 It is 6 p.m. Monday, September 19th. I'll call to order this regular meeting of the Wyniewski City Council. Please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance led by Councillor Oakley. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, agenda review. Any questions concerns about the savings agenda? Nope. Okay. Public comments. There's no one here in person. Paul, I don't see anyone in Zoom. Anyone signed up? Nobody signed up and nobody in the attendees list. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Second agenda. We have our city council minutes of nine and six. The accounts payable warrant from nine 15. Subsequent to pay out June, July and August and payroll warrant. 821 to 93. Any questions or concerns about the consent agenda? No. I have a motion to approve the consent agenda. So moved. Second. Motion by Thomas, second by Aurora. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Jim. Oh, it's very quiet. Thank you. Jim is a little quiet. So if you're trying to get my attention, please use the raise hand feature as well. All right. We will do council reports next Aurora. Can I start with you? Sure. So we had our news key pride events. On Saturday, and it was a very big success. We thought of quite a diverse age range in the public. And I've heard nothing, but kind of good comments back on it. So sure. Some others will touch on it, but just want to do a shout out that. It went really well. The other piece I have to report on is at the safe, healthy connected people meeting that we received a report from the library. And I just want to highlight a couple of things from that report. One thing that noted that. There have been over 3,300 patrons currently signed up for cards. There have been almost 400 new card signups in the last year. And there have been over 6,000 in person visits. There have been. This is for also FY 2020. There have been over 442 programs held. Of totaling about 3,200 in attendance. So the library still continues to be small but mighty. And just want to give a shout out to all the work that is being done there. One thing that did come up and I think is kind of a consistent concern with the library is the one issue they're running into. And I think that's one of the things that I would like to point out is that the library is still in the first phase of limiting some of what they can do. But for the space that they have, they're putting great use to it. Thank you. Yeah. Second. It was. The pride event. When you skis first pride event was, I would say a resounding success. Many thanks to downtown. The first event that they were supporting with this year, especially with a little bit of short notice about five, six weeks worth of notice. Craig Mitchell was an essential element to helping pull that off. And of course representative Taylor small. At one point, I asked how like an estimate of how many people were in attendance and it was easily close to 600. At the highest point. So. was and hoping for another event next year so thanks for all the work that went into that for the councillor Herd and Renner as well. The Infrastructure Commission met on Thursday and we welcomed new Commissioner Michelle Metzler and we welcomed our Inclusion and Belonging Commissioner Nick Wolfe. We focused mainly on ARPA dollars and some department priorities for the next fiscal year and a little bit of time was really just spent on getting to know each other and establishing what will the relationship be with the Inclusion and Belonging Representative and initially we'll have it as a non-voting role and as Nick gets up to speed that may transition so it'll be something that we revisit and I believe that the ballots for the Chittin solid waste materials recovery facility are in so if anyone is doing early voting please make sure to talk with the City Clerk about getting a ballot for that thank you Thomas my update was the Pride events but I think it was covered in detail so you know the drag queens did a amazing performance given the surface that they had to perform on Jim the only thing I'll report next month next week the Housing Commission is going to be meeting at its regularly scheduled time talking about protection protections or housing quality and trade opportunity so look forward to having participation and discussion at that meeting that's all I have to report thanks Jim all right okay so I had shared previously had been participating in the airport director search City Manager Elaine Wong also was able to meet with some of the candidates and Mayor Weinberger has appointed former Deputy Director of Aviation and current Acting Director of Aviation Nick Longo to the Permanent Director of Aviation role so we've worked with him in the past throughout the noise process and look forward to continuing that collaboration Finance Commission met last week to review a model that our finance director Angela put together sort of projecting out expense and revenue and and how the TIF funding will impact that in the next few years the model included items that we have discussed potentially funding with TIF dollars so that they could see different scenarios there this information will be coming to us at a future meeting as well the Planning Commission continued to discuss historic preservation with a focus on creating incentives for developers to do adaptive reuse of historic structures that conversation will continue into the next couple of meetings we had a grand opening event for the Butternut Grove condos the affordable shared equity new construction down in front of the O'Brien Center very excited to have those family-sized home ownership opportunity units there also and then I also attended the town meeting TV trustees meeting where we reviewed their financials they'll be coming I believe to our next meeting to present budget to us and last just for public notice we as a body attended along with our city manager attended first of a two-part equity training we will also be having the second part later in October and I will pass it to Elaine for our city updates thank you good reading greetings everybody so COVID wastewater data is still showing increasing amounts of COVID virus found in our wastewater for a new ski the rates are increasing at different rates over the last few weeks but they have been steadily they have been continually increasing over the last three or four weeks so that generally comes with actual illnesses seen in subsequent weeks and later weeks so it's a reminder to please mask up if you're indoors and crowded spaces and you can get free took COVID test kits from City Hall from the library or from the senior center