 Amber, are you with us? I am here. Awesome. I'm going to call the Wednesday, November 8th, 2023 meeting of the S Extruction City Council order. Are there any agenda additions or changes? There is an additional executive session discussion around the problem. Great. Anything else from the board? No. I'll make a change of motion to approve the agenda as amended. Second. Thank you. All those in favor of approving the amended agenda say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Anyone online want to have any comments during this portion of the meeting? Give it a second for people to respond. One, okay. I'm sorry, the session for the public to be heard. My phone broke up, has that already passed? No, we're about to do it. We're about to do it. I'm just asking for a sense of how many people want to speak at this point. Okay, I would be one of them, thank you. All right, sure. I'll call on you, because all I can see is iPhone, so that'll be you. And then you can identify yourself at that point. Thank you. Of course, yep. All right, why don't we start in the room. If you'd like to come up, if you don't mind coming up to the chair and saying your name for the note taker, that'd be great. Hi, I'm John Willey. I was asked by some, the folks that use the senior center just to say a couple of things, maybe some questions that have come up and they appreciated Brad meeting with them last week and trying to answer some questions. And I think sometimes the anxiety rises from either, maybe if there's a resolution, maybe the communication of that resolution to folks, or there's either, in my experience, it's either maybe there is a resolution, but it just hasn't been communicated that well, or maybe the resolution isn't something that is what they're looking for. So I kind of understand, number one, I think there's two issues. One, I think they want to know on January 2nd, where are they going to be? So I kind of understand that the construction is still in flux when that's going to start and things like that. But I think anything that can be communicated to the folks that use the senior center every day, that would really be a good step in the right direction, just as far as, you know, and even if it just seems like even at this point, okay, maybe the construction doesn't start till February 2nd, you know, whenever it might start, well, where are we going to be? And I think that's kind of gets folks a little, you know, just a little concerned right now. So that would be appreciated. And then the other one is, again, we've talked about this at a meeting before earlier this year, just on the transportation. So I saw in the article that came out that, you know, they talked about, you need a, you know, doctor's known or whatever. So again, I think the question is, are we going to have, is the van going to work like it does now? That kind of convenience, that kind of service, where the driver, again, I know if it's SSTA, they're not as personal, but these drivers today, haven't talked to them probably two or three times, they treat these folks that they pick up like family almost, you know, so that's kind of what they're used to. And I think the question is, how is this thing going to work? And so again, kind of at this point, is there an agreement between the city of Essex Junction and SSTA? Is it in place? And what do I actually do on January 1st or January 2nd, whenever we start using this thing? What do I do, you know? So I actually made a call over there, just I was trying to figure it out myself and, you know, not their fault, but somebody there didn't really have any idea what I was asking for, you know, they told me they hate credit cards now and, you know, you could donate and things like that, but they couldn't answer the question about, you know, this particular thing. So I don't know if I know how SSTA works. Generally, you schedule it if you need that service and there's a charge and those kind of things. So anyway, I think that's clarifying how's the transportation going to work for me on January 1st is something that's missing right now, so. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else in the room that wants to say anything on this topic? Iphone, are you still with us? Yes, I am. Awesome, would you mind just saying your name, where you're from and proceeding with your comments? Sure, my name is Kevin Kavanaugh. I live at One South Street Lane, Essex Junction and my current concern is regarding plowing. It appears that this is the only street that is not plowed within the routes. According to the winter operations plan of 2021 to 2022, I don't know if there's an updated one or not, but it shows a map of blue, green and red routes. Besides HOAs, we are the only one that doesn't get plowed by the town and I am just trying to see what the reason is for that and if we can get that remedied. I do see that, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, I'm sorry to interrupt you, I thought you were done for a second. I just wanted you to repeat the street. One South Street Lane. All right, thank you. Sure, and further reading into that winter operations plan, it seems that the city uses contractors for several streets and it actually lists a whole bunch of contractors that can be used. And I am just, yeah, I'm just wondering if we could get a contractor if need be to plow this single small street for us. If you have information on that, that would be useful. South Street Lane is similar to Gaines Court where those are both private streets and so those are not actual municipal streets. And so as such, the water line underneath it, the roadway on top of it and the plowing and maintenance of that are the responsibility of those of you who live on those streets. So that's one. The sign doesn't say private way though, but you're telling me it is a private street? Yep. Interesting, can we get a new road sign then that says private way? Excellent question. You have a lot of good questions this evening. Thank you. You're welcome. Not having firsthand knowledge of who provides those. If I wouldn't give me your contact information right now, but if you email me, it's rmahoney at sxjunction.org. R-M-A-H-O-N-Y. Okay. R-M-A-H-O-N-Y is our city manager and she can point you in the right direction. Okay, very well. Thank you very much. Thank you. And I think the only other person is Annie Cooper. Thank you. I'd like to speak about two things. The first being the senior center, senior budget and senior van topic. I know that, I know that you know also that there were two checks received by the village of Essex Junction on July 1st of 2016. One check totaling $13,279.40 and a second check totaling $12,235.34. The total coming to $25,514.60 and 74 cents. That money was a check written by the Essex Area Senior Center. There is no signed documentation in the village office for that amount of money. There does seem to be an MOU at the town office that does not have a designated village signature on it. It does have Pat Scheidel's signature on it as a town manager. There is some unclear language in the MOU about an Essex municipal area, something that isn't clear to me. So in my opinion, the money that came in, which now still sits in the fund and there's a current total, excuse me, a current total of $18,438.80. In a fund that started with that first $25,000 amount. So now the senior center will be no longer, there won't be a senior center in the city of Essex Junction, the last village of Essex Junction. There won't be a senior van. And even though there is this bus conversation, I think it's not clear to many seniors that does not mean a different service coming to your door. I don't think there's a clear understanding amongst the seniors that they have to find their way to the locations that they can get onto the vehicles. So I think that alone is not being fully understood by all of the seniors, case in point by the public to be heard statement before. The confusion I have is that in, I don't even know, like 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014 around there. There was this huge passion for seniors. There were huge events at Essex Junction Recreational Park at 75 Maple Street. There were golf carts driving seniors from the senior van to the luncheon tables. It was a senior love affair. So much so that I was thrilled. I thought, yes, this is my community. This is where I'm at. I wanna look after seniors like this. That rec love affair for seniors seems to have done a very interesting trajectory. It's interesting to me that on July 1st, 2016, when that $25,000 from the seniors came in was a simultaneous time of meetings about the rec merger thing that the Village of Essex Junction Recreation Department wanted to do. So those two things happened at the same time. That's interesting to me. And then the love affair of the seniors out the window. And I guess where I'm confused is honestly, I don't think any one of you currently sitting at this table and anyone that was sitting at this table between 2016 and now would ever of your own accord have thought to yourself, let's remove that senior van. I really can't imagine a space where any one of you would have suggested that. And so here we are, no senior van, no senior center, vague programming to be had. Don't worry, we'll get you a folding chair. I'm almost done. And- We can't hear you just a minute. Sorry, we can't hear you. Sorry, I thought you could hear it. Now go, sorry, thank you. Please forgive me, Raj. Please forgive me, yes, but I was stuck in a space, I was stuck in a space that you were clearly not in and I apologize for that misunderstanding of your handoff, I apologize. I was a little, no, you were not real. I was a little tense that you were gonna shut me off as already, so I appreciate the time and I'm glad for this moment of candor between us. Thank you. All right, but we do, I will say just another couple of minutes. Thanks. Coming back now, thanks. So my suggestion is that due to the lack of clarity and due to the confusion and due to the fact that it looks to me as though the senior center concept is not gonna be as big a deal. It can't be really, you know, there won't be as many seniors able to come, et cetera, et cetera. My suggestion is that that 18,000 go to either back to the seniors or to the place continuing the van services to see if our village city people can utilize it. Those are all my comments about the senior van except for two quick remarks. One is that Elaine with great respect during your run for this seat. Please direct your comments to the fair. Thank you. Roz, during Elaine's run, it was very important to her that our senior center is so important and that the new budget is investing more in senior programming. And when someone commented, this is why the Essex senior bus is so important for city of Essex Junction to be continued after December 31st, 2023, Elaine agreed. So I'm just pushing my luck here. I know I'm being really bold, but I asked you to reconsider that. And then... 30 seconds. 