busy, but I could certainly, if it depends on the schedule to be quite frank, if it's in the middle of the day, it's just teaching is God be my priority. So, but if it's an evening. Okay. Well, can we leave it this way if you're interested and find out that if you have the time, Megan, I think you would be a very good representative. I think we ought to, I think Kevin ought to find out are there other people in our community who might also be important to include on this? I mean, there may be someone on one of our committees. You know, I mean. Oh, it doesn't have to be me. I just, Tom was saying he was looking for an appointment earlier and I'm not sure he really is. So, you know, if it has to be one of us, I'm just saying I'll put my name in the chat. Well, I think you'd be very good. So Kevin, why don't you do some research? Let us all know. And then if it sounds like it's a good idea, then Megan has kind of offered to be that representative unless we feel, you know, somebody else would be better. Not a, you know, not way down in council with yet another job, but someone. Okay. So, Tom, did you say you were gonna send that to me or did Tim say that? I did. I sent it to you and Megan in an email two minutes ago. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Okay. So any other business? Tim. Kevin, can you ask Justin if the Eastwoods neighborhood sewer disconnection project from Burlington has indeed paid for itself because the original ROI was supposed to be about 18 months and we're coming up on about 18 months. And I'm just curious whether, you know, if the performance of that new system and the expenses are in our favor. I'm assuming it is, but. Yeah. Well, that was good news to share with the public. We don't take no, oh, actually we do take it. Yeah, we take it that we process it ourselves and we save some money. Right. Let me find out about that. Just curious, that's all. We still have a tiny payment. You're gonna see this in general fund budget or not in the general fund budget, but in sewer budget, about $5,000, we still pay Burlington. There are a couple of properties, Justin noted, one being CWD, interestingly, that still go to Burlington system, but it's $5,000. But the whole rest of that, I'll find out. Okay. I think we're close, I can't say. It's probably humane society and CWD, right? It could be, could be. Okay, is there any other business? All right, I would love a motion to adjourn. In a second, okay. And we're all in favor, two thumbs up. Good meeting guys, thank you. That was, it was good, Kevin. We got a lot of good information and had some good conversations, I think. And it looks like we have a lot of work ahead of us. Oh, it was a great team. This conference is no longer being recorded. Okay, well, thank you very much. See you on the 21st, yeah. Yeah.