you can also call City Hall at 6802-655-6410 we are doing some limited deliveries to businesses for employees and you can of course get a by what is being called a bivalent vaccine which is should be effective with the current variants circulating you can find a walk-in clinic near you by visiting health for mod.gov slash COVID-19 slash vaccine or just call 211 a boarding commission seats that Winniski currently has open we're encouraging residents to apply the Winniski Commission for inclusion and belonging needs alternates town meeting TV trustee is open by commission municipal infrastructure commission these are all bodies that could use your voice and we look forward to receiving your applications and if you've never served on a body before we will help you through it let's see so and you can visit our news updates section at Winniskibt.gov to find out more about each of these commissions thanks again echoing the counselors on to downtown Winniski counselors represent Taylor small and others for successful private event and we are looking as the Winniski for an American member for two open positions recreation operations for 2022 and 2023 learn more and apply at Winniskibt.gov slash jobs the number the November election is around the corner if you haven't read yet registered to vote you can do so at Winniskibt.gov slash vote or call the city clerk's office at 802 655 6410 email them at clerk at Winniskibt.gov or drop in at 27 West Allen Street Monday through Friday 7 30 a.m. to 4 30 p.m. and amendment to act 250 permit for C 0 235 5 F has been filed with the district for environmental commission which is the one governing our region the amendment is for the expansion of an industrial building located at 11 Taigen Street this project went through site plan review with development roof view board in August if you're interested please take a look there to register your concerns that's it for me thank you so we'll move into our regular items first up for discussion is the FY 24 budget planning Angela thank you very much so nothing new and surprising here we plan to present the FY 24 budget in the same manner in which we've done in prior years city manager will present a proposed budget with all budgets presented simultaneously at the first meeting in December and this will be followed up by individual reports from each department about the specifics of their budgets this provides the most complete picture of the city's financial position and operation included in your packet was an outline of all of the important dates that will be coming including meeting in October where we'll be asking for council guidance regarding budget goals thanks Angela any questions from council okay I think we still don't have any do we have any attendees maybe okay we do know are there any questions from members of the public you can use the raise hand feature or chat to indicate if you wish to speak let's move on to item B this is also on for discussion is the ARPA input update who will be providing this hi it's Paul good evening mayor and councillors how's everybody before you tonight is our update memo regarding our proceed map and prior to prioritize those funds to date we have received 65 individual online responses we've also held a few multi-lingual sessions at the Winnieski Memorial Library for residents who speak Arabic, Nepali and Swahili we're also taking into account discussion feedback from a number of our commissions and are looking ahead to continue surveying youth and seniors as well as city staff I'd say the process has been pretty good that the bus far certainly not a whole sample size the entire community you know we have almost 8,000 residents but good start definitely a lot of recurring themes I think no surprises there we're certainly excited about collecting more data as we said you know looking forward to you know different sessions and different avenues to to receive more feedback I think is going to be the next the next important step for sure happy to take any questions you think I'll just follow that up mayor if I could yeah so to my members of the public the city received about two million dollars in federal COVID-19 recovery grants from the American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA as we often call it the city can now use that grant with very few restrictions some of it has already been set aside by council for expenses like the COVID recovery business grant and the COVID recovery nonprofit grant this is an unusually large amount of money from a new ski to receive that we can use with very few restrictions but it is also not a lot of money compared to some of the needs we know that are out there in the community such as housing road maintenance or water line replacements so the reason why council is going through this process is to make sure that we spend this unusual money wisely and with input as from as much of a community as possible so yes the survey actually is still on the website for anyone who is interested in still providing feedback on that it's under current initiatives and then ARPA so yeah we have completed the analysis of the surveys and listing session notes so in recent weeks I learned that the leadership team hasn't been systematically consulted nor the rest of our staff and as Paul alluded to the suggestions come up to read to allow opportunities for youth and seniors to have a specific voice because they are not sometimes you know reachable through the venues that we've already provided so that's partly why we've slowed down a bit giving back to you the results that originally we had planned for today yeah so if there are any questions about that we would be happy to take them or any concerns about the process thanks alien good one question I had was I know that we've tried to have sessions with multi-lingual liaisons for Burmese Somalia and my my I was wondering if there is any I know we've also passed out some translated paper versions of the survey and I'm just wondering if we've received any of those back from those communities we we have not I think you know a lot of those paper surveys we have there were for or for reference I think during those specific sessions you know it was great to receive a lot of that in-person feedback and as you pointed out there are other other language groups we have been trying to connect with as well that has you know there have been a number of scheduling challenges and we all know that our liaisons at the school district do more than their fair share and that's been that's been a hurdle for sure to try to to host a lot of those in-person sections not to say that you