30 seconds. Great. I think the senior bus should continue. I think there should be an article on the next ballot that states, please let me finish my statement. The statement of the article is, shall the city of Essex Junction create a recreational advisory board for oversight of Essex Junction recreation and parks, namely, city of Essex Junction recreation and parks recreational advisory board, RAB is an advisory group to the city of Essex Junction City Council on a variety of recreation related issues. The RAB recommends policies regarding strategies on acquisition, protection, maintenance, recreation programs, recreation camps, childcare, preschool and enhancement of parks as well as support with interpretation and communication of the policies and functions of the Essex Junction recreation and parks department. It would be a term of office of three years per member with membership appointment of the recreation advisory board who oversees Essex Junction recreation and parks consisting of seven members all appointed by the city of Essex Junction City Council. Thank you. Thank you. I'm not gonna get into a discussion about this, but I feel like I've was stated a couple of times during that that the Essex Senior Center was closing and there wouldn't be room for anyone. I don't think anybody said that the Essex Senior Center is closing or that there wouldn't be room for anyone. The Essex Senior Center as a physical space will have to be relocated as will everybody in this building for a period of time for the building to be renovated. They'll be welcomed back as stated by Bradluck in the meeting the other day and probably in the first meeting as well. It is absolutely. I'm sorry you're interrupting me. And the public to be heard content section is over. Thank you very much. That the seniors will be welcomed back likely the space renovated and cleaned up and it would have to be shared. And I will mention that all of the other entities around the state that I've been able to find about a dozen of them who have senior centers also share. And by the way also rent and charge like South Burlington and others for the space to be used when not being used by the seniors. The senior center space will be prioritized for seniors in the current thinking. And as soon as we have more information on timing which is an issue which we're trying to work on based on contractor availability and the project for the building we will communicate that. We will also communicate in a better way about how the transportation will work. And we'll have more info on that soon. So thank you for everybody for the comments and we will move on. Can I just add one clarification? So the programming that happens the games those will also be supported during after January one and during the renovation. It just is a matter of where that will take place in those time periods. And is it fair to say that will happen in the city? Yes. Yes, okay, great. Risa has her hand up. She's had it up for a little while to the public here. I apologize, Risa. I didn't see it. Thank you. Excuse me. Thank you. I have a quick comment really. I was surprised at the meeting with the seniors that our interim building manager wasn't there. I think that that may have helped people understand what's gonna happen with all of the supplies and furniture and everything else. Because obviously it's all gonna be going somewhere and I would imagine that the interim building manager has to be involved in all of this stuff not only where things are but where things are going and how they come back. So that surprised me. Thank you. Sure. I think also, at least in the recording provided by a third party, Brad I think at least once said that those items would be moved to the appropriate locations by the city and returned to the senior center when the seniors returned after the renovation. So I appreciate the comment. I just wanna clarify. All of that will be finding its way to the appropriate locations with the folks that will be using them. So thanks. Anybody else? Not missing anyone else here? All right. We can move on to 5A, the clerk department update, Susan McMurray-Hill. Hi. How are you? Good, thanks for inviting me. Thanks for coming. So I put a lot of things in the memo. So I basically here to hear questions that you might have but it's kind of we're in a unique situation. We've, some of the departments have been here all along like planning and zoning and we had a finance department here before but we've never had a municipal full service clerk's office in this building before. So that's brand new. I did read the memo. How's it going? It's going pretty well. Yeah. There's a few kinks and growing pains but we're getting there. I'm gonna just ask for a reminder because you brought up the primary in March and my recollection is those don't, those ballots aren't mailed. Is that correct? We're not. I'm sorry. Those ballots are not mailed. They're not mailed only on request. We will mail them if people request them but they're not automatically mailed. All right. So we may have some folks that have gotten used to that. So we'll have to remind everybody to request the mailing if they want. Yeah. Put something out on the front porch for a minute. Are we getting to that? I believe we are. And not mailing primary mails. There is a good reason for that. Yeah. Just the other reason to bring it up. The reason you can't just blanket mail the ballots is the voter has to state what party primary they wanna vote in. So if they request the ballot, tell us what party to send, then we'll send it out to them, but it can't be sent automatically. Also have any questions? It is really nice to have all of you back in the city hall. Yeah, thanks. Do your business right here. It's really, I'm glad you're back. Thank you. I'm happy to be back in my old office. Yeah, that's such a pleasure. Until the renovations anyway. Yeah. Now is our new assistant clerk working out. He's working out really well. He picks up things quickly and is doing a lot of the work routinely. I haven't shown him everything to be done with the clerk's office, but that's coming. Does he have separate responsibilities from you or do you both share all the same responsibilities? Right now we're pretty much sharing most of the responsibilities. He should be able to do whatever the clerk can do. So, yeah. He's doing more of the like tallying out at night and cashing out at night and that sort of thing, so. Me, support, are you giving to the town at this time? I know that through the transition in the last few months, you've said you've had to do some work that you couldn't do here, but I'm wondering if you're still supporting the town in any way. Yeah, I was. We're giving them some support directly, not as part of my job here, but they are gonna be taking that part over on their own. So, I'll probably be doing a little bit of training of what I was doing for them, which is basically back or uploading documents onto their digital index. So, the new clerk wants to take that on herself, so that's great. The last thank you for the report. Oh, yeah. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Tom. You're welcome. Happy back. Thanks. Susan runs a smooth shed. Yeah, thanks for sure. No worries. All right. And there's also flowers a lot of the time. Really lovely. Well, that's good to know. Yeah, it's happy. Keep the counter supplied in the little lollipops and the dog biscuits. The dog bags. Yes, the dog bags. I'm glad to see the training is happening and that you're taking advantage of that. Yeah. As a department. I think that's great. I just don't have any other questions for you because this was really... Okay. All right. So glad to have you back. Thank you. Interested to hear how it, what the planning is for the, once we know more about the renovation and how that's going to work. Yeah. I'm, I'm a little nervous about that with the, number of people that came in person to vote. For the last time we had a presidential primary. Kind of nervous about how that's going to work with the, moving out with the renovation timing. It's a busy election year 2024. So, something to keep in mind. Sure. All right. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you so much for letting me come and speak with you. I'll try and be succinct temporary. My name is Sam Anderson. I'm the executive vice president of GBIC, the greater Burlington industrial corporation. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for letting me come and speak with you. I'll try and be succinct temporary. Thank you. Okay. Thank you so much, thank you so much. So we, we want to move to a faster corner again with the giant era of our collaboration. Pardon me. We are one of 12. RDCs regional to develop and corporations that exists throughout the state of Vermont, our DCs. I'm not going to go through every decade, but we were formed in 1954. And we built the first building in Essex Junction for IBM, for which we are very proud. Following that, GBIC built seven industrial parks. We work constantly with your largest employer, as well as others. Global Foundries, given that it represents a little over 2,200 employees and contractors and 5,300 indirect jobs. The State Economist has said Global Foundries alone represents 1.6% of the state's gross domestic product in 2022. They continue to do well, as opposed to any potential rumors you hear. They just received, as you may know, $35 million in a federal grant for their GAN, capital G, small A, capital N production of microchips. We do a lot of confidential work with them constantly. With all the businesses in Essex Junction and beyond, we connect business to state programs. We take business concerns in the aggregate to the state legislature, the administration, and the U.S. delegation. Since COVID and the flood, we were asked by the state to expand the kind of businesses we work with. We have traditionally worked with dollar importing, value-added, good-wage paying jobs. We were asked to expand into commercial, everything from sole proprietor on up to a Global Foundries and assist those businesses and keep them informed on federal and state grants that have been available since 2020, such as the CRRP, Community Recovery and Revitalization Program, and the BeGap Program. I'm proud to say the RDCs on Monday launched our SBTAE, and we totally love acronyms. That means small business, technical assistance exchange program. And that is set up to grant $4,000 grants, up to $4,000 grants for businesses that need technical assistance, not equipment. Needless to say, in 48 hours, we were oversubscribed on this program. We will return to the state legislature to help tell them we need more money. There have been over 188 applicants alone from Chittenden County. We are the most oversubscribed region in the area. We do help not only Essex Junction businesses, but businesses throughout Chittenden County. And I'd like to point out that that helps some of your residents who may not work in an Essex Junction business, but do work in a business in another municipality like Burlington, South Burlington, Colchester, Milton. So we feel we have a long reach and we're proud of the work we've done. We are confidential and we don't charge business for our assistance. In the past, before you became your own city, congratulations, Essex Junction the village and the town. Last year sent from a joint town and junction account a check as a contribution to GBIC for the amount of $7,500. We do receive contributions from 95% of the municipalities, not really knowing how to deal with this year's contribution. I gently sent a letter to Regina for your attention with a request for $3,750. I sent this same request to the town of Essex. I spoke on the phone with both Regina and well, thank you Regina. And with the town manager, Greg, we are deeply appreciative of any support you give us. We included, in attach to this letter, Regina, I don't know if you have it, our performance dashboard for FY 20, there you go, 2023. This is a summary of year end from 7-1-22 to 6-30-23 of what's gone on, what we've been involved with, what we've done. We're a staff of three with a fantastic board of directors. And to let you know, our current chair is a 6-junction, I hope, resident. I'm not sure, but I know he works there from the fair grounds. He's in the room, just so you know. We're very proud of this dashboard and what we've accomplished and the assistance we've given. Essex Junction is an important municipality to Chittenden County, both in businesses and in your cultural assets. So I humbly request that you consider the letter I sent, and I look forward to hearing from you. And I'm happy to answer any questions. I could go on for half an hour. But seeing your agenda, I don't want to do that to you, because you probably say, oh, give her $1.50 and get her out of here. But there's so much we're doing. Our West Central SEDs just got approved, and we're now applying to become an economic development district, which will hopefully put us in prime position for more federal EDA grants that will involve infrastructure, which I know is important to your municipality and all the municipalities here. Thank you, and I'm happy to answer questions. Thank you, Sam. Any questions from the board? Oh, by the way, I thank you for letting me participate by Zoom. I'm about to have the replacement surgery, and getting around is not in my wheelhouse, so I make it into work and out of work, and that's it. So I greatly appreciate you letting me participate by Zoom. Oh, we wish you luck with the upcoming event. Oh, thanks. Two thumbs up, I think it'll be great. I do have a question for you, Sam. Sure. This is Elaine Haney. Hi. Outside of Global Foundries and outside of any S-exjunction businesses that may have received one of those $4,000 grants, can you give some examples of some businesses that you have assisted in S-exjunction? I can only refer you because we feel confidential with business. I apologize, but I refer you to the Agency of Commerce and Community Development's website, and on that you will see a list of those businesses that received grants. That doesn't represent all the businesses we worked with, because some we worked with did not receive a grant, but it will give you a sense of who did. And I'm sorry, without permission by the company, I don't speak on their path. I appreciate that. Thank you. Just then a different question then. Can you give us an idea of the average number of employees of the businesses that you, what size businesses do you help in S-exjunction outside of Global Foundries? Okay. Since 2020, we have also, we, our bread and butter was always high-tech value-added manufacturing businesses. Since 2020, and the federal ARPA dollars that came down in the form of several grant programs, we've worked with restaurants, beauty salons, bars, any business that met the criteria of the grant, we would help. Thank you. So from one to 2,220 employees, and the gambit in the last several years, and it's been really wonderful to work with them. Thank you. So as a, can you tell me then, if S-exjunction did not provide the requested amount that you're asking for, would S-exjunction businesses still be eligible to receive the services that you provide? Absolutely, yes. So whether you do give us a contribution or not, mission is to help all the businesses that we work with throughout Chittenden County, and it would not impact the work we would continue to do with S-exjunction business. It would sadden us because it would say possibly that you're not supportive of our economic development endeavors for which I'd be sorry, but we will continue to work with all businesses that request our assistance. Thank you. You're welcome. Sam, this is Raj. I appreciate you coming today. I guess my only comment is I can't see you. Sorry. My only comment request, what's really a comment, and kind of a request is the GBIC makes some efforts to diversify its board. I think if we're going to, yeah, I think that's pretty self-explanatory. I think it's a great board. It's a great group of people. I think it's becoming less representative. I'd like to see GBIC make some efforts into reaching out to organizations like the people of color network and others to find other folks doing the same work that could contribute in new and different ways. I see the same people on just about every board in Vermont, especially Chittenden County. It's the same list, and I think if we're going to keep contributing, I personally would want to see some improvements there and some changes, some efforts made at least to that end. It's appreciating everything you're doing, for sure. For me, for next year, I'd want to hear more about concrete efforts that went into doing that before I approved of the request. That's an interesting comment. Thank you, Rod. We do have a number of women on our board and younger folks. When it comes to board members, we do lean heavily on those all directly with business. Organizations like the POC, we work with in other ways. For example, the Small Business Technical Assistance Exchange, it's clear on our website if you go to the RTC of Vermont, that priority is being given to, and let me just read you the list, that the priority is being given to people of color, veterans, immigrants, women, and they are LGBTQ plus identifying business owners, justice-involved individuals, new Americans, and those in rural areas. We are prioritizing the BIPOC women, young Vermonters, mature Vermonters, and we do work with these organizations, and our grant program is directly prioritizing those groups. That's great. Let's leave them on the board then. I'll take that back to the board. Thank you very much, and thank you for coming. Is anyone, Amber, I can't see you. Do you have any questions for Sam? Lane actually got the one that I was going to ask, so I'm going to set. Thank you. Okay, great. Well, if there's nothing else, we're going to open this up to any public comment from anyone that might have one. So, Sam, if you could just bear with us for just a minute. Is there anyone in the room that has a question on this item or anyone online? I just got to switch over to Zoom to see if there's any hands raised. Annie Cooper. Hi, yes, please. Raj, I'd like to thank Sam Anderson for her presentation and for her dedication to work and community, and my apologies, Sam, for how you were spoken to. Okay. That was interesting. Great. Any other comments? All right, Sam, I can't see you now, but I trust you're still there. Hi, Ann. I'm right here. Great. Thank you very much again for joining us this year. Thanks for the work. Thank you, Raj. And look forward to seeing you next year and seeing the work the organization does. Thank you. All right. Bye-bye. Thank you. Thank you. All right. 5D discussion and consideration of Vermont. Yep. Nope. 5C town meeting TV, FY25 budget presentation. Hello, everyone. Hi there. Nice to see you all. So yes, I'm here to talk about both item C and a little bit on item D, but I'll start with item C. So thank you for having me. My name is Jordan Mitchell, Director of Operations for Town Meeting TV, and I'm here to present what is our fiscal year 24, your fiscal year 25 budget and give a little bit of an overview of the last fiscal year. So last year, Town Meeting TV produced and supported 1386 programs for our member communities and 362 of these programs was municipal coverage across Chittenden County. For Essex Junction, we produced 34 city council planning commission and DRB meetings. Some other meeting coverage we had in there was the Board of Civil Authority, the public hearing on charter amendments, and an informational hearing. So generally, our contract stipulates production of three meetings a month or 36 meetings a year in one general program per month. In the last year, we covered 94% of the budgeted number of programs doing 34 out of 36 expected meetings. Since we fell a little bit out of that 100%, we want to encourage you to get the most out of this. So as things come up, as meetings get canceled, but maybe there's other things you want covered, we would encourage you to reach out to me. You have my email address and see if we can have other things covered, as well as if there's any public events happening in the community that you think would be interesting, please feel free to reach out. So Town Meeting TV is funded in large part by cable subscribers of Comcast and Burlington Telecom, and then municipal contributions help to cover other operating costs. This year, we are requesting an FY25 Essex Junction municipal contribution of $13,891 for general operating funds. This is a 5% increase from last year's contribution. You can see a past funding history and projections on packet page 8, which is our page 2. Lastly on this item, I'd like to thank our field producer Bella, who's in the corner, and also Amber, who is the Town Meeting TV trustee for Essex Junction for their continued dedication to municipal coverage and community media. So any questions on this first part? I have a concern over the consistency of audio, especially because of the fact that whether it's me getting older or observing others who are struggling with hearing, being able to consistently hear all the speakers, those that are in the public heard, those that are in the council or other select boards, audio quality is consistent. I think we've gotten much better with it. But it is one of my concerns moving forward that we can conduct business and that people can hear it and understand it. So again, they can feel like they're anticipating whether it's just in observation or, you know, again, being able to verbalize for themselves. So that's the comment I wanted to make about quality of service. But I really do appreciate what Town Meeting TV does, not just for our municipality, but for others as well. So it's obviously from what I hear from others as well as my own experience, it's a key part of what makes us feel like a community to be able to have this type of resource. So thank you. I just want to thank you for those comments, Marcus. I couldn't agree more, yes, with the sound, but also with the essential nature of CCTV. We could not could not do what we do without CCTV and Town Meeting Television making it accessible to people who can't come to these meetings. So thank you for that. Just full disclosure, I'm the chair of CCTV Productions, which is the other arm of CCTV. It's so hard to describe, but Town Meeting Television is a separate group and board in CCTV. And I used to be on the trustee board of Town Meeting Television now at CCTV. And Amber is on Town Meeting Television representing Essex Junction. But I wanted to just point out, I'm really proud of CCTV right now because they are embarking on multiple conversations that are important to our community, including a discussion on free speech and how we are our role in free speech in the community, as well as working on equity assessments of all of our policies and procedures and our programming. So we're just trying to stay on the cutting edge of what needs to be done to make sure that Town Meeting Television and CCTV Productions are doing the work of the community and representing the community as well as we possibly can. So and Jordan's a huge part of that. And so is Bella over there in the... I'm very grateful to the Town Meeting Television and CCTV. Amber, anything? No. Okay. Andrew? I would like to add one last thing and simply say that again, and I made this comment once before, I would like to see us utilize whether we're using Town Meeting Television or not. I think all of our commission's committees should have the opportunity that we have as a council in order to have the discussion public and put that out there. So I don't believe that's for discussion this evening, but in the future we should discuss how we can how we can do that so that Spike Walk, Planning, DRB, and the council all have to utilize this kind of... Yeah, we'll have that discussion during the project. Yeah, there's an opportunity for us to perhaps, so I read about that in here, which I didn't realize before. Just echoing everything else, everybody. I don't know how, especially over the last few years, we would have asked for that. But I do think it's essential. It's probably one of the best values for what's provided. Great, thank you. And yeah, I've been talking with the Planning Commission, and we are going to start regularly covering that as well. I know we used to kind of cover one or the other, the DRB or Planning Commission. So starting now, like our fiscal year now, we're going to start covering that regularly. And yeah, as there's other meetings, if it's maybe you have one specific meeting that's more important, or maybe you want it regularly, like we can talk about that as well, and we're happy to do that. Anything else on this? Thank you. Are you going to move on to the net to Van? That's your call. We want to make sure I understand the delineation here, so... Yes. Yeah, so this is one separate agenda item, so I'll open it up to public comment for this portion of it, which is strictly about town meeting TV. Is there anyone in the room that has a comment on this? No? Anyone going to Zoom? Anyone else on Zoom? Any Cooper? Hi, yes. Thanks, huge fan of town meeting TV. Thanks for all you do. Back when I was chair of the EDC, we would record ourselves, and then between Megan O'Rourke and myself, we got it listed on the channel, and we started that precedent. And I'm sure that it will be cost effective if you do it that way, and more professional for planning commission meetings the way, and yeah, this is great. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Discussion and consideration of Vermont Access Network Funding Conversation. Gordon, welcome. Yeah, thank you. I'm sorry. I apologize. I'm sorry. Backing up. Amber has her hand raised. Amber, you know you have to just... I don't want to interrupt. Just jump in. So I'm just going to recuse myself from this discussion due to a conflict of interest, and just wanted to point that out to folks. I'm going to turn off my camera, and I'll come back after this discussion. Okay. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you. All right. Thank you. I forgot about that part. That was my bad. All's good. All right. So secondly, we have an exciting update from the legislator that we're looking for your support to help get over the finish line. So, CCTV, the parent organization of town meeting TV, is part of a statewide organization known as the Vermont Access Network, or VAN. And we have been working the last several years to find a stable and permanent funding source for community media centers across the state. We've been successful in receiving a one-time bridge funding for the last few years while we did some other research, and now we're ready to bring a proposal for a permanent solution to the legislature. So, to show support for their request, we're asking for organizations and municipalities to sign on to a letter of support, and then we will later share this letter with the legislators in their 2024 session. This is attached in tonight's packet on pages 18 through 20, and I've also shared this with Ashley, but I'm happy to answer any questions. And to summarize kind of what the bill is, is it would establish a new community media public benefit fund funded by communication service providers in the state to help keep financial support for PEG or public education government access centers, such as town meeting TV and CCTV, to continue operating. This is also a little bit related to how every year we ask you for a little bit more money. This would ideally be having us ask less from other people as we'd be getting more funding through this bill. Any questions on this? I'm curious when you would need this letter of support from us. That's a great question. I do not have a specific deadline. It's kind of ongoing. I don't think super urgent if you need more time to consider it, but I think somewhat soon. I will let you know if there's a certain deadline. Okay. But do you fully expect this to come up this session? Yes. Yeah, we do. Amber, sorry. Jordan, do you want to explain for the audience what it entails to the poll attachment and how that funding would come about? Sort of, yes. Ten like you're just talking to me. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's something I'm also starting, you know, still trying to understand myself. So currently, public access centers such as town meeting TV are funded through cable subscriptions. Through the poll tax, like the physical lines on the cable polls. And as I'm sure you all know, cable revenue is declining. People are no longer subscribing to cable. They're moving to streaming services and other things like that. So the idea with this bill is that we would be getting funding through other public means right away, public means of ways through like, you know, other lines, I think such as Internet. Fiber? Yeah, fiber and things like that since we do, you know, we stream on YouTube and other ways that we're accessed. So trying to get away just from cable and looking for funding sources elsewhere. Scrolling through here. This has been a many year work in progress with all of the public access stations across Vermont working together to figure out how to supplement the cost of their services. Cable subscriptions are plummeting. And so therefore the contributions from cable companies are going down this box. This is a really innovative way to try to address that gap. I know for me, it's going to take some time to digest and sort of, I think we'll probably have to talk about it again. Not sure quite yet what questions I have, still trying to get my head around how to work. I think generally agree in the sense that we need to keep CCTV and how many TV funded. That's just fine. It might be helpful, if I may, just suggest a talking points or a template of some kind for a letter of support so that we understand what we're supposed to be saying. That would be really helpful. That we can edit as is appropriate for S-Extension. Sure. There is, I guess it's not in the packet. There is a, I believe I emailed it to Ashley initially. There is a template of what to sign in. I will get that back. Make sure that gets back to you all. Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. I don't have any questions if nobody else does. You can just hang on with us for one second. I'll see if anybody in the room has any questions on this topic or comments or anyone on Zoom. You can see Zoom now. No, it doesn't look like it. Great. Thank you, Jordan, for joining us. Great. Thank you. Thanks, Jordan. Um, 5e discussion and consideration of Champlain Valley Expo Sound and Deminification Agreement. Amber's got her hand up. Oh, Amber. Sorry, I was just going to be clear about my conflict of interest, just to address the comment. My, I am not recusing myself due to my role on the board. I'm recusing myself due to the fact that I represent Burlington Telecom, which is a contributor of the poll attachment money and peg funding. Great. Thanks. Reminder to folks in the Zoom land, we are not monitoring the chat. The chat is not a method of communication during the meeting. Generally, it's not recorded for the minutes. All right, Tim, welcome. Thanks for coming. Thank you. Good evening, Tim Shea, Executive Director of the Champlain Valley Exposition. I'm joined with Dave Wexler, who is the engineer who you folks hire who they are monitoring the sound and can speak to decibel levels and technical issues much more articulate than I. But I believe a memo in your packet there with a request to extend the, or renew, I should say, the agreement for the sound ordinance and to align it with the financial agreement that this body approved last year. And I believe that was a request from the city just for more an administrative perspective, just to align the two agreements. But the sound agreement, other than extending it out, there have not been any changes to the document that I'm aware of. Okay. Regina, do you want to say anything about this at all? Just to say that there are other changes to the agreement are village to speak in the draft that you got. Okay. Well, any counselors have any questions or comments on this? Sounds a very quick question. First, you just referred to an agreement that happened last year. What was that? That financial agreement that the pilot that explains the contribution from CBE to the city of Essex Junction started as 15,000, but it increases a little bit each year. And is that tied to the sound agreement in any way? When you describe it, it sounded like they might be related. I can speak to that. No, there are two separate documents, but I think the intent of the council was to, for the administrative perspective, have them renew at the same time, because like every other year, is Tim back for the sound or is he back for the financial piece here? I just like when you come back. Was that? We just like when you come back. Okay. And I'm more than happy to come. But I think the idea was to not merge them, but have them renew at the same time. Thanks. I wasn't here last year, so I wasn't quite sure what you were talking about. Thank you. Amber, I can't see you. Do you have anything you want to bring up on this? Not to single you out, but... Yeah, I have a comment and a question, and I apologize. I missed the name of the guy from the testing. David Weschler. David, okay. So I did want to just point out to the folks that are listening at home watching this, that one of the things that we asked to be done is for the reports that Mr. Weschler does to be posted on the city's website so that everyone can see those. Those are on the city website now, so you can go see all of those reports, including the waiver and this agreement that we're talking about. Question for David is that I did notice that the reports seem to be... There's a lag in the dates of when we get those reports. And I'm hoping that we can try to get those a little bit sooner rather than later, so we're not looking at something that happened two months ago. Understood. I apologize for that. You know, I had some medical issues over the summer, so it was a little lagging there and getting the reports done. But typically I've gotten the reports in the past to prior to Chris, to Robin Pierce in a couple of weeks after each event. That was typically what I was doing. I had some issues this year, though. Totally appreciate that and understand. And you are monitoring, though, the day of the event and so just so everyone else understands this, is if there is an event that exceeds the thresholds, that is an instantaneous. It's not... The reports are just the data going down to paper. Correct. Yeah. I'm actually coordinating with... I will talk to the sound people if I notice that the noise levels, the sound levels are approaching the limits, I will notify them and so that they can take appropriate measures to lower the sound levels, keep them within the limits. So... Thank you. Appreciate it. Don't... Please don't go. You're stuck now. I've approved this in the past, but I do have a number of questions... I've always had a number of questions about it, so I'm going to take this opportunity. So this testing goes in five-minute periods, right? Five-second intervals. Sorry. We're averaging them over a five-minute period for... Oh, for the maximum sound level. That was what was agreed to... Yeah, so not being around back then, I don't know how this is probably 10 years, at least... Uh, actually I'm the only survivor of that crew. By the way... The first event I did was the Elton John event, so... All right. And that was a great... Anyway... Absolutely. It sounded amazing. Although he was the only one who exceeded the noise levels at the time. That was why it sounded so good a minute. Yeah. So I guess I'm wondering why we're doing five-minute averages. So if you have... And here's my probably ridiculous logic. You have a song that's repeatedly hitting notes that are violating the sound, and it's a four-minute song, but those notes only happen instantaneously and don't contribute to it every five seconds, then this could be seriously impacting someone repeatedly over the whole course of a concert and not hitting a violation. I guess I'm just trying to understand how that... My understanding of my recollection from... We're talking winter 2008 now. Was that sometimes songs exceed the 78 decibel hourly average threshold and they wanted to create some sort of instantaneous... Method to capture... All right. Well, you can be above the sound level, the average level for a certain period of time within that hour, but you still have to maintain the hourly average. And I believe this was a conversation between the fairgrounds folks and the village folks. Dave Crawford, I believe, was the village manager at the time. From a technical standpoint, it's... From my perspective, as long as they're within the 78 hourly average, I mean, I think this was an opportunity to give the venue... Songs will go exceed the hourly average, but it gives them an opportunity to still play the songs and have the music at that level. I was not involved in conversations. I was there as far as only providing some technical assistance. I was not involved with creating the noise limits. Yeah, I guess I was trying to pull up one of those reports. I didn't bring it with me, but I think for me, it's just difficult to understand. Now that understanding it's been since 2008, I have a number of other questions, but that just sort of cemented it for me. I think for me, I think I'm okay with doing this agreement. I realized that we asked last year to line... We said it might be a good