know the ones that we have hosted have not been quite excellent I think almost all of them counselor heard which is great to see and that turned out as well so we're in a bit of a holding pattern there we're hoping you know again going back to the school and doing some more in-person stuff there especially especially with members of youth you know trying to capture that feedback feedback a little better there as well thanks Paul you look ask a question about the the approach to gathering youth feedback reaching out to the area schools is pretty straightforward but this bullet about community services I'm unclear on what that looks like yeah that's definitely a conversation we want to continue to have with with the brain who's here tonight we've had a couple of conversations with Ray at the possibly stopping by a couple of high-ranking couple of thrive sessions possibly through some recreation parks programming certainly at the library through some of their youth programming as well you know all of the all of the specificities in which the program happens through community services we can certainly need to be there to talk to parents and talk to kids yeah and then the other piece about seniors too I think worth mentioning is specifically Christine do you remember we hosted I believe it was it was during budget season a discussion that we had at some of the Winniesky Housing Authority I think we're also interested in possibly replicating that as well okay thank you well are there any other questions for this update I'm wondering Paul if you've gotten feedback on the survey itself not not anything in specific again I think the online survey only having 65 responses you know the avenues in which that was shared were usual you know a website update and then frontboard forum and all of our social media channels we did a few rounds of that I think you know initially the the initial question about how did the COVID-19 pandemic affect you I think the direction at the beginning of this process was to keep it pretty simple Ryan to open it up to that single question which has led to a lot of the responses when looking at them individually it was great to see that there was one for people to sort of provide experiential feedback which was really great of course some some people did you know to give one or two sentences but but yeah so nothing specific about about that it feels like a very different question then how should the city allocate the available funds that we've been given it is now right because the way it can be used has changed right right yeah and I mean if we do I mean this this will have to be a discussion I think in a way and feel free to fill in here a little bit too you know if we could if we go back out either online or if we if we budgeted for say postcards to hit every address in the new ski with potentially QR codes that could lead back to a different survey I you know we'll have to be thoughtful about how that could be reworded or reconfigured because then you may be talking about two different datasets perhaps but yeah certainly worth worth looking at well I do I do want to layer on to that that the themes we're seeing are not surprises they're the same things we've been hearing from other engagements and when we think about in theory this money can be spent beyond the scope of our but in or on COVID impacts we also still have our master plan to get us on that those are great points yet absolutely does it make has it doesn't make sense to discuss having some type of incentive to encourage responses I thought about that yeah absolutely you know I think like every other question everything comes down to the budget right and what we're what we're able to incentivize it's a really good question and I think you know something I can certainly discuss with some of the other members on staff you know I know you see you often see a lot of stuff like let's say we did send a postcard to every home in the news gear something and it was some sort of raffle entry I I'm not I'm not 100% sure how you know municipalities engaging you know all the raffles or anything like that but it's a really good question something we've thought about a lot actually yeah I mean I think we still have some centennial swag left over certainly do yeah absolutely but just wanted to mention that as a way to something to consider to help encourage responses yeah absolutely okay I'm seeing no further comments oh I'm sorry but mayor all yeah go ahead take this opportunity since the questions have concluded I might just want to mention that in terms of the analysis to date I don't know how many of you have analyzed qualitative data it can be if there's a lot of opportunity for bias when you're trying to make sure that you're capturing results from qualitative from qualitative surveys which is this kind where you're it's open-ended and people can respond in whole sentences and paragraphs and essays if they wanted to so I just want to mention our communications manager Paul he's really stepped up he learned qualitative analysis methods from me so that there are two of us coding that data which is important because if there's only one then you have more of an opportunity for bias so wanted to give them kudos for learning that your skill thank you thanks for saying the lane when we were doing some diving into excel sheets I almost I almost cried for him to look down the hall okay looking forward to seeing that at a future meeting move on to item C now also on for discussion this is our goal update for municipal infrastructure please join us John so this is the first infrastructure update for FY 23 the priorities planning so in your packet there's an overview of each of the priorities and then just sort of a status update on those so figure I will go over the must-do items and kind of cover those and then we can discuss questions so going through the first one so the ADA transition plan so that is our it's a regulatory plan that we have to complete that we perform a complete inventory of all our mainly transportation pedestrian infrastructure like sidewalks and our ADA curb ramps that have the technical warning to make sure they're in compliance with ADA specifications so we have partnered with CCRPC to help us with that because that's a pretty big task to look at all of our you know ramps and sidewalks so they have their interns completed the first inventory of all the ADA ramps so we're currently reviewing all the GIS data with them so the next step will be to work with RPC to bring in a consultant through their grant program to help us sort of write the report and we're also going to do some