idea to line them up, but I feel like it might be time to kind of look at this again. And that's just my opinion since it's been 15 years. Because every time I read this, every time I've... It's only the second time I think I've renewed it. I remember how much I don't understand it and how difficult it is to get my head around. And if I can't, then I can't explain it. And again, the intention here is not to figure out how we can... Because I went through some exercises and looked at other reports to try and figure out, okay, so what is this telling me? Like, what are these averages? What are these time frames? What are these number of time frames have to meet in over an hour and all this stuff? And it's not so much trying to get a fine out of CVE at all. It's the way this is set up, are people still being impacted? Or have we achieved that? And I don't know. I mean, are we achieved a great balance of really letting the shows happen, which is a desired outcome. And mitigating the noise. And I just rambling here a little bit, but I'm just looking through this list of questions and it just keeps coming back to, it's really hard to understand this. It's a little convoluted as a topic, trying to figure out how to do this. If I may, one comment on sound levels. One person may be impacted by a same decibel. It's very subjective as far as how much of a nuisance it is to a person, depending on the song. There were no complaints for Elton John. Everybody loved the event. But I was there for one of the concerts a couple of years, summers ago, and it was loud, but it was within limits. And there was a neighbor there being very irate, because, but it was music he wasn't, did not like. So I guess that's why the limits were established to kind of create a boundary level. Or you cannot exceed this. As far as the exceedence, the five minute hourly, or the five minute window where they can exceed the hourly average, that's, I guess, another, I would say almost arbitrary definition. I mean, there's nothing really in state law around this. Sure. Yeah. So these numbers are kind of were picked arbitrary. And one thing we could do, and I'm not trying to generate more work for myself, but is look at the actual data over the last five, 10 years, and I could report to you, here are the numbers based of concerts during events outside of the fair. And here are the numbers based on what you are getting at the, during the fair. I really, from my experience, the most of the impacts are for the concerts that are not during the fair. Sure. I'd love to see that data. It may take me a while to pull together. Volunteer to do some more work for yourself, but that would be very important historical data. Whether that would be something to look at. I mean, because I know some of the concerts have gotten loud, but none of them have exceed because the cooperation that we have between the fairgrounds and myself and the musicians, they tend to work with us, you know, hey, the numbers are getting high, lower, you know, lower, lower the volume. And they've always, you know, done that. They've been working with and I try to keep it you know, significant, not, you know, significantly below the hourly average. That's, thank you for sharing that part about the musicians because that's where my question is. I think I was around when that first agreement was signed. I'm not remembering. Maybe it was the second time we extended it, but the arbitrariness of 78. And my question is, do the artists come to the expo saying, this is how loud we are? Or are they just looking to see if S-extinction has a limit and they're going to just hit that limit? Honestly, I would not know that. That would be more of it to, you know, something Tim could speak to. Tim, do you have an answer to that? Yeah. You can pull a second share of it. It's okay, we're both at the table. Oh yeah, there we go. Sorry. Yeah. No, okay. Tag team. So, as far, so when we contract with an artist, we send with them with a sound agreement and sound waiver. So they know the type of venue they're coming into. And David said, you know, we have some of who advances the band with them and they're very clear. Here's the expectations of, you know, the venue, et cetera, et cetera. And they are, for the most part, very responsive. Again, how, you know, a concert in the grandstand, David has his points along the bound, our property lines there. He's kind of walking back and forth, all kind of thumbs up type of thing and constant contact with David to make sure we're not bumping up against it, but we're comfortably within it there. So, so conceivably, we could set 75, 72. And that would be part of the agreement that you send to the band. There doesn't have a threshold where they won't come. And I don't have that number there. Because the artists have a show they want to put on as well. The people buying a ticket of expectations, what that show is. So it comes to a point where they just would not come. I mean, bands choose to come here. We don't pick the band. Oh, sure. Now, I understand that. But I'm curious what the difference is for each decibel blower. Yeah. Like what is the threshold and do we have some room there? And then also curious, you had said, Dave, that the issues that we've experienced have been with concerts that were not during the fair. And so that says to me that you're dealing with different companies. So you're dealing with the fair during the fair. And you're dealing with like higher ground. No, you're dealing with us. Yeah, I'm dealing with the fairgrounds. I guess I should clarify. The fair generates a background level of noise, which is like 70 decibels. I monitor by the green gate, which is on the east side of the property, just below the green gate. There used to be back where the Ferris wheel was and it was just super loud. So the fair generates a 70 decibel background. The grandstand has a hard time because of the way the speakers are projecting, has a hard time hitting that boundary with the same amount of force. And you'll see a bump up in the sound level on the east side of the property during an event, but not significantly. It's because there's a lot of background noise. Where in the summertime events, the concerts, that's the only sound. And it kind of amplifies it. And is it also because it's on the lawn and not in the bandstand? And it's pointed in a different direction. So during the summertime events, the people on the west side of the property get it worse. And I monitor as close to the property line, while still maintaining direct line of sight of the sound tower. So it's, you know, that's, and it will travel a lot further, especially on a quiet night. I have people who know me for years have been doing this, they're like living over in Williston. And they're like, oh yeah, I could hear it clearly, you know. Oh, it depends on the wind. Exactly. It depends on the wind, how clear it is that night, things like that. So that all affects how far the sound travels. But I will say that the events have come close, but never exceeded the limits other than Elton John. If I could add to a point of data, and also, I can't stress enough, if folks like the music, no wishes, no complaints, no wish at all. But if they don't like it, boom. And you can call it out. I do think that there is a group of people that just feel like there's no point in saying anything. So I do, I do feel like, yes, you are right. And there's a fair certain number of the population here that just kind of grin and bear it. And a lot of that probably goes subjectively across the across the act. But I think there's just sort of an understanding that this is just what happens. And I, and in any of this questioning, like you brought up decibel levels, I did look up long story short, the issue higher grounds having in South Burlington. As a public health person, I was interested. Oh, they're, they're asking for WHO standards for sound. So I said, oh, we're going to do this. Let me look them up. And we are actually within that. So that was, you know, for reference, we are 83 is three decibels over the recommended background long term exposure to 80 of 80, I believe, and not that much over. So I think I think we're within the limits. I think my personal, you know, it comes down. This is more for Tim and the board. You know, when we get to the administrative procedures, this has always been a curiosity for me, the three categories of, you know, there's the events during the fair. And then there's B, which doesn't have a number associated with it in terms of the number of events. And then there's C, which is another 20, which I think we did around COVID because we're trying to backfill. You know, I think the whole thing being, I think my bottom line is the whole thing being 15 years old and being rather convoluted. I'm sort of recommending that we do this for a year or two a year and spend that time trying to, is there a way to streamline this? Is there a way to improve it? Is there a way to take public comment? After all, like I said, it's been 15 years. And put a little time, not blow it up, you know, but put some time into what have we found? How is it working? I just want to say this is completely respecting the benefits and the openness and the generosity of the fairgrounds. I can't list everything CVE does provide for the community. So I just want to acknowledge that. You know, this isn't coming after CVE, but I think that's just my feeling. I'm curious what the rest of the board thinks. I've talked enough on this, I think. So anybody? I'll just say that I agree with you as far. I am okay with aligning these agreements from a timing standpoint. I did also do that cursory lookup to understand a little bit better. The decibel levels impact on hearing all of that to try to understand that. I came to a similar understanding that I thought these numbers were close to where I think we would probably agree. With my cursory audio knowledge, let me ask this question though. In regard to, and we absolutely should be monitoring this, but I'm curious about whether or not there's an opportunity for a proactive step from CVE to use the technology that's available to limit the sound that comes from those speakers at those concerts. No artist is going to want to put a limitation on their set. So I'm sure they're not arriving with limiters. But CVE, I don't know if CVE is considered it in order to help be proactive in managing the amount of sound coming from those shows. Anyway, so I'm just curious as to whether or not there's been discussion. I will say that when they first started doing the concerts in the midway during non-fair events, the guy who was the program director, Tom Haughty, was really cognizant of the way they aimed the speakers so that all the sound was trapped within those buildings. I've noticed that certain events, some of the speakers have been pointed further up. I'm going to get the worst noise out on the Western property line. So working with the fairgrounds and the musicians having to aim the speakers properly, because essentially they're trapping all the sound, the buildings that are out on the Western property line will block all that sound. And I've noticed over the last couple of years that the sound levels have increased on the Western property line, not to the point where they're above the limit, but it has increased over the first since they initially started doing it. I think it was, what, 2014 was one of the first years they did those concerts. So that's one thing that kind of, to your point, that they could do a better job of aiming the sound. I guess I only have those discussions, certainly. That advanced work we do with the bands, those are the type of discussions we have with them. And we can certainly look into, are there lower decibel levels? What is that threshold that you pointed out there? Because I know that there's mechanical ways to do it in order to try to control that relative level overall. Again, I don't expect any artists to have that piece of equipment on hand because they're not going to want to do that. But I just wonder if CBE couldn't be proactive in the fact that these artists are coming here and just, whether it's CBE's own equipment or something else that, again, helps to limit that. The other thing is, from the standpoint of you're mentioning the western side, so I don't know what conversations have been had, are you talking about any other potential physical mitigation on that western edge, potentially on the property that might help those particular neighbors if there's continuing to be worsening on that western side? I would see it. I mean, the way it's currently configured with the buildings there, they are sufficiently blocked, the majority of the sounds that when it's, the sound is leaving the property, it's a low enough decibel reading that it's really not impacting the neighbors too heavily. The buildings had a pretty good tree line as well before it hits houses on that western side. And I do think there's a difference between hearing it and being disturbed by it, which, again, is subjective. And it's where I'm on the other side of that western neighborhood. And I get it in the front of my house, which faces because it bounces off my neighbor's house. It comes back in, which is the weirdest thing. So it's like an echo, but you say it's gotten louder on that western boundary, I would say actually the past few years, our experience has been quieter. Oh, those lawn concerts, just anecdotally, just not hearing them the way we used to. Where you could be used to it? Or I could be used to it. I could be going, I did my left ear. I am eligible to use the senior center. So I'm going to join. And my left ear is what it used to be. So any other questions for on this topic? Sure. I do have one or two other just questions. We also sometimes hear from neighbors about intermittent loud noise. And this is not something that's just the expo. This is also really loud cars on West street, random gunfire, dogs, you know, I think our noise ordinance at our LDC, like in general around noise. I think it's time for a conversation about all of that because I think as a group, we all hear complaints a lot about sound like a lot. And if we're thinking about revisiting this conversation on noise and at the expo, might not be a bad idea to have this conversation about noise in general. And, you know, because sometimes I know that the contract has like the monitoring is a 24 hour window, right? So it's like the day of the event. Is that correct? Not all day. It's just during the concert. Okay. So typically, like for the only time I do overnight monitoring is the relay for life. And when they're actually out there or like the Wolfskart camping monitor, make sure they're Yeah. And that's what I'm getting. I'm sorry. A cancer survivor event. And we're we monitor that because I think the relay relay because they're they're overnight. Right. Because so there's activity happening overnight, but it's like sudden instantaneous not expected during the concert. And that's something that folks complain about. And I know it's almost impossible to regulate that kind of thing because it has to be sustained so that a police officer can hear it and then issue a ticket. So I know that that's a sticking point for neighbors and it's a sticking point with other noise that we experience in the city. And so I just wonder if it's time to have a conversation with the community and with EPSX police, like, you know, what does our sound ordinance look like in general going forward? And that's why I think we're talking about maybe not quite four years, but give us some do it do it for now and then give us time to have a conversation. Yeah, Ken. Ken, I'm sorry to call you out. I'm hearing you oddly with my left ear. It just disclosed was not what it used to be. I'm so I'm sorry, but if you could, I'm comfortable with one or two. I'd like to to take an opportunity to kind of look at this again. And part of it for me is we're we're shooting waivers. We're we're doing things throughout this document. So that's my opinion. Andrew, the only thing that I was going to mention with the agreement in general is just the numbered list goes from one for you without a number two. It was the same thing in the last go around. I think Amber mentioned last time that we had this conversation. It didn't get fixed at that point. So since you brought up about the possibility of not aligning, I would just recommend that if the desire is to not change or is to change the years to just keep in mind that someone is going to have to do the research that's being asked, someone's going to have to prioritize this. We're about to conclude a strategic planning process that's probably going to give us the city more work than what it's going to know what to do with. And so is this the topic at this point in time that want that should be prioritized in advance of seeing what the results are from the strategic plan. So there might be I would advocate just keep the time frame and when it's already scheduled to end. So that way there can just be that one conversation CVE in 2027 ish around what we want to see for the next few years. But I'm not going to be sitting at this table. So can I ask one more question in regard because Elaine's comment brought up something that I'd seen from the constituent specifically about Wolf's garden for events like that or relay for life that does happen. Is there expo staff on site help enforce or at least continue those particular events because obviously you've heard a number of complaints you know whether it's a car whether it's fireworks things of this nature I'm wondering if expo staff is on site during those events. There there is I'll talk about Wolf's garden it's relay for life is really not and that one manages itself quite well the nature of the event cancer survivors. It's kind of pulls in your heart strings quite a bit. So that is one that we haven't had any issues with we monitor. I think it's kind of grandfathered why we monitor it because it happens being overnight event. We'll start know we do we have staff and we also have a significant amount of security there as well. Essex police are make trips to there on overnight too. In fact I think this year one of the few infractions we had or I'd say we had it was not an event attendee it was a local resident who was had a similar car who was kind of joining in on Pearl Street and got received a ticket it was not an event attendee but now we do have adequate staff there's significant staff on Wolf's garden overnight because of the nature of the group. I have no problem with Relay for that I just brought it in because they're all 24 hours of traffic. Yeah thank you. Thoughts Regina Chris on what Andrew said? I would wholeheartedly agree with what Andrew said. And the other thing I would just add to that is that this is not an easy thing to do differently and or better necessarily. I think we can 100% get a document that's more easy to understand from the beginning to the end and what we're intending to do with it. I think I would like to think that's achievable. Very optimistic. But whether that means the actual program is run whether there's a better way to actually do what we're doing in terms of monitoring I'm not convinced of that right now I haven't researched I don't know if David does this work for any other outdoor facility and has a better easier method of making this happen. But these nuisances noise in general is a very difficult thing