inventory some additional inventory on our sidewalks so more to come on that piece but we're well underway on that that plan the second one is the VTrans work that's two projects that we're coordinating with VTrans on so one you've seen the route 2 and 7 East Allen Street resurfacing work that they're doing so that one is wrapping up we've had a great working relationship with VTrans and their construction crew and making sure they're coordinating with us especially on utilities and like the new development that's happening on East Allen so that should be wrapping up I would say within the next I think they have to wrap up by October but there's there's some painting work that still has to happen which you've probably seen out there the pedestrian beacons that are going to be placed at Manso Street and Dion Street have to be installed so there's still some little bits that have to be completed but overall it's wrapping up and you know the nice thing about that project as I mentioned the memo is it ties to our East Allen scoping study that we performed two years ago now and they they took a lot of short-term improvements that that were in that study incorporated into this resurfacing plan so you know well worth the investment time to like work on that study because a lot of times you do those planning exercises and nothing comes of it and it sits on the shelf until you have grant money but that one was when we could get the our agency partners to actually implement some of those features just great and then the exit 16 DDI which technically is in Colchester so that the phase one portion of that project has been awarded that was in I think late August so SD Ireland received that bit it was like seven and a half million that phase one work is mainly some utility undergrounding excavation work not like full-blown we're going to destroy the exit that's that'll happen in phase two which will be obviously a traffic control coordination issue we will have with them but I expect that work will probably start in spring so we will see some on that and we're coordinating pretty closely with their project manager on the means to project make sure those are those two projects are linked the next one is the tree ordinance update so no real work on the city side to date but I know the tree committee is has looked at some draft sort ordinance language there so that that work is required because of acts act 171 a state legislation came out that you revise some of the tree laws so we have to align our ordinance to match that so some more work on that forthcoming and then sort of the big one mainstream so you probably haven't heard much on the project lately because we've been just working in the background on it mainly on right away so that's getting all I know I've mentioned this before but yeah that's been the probably one of the bigger lifts on this project is meeting with all the property owners there's 65 parcels along corridor we have to get easements for all of them some parcels many multiple easements temporary and permit good news is we're getting pretty close so there's only I think six owners that we've had some trouble getting a hold of everyone's been incredibly receptive we have you know more than a half in hand and like I'd say another 16 of those easements are the large property owners like the creeds the Myers that we've met talked through and had submitted the easements just waiting on them to come back so really there's there's like six easements we're trying to grab and we've given ourselves an internal deadline of the end of October to basically wrap that phase up so right now there's a big push to grab all those easements they're coming in every day which is nice and ultimately are you know we have to be able to bid this winter if we want to get decent pricing from contractors and keep our financiers happy USDA and others so that's our goal that we have to meet and I don't think there's gonna be any issues getting there and if there are a couple stragglers we can modify the plans a bit to you know be able to sign off on the title certificate and get out the bid the question will be what those bids come back but we'll see when we get out to bid right now we are estimating the project is still within budget even with some of the crazy pricing we're seeing we've our consultant has revised the engineer's estimate based on some of the projects that we've seen locally and we're still in that we're still about 23 million dollars in that at that bond limit but that excludes any of the grants that we have so we're still we still have a buffer but it's a really tricky market right now because if contractors are busy they're gonna throw a high number at us so that's sort of you know we will have to wait and see what when we get out to bid this winter what what the market looks like some good news on the financing side is I don't think we've actually mentioned this publicly but we did receive a pretty large grant August from the Northern Border Regional Planning Commission 817 thousand dollars and change to support the general fund scope of work so transportation scope so really exciting very needed especially given all the pricing increases lately so we are really thrilled with that and I think that with that additional funding we're up to about 5.4 million in grants on the project so you know this this delay in getting out to bid has helped us grab a couple more grants which isn't so bad John is the goal then to like start construction next year yeah yeah so our goal would be bid this winter and then assuming we get decent bids you know bring them to you to get get a contractor on board and start construction and spring and would we still be discussing a phased approach or would you anticipate tackling the whole thing yeah whole thing I mean we're gonna bid is the whole project obviously we we're gonna have to work with the contractor on you know the internally how you face the project what you know what and you start at some of that will be just contractor means methods you know and there's some tricky things with like working on the fire department that we'll have to get through but right now that's the approach if we get some you know really high bid numbers we may have to look at if we want to go a phasing approach but then that leads to you you know I'm getting my head myself but like you do part of the project and hope you get better numbers later on and I don't know so hopefully we don't have to go down that road all and you know we'll get some decent numbers from contractors but that is the approach right now okay so that's kind of on Main Street and then there's a few other projects Lafount and Diane Street scoping study that's the grants planning project from RPC along with the West Island Street Park plan that's in the capital budget those have not started yet Lafount Street RPC has to select a consultant to do that work so that'll probably happen this winter that'll start moving the citywide bike headmaster plan so our planning and zoning administrators leading that project RPC has selected a consultant it's Du Bois and Kings so they're they're finalizing the scope of work for that so I would expect in the next month or so they'll start putting together sort of you know what that public outreach plan looks like steering committees the typical sort of scoping study project you so that will be on your way soon and then next on the the party list Elaine I don't know if you want to talk about the OCC sort of that the visioning goal right so the anchor tenant there are community health centers of Burlington they have finally said we cannot build a new building we have to stay within the footprint of the existing building so that was an important hurdle to get over so that we can now go on to know okay now we're all in the same building what are we going to do next so they're still finalizing the details of the internal layout they have to be happy the city has to be happy so that's that's roughly where it is great and then the only last sort of goal I was going to mention was it was a may do that became a must-do is the Winooski River bridge replacement so given obviously given the federal grant funding that has bumped up the list obviously it's gonna be a long lead item long lead item that's gonna probably be on this list for a few years but we have had one meeting with V Trans and other stakeholders so Burlington and CCRPC more than the technical staff just to talk about sort of next steps V Trans still has to put a team together there they've got to figure that piece out on the city sides we've you know sort of said what our concerns or what we think our priorities one is you know obviously making sure we have a an accurate cost estimate given the pricing that's going on so we know like if we have to bond like what that number is what is our final sort of bond sharing number that they expect sort of and like what that schedule looks like when our payments when do they think any sort of payments would be due from the municipalities like do do they expect Ms. Paley's to pay in on some of the design costs so some of those questions and they just they're there yet because they're still put on the team together so we have we've set up a sort of a monthly check in with them just to see how they're how they're doing that project will be interesting because it's going to be you know I think financially constrained you know the funding helps but they're still I think they're still gonna be a financial gap by the time we get to 2027 actually are building this thing and a real schedule crunch because as of right now we're just sort of we have a concept plan based on the sculpting site it was done but we have to go through the full design process and we have to basically expend those federal funds by 2030 so it's going to be it's going to be an expedited project for for B-trans and us in Brillington so it'll be interesting but nothing really to report at this point we'll keep keep checking in on B-trans and see where they're at with things but that's all I have I'm sort of the must-do projects there's obviously some may do is but in some progress there that I mentioned but I have a question going back to the first item you might have touched on this wondering about the if part of the 88 with the Ramses looking at if they have the signaling like the bumps for someone who is why I'm using a cane yep yeah so we when we we worked with the interns and we laid out sort of the all the criteria that they need to be looking for to meet sort of 80 ramp and there there's a lot actually so the you know the side flares have to be a certain width and slope and they have to all have detectable warning and it has to be in a certain location so there ended up being probably over a dozen sort of checklist items that they had to review on each ramp and then if there's obstructions there you know you see crazy stuff out on the street like a telephone pole like you know almost within the ramp so things like that but yeah yep so there's there's a very good criteria that the ADA has listed as you know what what makes it a ramp that's in compliance yeah because I know there's one up on Main Street near the school that has the warning bumps but there is no actual crosswalk it's just very concerning that you know signaling that there's a crosswalk but there is no actual crosswalk so I'm sure there's other areas to improve to but that's we're going to find a lot that are not unfortunately we will find a lot that are not in compliance so but good to know where we need to prioritize so definitely sounds like it's a good project and going in the right direction thank you and something that will get baked into our CIP eventually because we'll have to fund making those improvements over time yeah in theory I mean most times you do those when you're doing the resurfacing for a roadway so you just kind of you have to sort of bake in like when you're resurfacing a roadway you if there are programs are not compliance you rebuild those they're pricey they're like the last bit I saw that was where it was contracted out there about $3,000 each so each each one of those corners it's about $3,000 I mean not you know ridiculous price but we have to bake it into the you know the roadway programming so is there no federal assistance due to it being ADA we will there are grants that I think that we can tap for that like the bike pad grants that VTrans puts out that's partially federally funded we've been successful like on Hickok Street they put out some sidewalk grant programs that we use for that project so I think we'll be able to tap some of those funds as they come out great another question just on the Main Street revitalization project you had mentioned that there were six owners that you've not been able to contact for easements is that going to delay the project at all now those ones the ones that we're talking about their temporary construction easements and it's it's not that most of them like you know say a bank that you have to find the subsidiary to the subsidiary to the subsidiary and like if we can't locate them then we can we can sort of modify like the extent of our excavation limits and you know frankly I think even if we can get you know modify the plans a bit so that we don't have to like encroach by the time we get to that work we may actually have easement for you know it just buys us a little more time but yeah those ones you know we we've sort of talked internally and we'll just we will have to revise the plans if if they were permanent easements then that would that could if we couldn't shift where we could place like electrical transformer but that hasn't come up yet correct thank you it's not mentioned on here because we primarily focus on projects but how is ongoing operation and maintenance needs accounted for in terms of priority setting strategy etc. Yeah operation maintenance so the big the big issue we currently have is just staffing like ever miss Pallity that's trying to find you know public work staff so we're about we're still about half staff we did we did look out and we we were able to find a CDL like you know to operator which frankly was a godsend because we're getting worried about this winter so we're we're training that person up right now to get used to the sidewalk plows or get used to our trucks and plowing so that's one of our big concerns the other concerns that are coming up operationally are just getting vendors in town so for example like line striping right like that's a big issue that we have right now where there's a lot of line striping that's just stripped away because of you know winter operations we had a bid out and we received no bids last week however we did get a hold of the line striping contractor that's doing all the trans work and we said you know will you and they're basically the only crew that there's the only vendor around that does this work mainly in Vermont and so we did get some pricing from them and it looks like we can move forward with having those folks in town which is good so that's that's been the the big challenges there's still you know there's still some issues with you know getting materials we're still in that sort of like post COVID phase we're having issues getting materials and lead times on materials and just pricing but that's been the main challenges yeah because obviously there there is there are some really large projects capital improvement projects in this must-do list and knowing like regular maintenance can if it's not tended to can easily become a challenge and more and a more expensive challenge to address so it's good to maintain a handle on how that's progressing to yeah we are at least with our team we one thing we don't want to lose track of is for example like the annual sort of payment maintenance like making sure that we're paving every single year so we don't get you know we're trying to get caught up with the local streets like that we don't want to like focus on just say Main Street and these big corridors and lose track of some of the side street paving jobs so that is sort of the other big focus in our department is you know making sure we have a paving program that's gonna you know be sustainable you might see that an ARPA request list are you forecasting are you anticipating doing like crosswalks and painting that stuff could you share a timeline for the public yeah so we just got some pricing I got some pricing yesterday I may be coming to you with a fund balance request because we currently have 10 grand in the budget the work that we're doing is a little larger in scope just because there's a need and we did price out some more durable paint so my concern is we getting into weeds a little bit you put down the water-based paint it's gone by next season so the epoxy paint that they're using on East Island we think we can get a couple seasons out of it so the same vendor that's in town right now we are looking to potentially piggyback to have them do some of the work in town especially the high priority locations like Tygen and Main Street that's you know that turn lane so try to get them to do as much as they can before the weather shuts them down and then have them come back in spring to do additional work so I don't have a look we would do the high priority locations first hopefully next month and then get as much as they can does the epoxy paint is that also the reflective paint yeah they throw like the beads on it so it's a little great okay could you also share for public viewing the pivots that are being made on the paving and sidewalk work it was planned this year the see that again because it was supposed to be like Florida Gale Bernard but you guys aren't able to complete that as planned yeah so we during the budget last year we we targeted the the east side of the city that there was those group of streets Florida Gale Bernard that it's they're due for some resurfacing we knew there was some curb work and we budgeted a bit of curb work but then when we really started estimating it there's a lot of curb work that needs to be done because most of the curb reveal is is extremely curb reveal meaning the street level to the top of curb so the curb reveal is is extremely shallow like zero to like a couple inches on some of the streets the issue there is the sidewalks are also probably the worst in the city on that side street so if we don't raise the curb you know the sidewalks are going to be down here low and it's drainage issue so ultimately our goal is to try to figure out how to do all the curbing work all the sidewalk work so that we can get to the roadway resurfacing work but unfortunately the so curbing is ridiculously expensive when we estimated out all the curbing work that's needed it ended up being close to half a million dollars worth of work sidewalk work wasn't you know sidewalk is less expensive I think that was around 150,000 and if we were fully staffed up our crews could handle some of that but we you know when we priced out we assumed we were still going to be half staff so we're trying to find some grants to help cover some of that curbing work is that primary labor the curbing I don't know if it's labor or just the like it's it's an extruded you know concrete yeah it's but it's yeah it's curbing work is unfortunately very expensive it's just we're talking we're not talking about anything it's just regular but yeah I mean the paving is you know typical we usually do like we usually look at tons so we usually do 900 tons a year ish right now and so that would have been about 150,000 which is in the ballpark of our budget but the the curbing and sidewalk work just it kind of threw us off and now we have to find some additional funds so we we ended up so we could keep paving this year and not miss a year we ended up pivoting to Bartola Street and North Street there the northern section of North Street that curbing is in pretty good shape and it didn't require a lot of work and I will say kudos to our public works team so we internally save a lot of money because our crews do all the the manhole adjustments so they raise the main whole structures and make sure their level they spent a good chunk of the summer getting getting gal Bernard and all that ready for paving and those structures needed fixed anyways they quickly were able to get on the Barlow Street North Street structures and get those adjusted and replaced and I don't have a full tally of what that probably saved in contractual costs but it was you know anywhere 75 to 100 grand that that would have cost us to get a contractor so yeah they really they worked hard this summer getting those structures ready so good news is that section of Bernard and gal in Florida they're they're ready for paving it's just we're trying to figure out what to do with the curbing sidewalk thank any other questions on this update any questions from members of the public raise hand or chance okay let's move on to item D this is on for discussion or approval the traffic calming manual and policy which we saw at a previous meeting yep so this might be shorter so back on at the August 8th meeting you all saw the initial manual and policy we heard you heard the feedback on the manual policy so we made a couple revisions on the manual we updated some trucker out typos and we saw we eliminated there was some confusion on the gateways gateways aren't included in this manual because they have a dedicated sort of scoping study attached to them so we removed that from all the tables we revised there was a kind of confusing description of bike lanes and how you know what the cost was that wasn't really correct and then on the policy side we added some language about you know how the city reserves right to install temporary traffic calming to sort of do a pilot before we could maybe do a permanent one that's more costly because that wasn't really mentioned in manual and we also included language and policy about not having a an appeal process currently because it puts you on a very awkward position because we're looking at sort of raw data on these things and not to say like you know this is a living document so I'm sure it's the manual and policy will change but that's how we that's how we're looking to start it off. Thanks did anyone have any outstanding questions or were the items we raised last time addressed? There was a question that came up during infrastructure but do you have something to add? So one of our infrastructure commissioners was asking about funding for the traffic calming projects and John do you want to get into your answer to that question? I'll jag your memory but I'm sure you'll have more detail. I believe your response was essentially that there's no dedicated fund currently for the traffic calming to execute. Yeah we will include that's right so the intent would be for FY 24 budget that we're working on is we would include sort of a line item and we may have we may have to utilize might add some seed money to like just to start that. I don't think it's going to be a to do that to start off and do the studies it's not going to be obviously expensive the permanent conditions will that will be an expensive piece of it but similar to the ADA crosswalks all that sort of gets timed with a paving program. Did you say permit? Permanent so yeah so for example like if we're doing curb bump outs or something like that you know we would have to time that with our paving program but in the interim we could we could absolutely do like the the baller planters is a temporary condition to see how you know community members feel about that. Speed hums is you know when you see around town that's a pretty easy one we do that in-house if that's an appropriate treatment yeah well it's another one that we'll just have to you know look at how we budget those in the future. And there's also another comment from from the commissioner about Cheros and how the traffic calming plan mentions them but the importance of having physical barriers. Yeah one of our commissioners was an advocate for protected bike lanes versus Cheros I immediately signed him up to the bike pad master plan committee so I think you know the bike pad master plan is going to drive a lot of so for example if if there's a street that we find you know a bike some sort of bike treatment is appropriate we would look to the bike pad master plan to see what that treatment is and so I think that commissioner will be a good advocate to say like he feels very strongly about certain types of treatments but yeah we would definitely use the bike pad master plan as sort of the guide if we do. Yeah and I think context context to his comment was that it gives us all false sense of security. Yeah any other questions. I will provide the comment that I do want to thank John and our partners UCRPC and Stantec for getting this across the finish line. Assuming you adopt it you might not. Although there you know other parties have taken center stage for the city speeding is always a complaint residents have from all walks of life. It's one of the top ones that I've gotten even in the four months that I've been here despite all the other things going on so having this manual and policy ensures that we do have a systemic systematic error and informed way to address those complaints which is important step for us. Well said would someone like to make a motion to approve the traffic calming manual and policy. Second. Motion by Bryn second by Thomas all those in favor please say aye. Motion carries. Thank you. Okay. I to me on for approval is the. I can't remember what asked me stands for. Oh gosh. American iteration of state and city. Yes. The contract that applies has applied to our public works to current. Non management please and now could apply to our non unionized staff or not managers. So you did already as council ratified the scope of the new agreement with public works and. Actually covering these other people. It's taken me a bit to finalize the word smithing to share with the union. They did respond timely. So there are no changes from the scope that you ratified earlier this summer. Unless you have questions I do ask you to authorize me to sign the agreement. Thank you. One question I had was on page nineteen. I think it's article to end. I noticed there was no training slash staff development leave. I noticed there was no text following that. I was wondering if. Just how it is. Oh goodness. Look at that. The killer that they're often having either. Going to an earlier one. I don't believe we changed anything in that one. So let me see if they're original. It's possible it was eliminated a long time ago in a previous session and it defaults to the personnel policy regarding training leave. And then the header just remained. We tend to have formatting issues during contract revisions. Here's the. I should have just opened the current contract or not really current. But the one that was the last one that was approved. So if not then it's as Angela said. Yeah that one is blank. So I guess we're going to take that one out then. Right. There is that we do have a provision in the personnel policy for that. That makes sense. Thanks Angela. Another very brief question that is just a curiosity. I noticed that in article one and there's a safety committee. I assume that's something standing that is usually in place. I was a little curious about it. Yeah. John could you speak to that. Yes. So the safety safety committee is active. They meet. I think it's. It's either quarterly or monthly. But our utility manager is the lead of that. And they've done things like go through the buildings and check for any you know potential safety issues. They work with the LCT to do some training. So that is that is a pretty active. I was curious because I've served on one before. So look at that. Some lots of checking on making sure everything meets OSHA requirements. Correct. Are there any additional questions. Yeah. And it will comment that our insurer does provide a pretty nice walk through service for that. You know when we walk things every day by things every day we might not notice it. So it's good to have that third party that's vested in our safety or our employees safety. Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the authorization of our city manager to sign the ask me contract for FY 23 to 25. With the one with the one correction. Still move. Okay. Thomas. Motion by Thomas. Second by Aurora. All those in favor please say aye. Motion carries. Thank you. Thanks and mayor if I could. So I do want to thank the management and staff. Nacoja team teams for their diligence, reasonableness, civility and collegiality during negotiations. It did feel like an opportunity to understand each other's perspectives better and to codify that understanding which is really what negotiations should be about. Thank you for that. Okay. We are on to item F. This is on for discussion approval. The VLCT passive and verb annual meeting voting delegate. So remote legacies in towns. More acronyms. Passive is the insurance verb. I can't remember. Unemployee are something benefits. The benefits. Yeah. Okay. So this amalgam of entities has the annual meeting. We need to every year we assign a delegate. We vote for a delegate to represent us at that meeting. Elaine has offered to take that role. Given she will be attending anyway. It's happening during business hours. We have historically nominated our city manager to take this role for us. So that's the action we're looking for today. At that meeting, which is October 6, they one of the content areas that are voted on our policy priorities that the league puts together as a representative of Vermont's cities and towns. We don't have that document yet, right, Elaine? No, I've been looking and looking and it's not it's not available. Okay. When it's ready, when they have that final one ready to go, we can provide direction to Elaine as needed. And so she or I, whoever receives that first, we'll make sure to distribute that. Okay. Any questions about this action might be noted in other meetings, but I did see that Jesse Baker, our previous city manager is the president of the LCT. So it's a great group. Yeah. Okay. Here are no concerns. Can I have a motion to approve delegating our voting authority to city manager Elaine one? So moved. Second. Motion by Bryn, second by Thomas. All those in favor, please say aye. Motion carries. Thank you. Okay. So we are on to our final item. This is on for approval. The energy efficiency day resolution. Bryn, would you like to introduce? Absolutely. First, I want to thank council for the consideration in adopting the resolution. The city has indicated in the master plan that was adopted a strategic priority to focus on renewable energy, energy efficiency, weatherization in our homes and in our businesses. And this past May, it was one of the highlighted priorities that council, so that we wanted to put some more effort into. The city has already invested some and some work into energy efficiency goals with electrifying some of the city vehicles, placing an EV charger in the garage, working on the housing trust fund and having the home improvement, housing improvement program that allows a maximum loan up to $30,000 of which eligible activities include energy related repairs or improvements to increase energy efficiency. And as the Infrastructure Commission looks to increasing awareness amongst the businesses and residents, this is an opportunity to highlight not only what we already are doing as a city, but as well as opportunities that we have with that liehead for reducing the energy demand we have as well as decarbonizing and electrifying our homes and businesses to move off fossil fuels. So thank you again for the opportunity to bring this forward, this resolution forward. Thank you. And so this resolution would declare October 5th, 2022 is energy efficiency day and urge our residents and businesses to join us in support of cleaner, more efficient energy goals now and in the future. There any questions, comments about this resolution? Do we have any activity or event plan for October 5th? There will be a media campaign. Paul has already received a media kit to leading up to that day and around the day likely highlights some of the limited time incentives that are available for through the communities program that efficiency Vermont has has notified the town manager and mayor about as well as you know, hopefully some other some other engagement, but no particular event, but lots of additional awareness and outreach to bring attention to the day. Awesome. Any questions, comments from members of the public? Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the energy efficiency day resolution? Motion by Aurora, second by Thomas. All those in favor, please say aye. Motion carries. This brings us to the end of this evening's agenda. Thank you all for your time. They have a motion to adjourn. Motion by Jim, second by Thomas. All those in favor, please say aye. Motion carries. Thank you so much, everyone. Thank you everybody. Have a good night. Good night.