to successfully achieve and so it's going to be a complicated conversation. And to Andrew's point I don't know based on what we may get out of this strategic plan versus the extensive list I am already aware that we are committed to beyond even what we hear from the strategic plan whether one year or two year is realistic in terms of how much effort we could put real quick if I can just the other thing I meant to say to my point earlier is a fairgrounds and event facility like what CVE is it's not unique in our country. And so this dynamic isn't unique to S extension. And so if there are other models I'm fairly happy to put money on that these models exist in other communities. So to have staff do their research to look into what other communities are doing that have a facility similar to CVE and how they're handling sound other models exist and so to have the staff take the time to look into those other models is a significant lift. And so that's all that I mean around if Chris is going to do that that means Chris can't work on some of the ordinance stuff does that then take away from other things that we'd like to see happen. Can I say the and I understand your point but I think it also kind of made I'm going to be closing my word so excuse me it also kind of made it sounds like it makes the assumption that in 2027 or thereabouts that staff will have been I anticipate we're going to have the same conversation in 2027 the staff doesn't have bandwidth exactly. So at some point we need to make this a priority while I think a fair number of us hear complaints about noise generally speaking much in the same way that we generally hear a lot of complaints about traffic generally in this community. I don't know if waiting till 2027 is the it feels like it's something I'm willing to go a couple of years. I don't know if I'm totally comfortable with it. I think that what I agree that the two agreements that we have should probably be time aligned but again I know that we're going to come out of the strategic plan you know there's going to be stuff there but we're still working on stuff that we're digging holes out of before and I just don't know in 2027 we're going to feel like we're at a better place. I think what it will give us is it's on the roadmap at 2027 if we do two years that really means one year before they have to start staff we'll start to work on it so we're really only buying a year because it's going to take six to nine months minimum to probably work through this I'm imagining and then negotiate it and get something in time. I mean I'm okay with keeping it at the length of time that it is but every single time we talk about this contract this conversation happens every single time because we can't wrap our heads around it it's complicated for us you know small minded city counselors and it's all right for me it's complicated it's complicated for the neighbors then there's varying feelings about it and the only thing that's consistent is the complaining so I think we need to commit like if we're going to go for the full four years we have to commit that in year two we commence with research and conversation to make potential amendments or changes to the policy to the procedures to the agreement if we don't if we just said let's leave it at 2027 and then not make any plans to do anything then we will have this exact same conversation probably around this time in 2027 and I might not be at that table either and the whole new group of counselors will kick the can down the road again so I if we are to go to the 2027 extension I'm not going to do it unless we absolutely agree that we are going to revisit this process and revisit how we set these levels I would agree we probably had this conversation the last time to some extent and you know I don't know how we you know we can't do anything concrete to commit that but I mean you could make a motion to approve this through 2027 with specific effort to really look at it starting at the same time in 2026 no later than that same time 2026 to actually yeah and there is a section in here that says that they compare phrasing if the city were to revisit its sound or noise ordinance well it's time to probably when I get home but something to that effect yeah I think I need to find out but yeah I mean certainly nothing prevents us from having to start the conversation early also worth noting just for fairness CV pays for this testing there is benefit to us having this agreement in place and having this relationship you know they're you're in this agreement willing to to make sure these levels are reached and and to fund that effort so I just think wanted to actually make I think this year it was $6,000 expense to monitor sound more than that yeah okay yes a little more yeah no it's um it's significant it's a significant expense and it's easy to say well the price of a concert ticket what's that you know our police bill this year during the fair which we cannot thank Essex police enough we wrote a check for $91,000 so it does it is a significant when you kind of add it all on there but again too we're happy to pay it and you know again that's this is a mutually beneficial agreement so so I don't know I mean we've kind of gone round and round let's do a public to be heard session well counselors think about it here what folks have to say anyone in the room have anything to say that want to comment on this doesn't look like it uh online Steve Steven sorry uh hey there um I'm sorry I missed the beginning of this but I did hear a kind of a request or a that that you folks wouldn't mind having more information about how sound works um I'm an electrical engineer I don't specialize in audio but I can I can give you a two minute class if you like maybe one minute one minute yeah sure I mean not including the preamble oh I mean I didn't only say that uh Steve because because we do have a sound engineer in the room oh excellent well there you go sorry well I guess the only thing that I noted is I think um a couple of you spoke about limits the ADDB limit I think is the minimum uh that that's sorry that's the maximum allowed before OSHA requires a noise noise protection for employees um and I don't know what the and that's for continuous not necessarily all day but that's continuous sound and I think the there's a limit for sort of instantaneous or you know temporary noises that's probably 15 you know between 10 and 20 dB higher um one thing to note I think Raj actually you also mentioned the number 83 decibels um every 3 dB or 3.06 dB is a doubling in sound volume um and on the other side every doubling in distance uh divides the sound by a quarter or it divides by four so you have one quarter of the sound pressure at double the distance so when thinking about how far the the measuring devices are from the source and how far the neighbors uh you know and complainers of which I have been one um not for the fairground so um you know uh if you double the distance it's a quarter of the sound or 6 dB lower so thank you just food just food for thought that's interesting because with light doubling the distance is half the amount of light so now I know sound too so I do actually appreciate that yes right it ended for intensity I think light is also a quarter because it's uh it's actually a square it's it's it's on an expanding sphere so the sphere has four times the area when it's doubled radius we'll talk later because yeah we're going against my materials we're processing physics class at our IT right now and sorry it depends on optics and stuff but you know right expert so we're going to talk later Steve over coffee all right thanks thank you I think this supports the complexity of the correct I think you're right all right um any other thoughts after that so do anyone have a motion they'd like to make can I just recap before we make the motion so are we saying that we will renew before with the caveat that or the requirement that staff begin investigating potential adjustments or amendments to the policy around sound no later than november of the year before it's renewed is that what we're saying is that enough time is there ever enough time I mean it can be that I feel like actually having a time bound is better um because these projects can expand it would limit the scope to what we can handle okay can I ask a quick question in regards to that because thinking about the work thinking about what you said earlier in regards to looking at noise no nuisance within the LBC would this align with that or is that or you see this as being two very different things because I wonder if that could be one discussion yeah I would think we'd have to do that all we would want to do that all together to be consistent and to cover all the bases all the different kinds of noise new nuisance that were discussed the reason I bring it up is because obviously then we're also tabling the LBC discussion for that time I don't know that I would want to limit our ability I'm not in favor of limiting our ability to revisit any ordinance based on this timeline if we come back to do sound for whatever reason we'll do it yeah and this all this and it just doesn't preclude the city from doing this work whenever it feels like up until the next agreement has to be negotiated if at all and we don't have to have this agreement either but I think all this does is say at the very least staff will start doing this work and if if we end up I would imagine if we ended up doing any work around sound we would invite CV and at some point to be part of that conversation as a partner just like we would do with any other entity or member of the public and if at that point then we could renegotiate this if there was a purpose and that would be open to whatever mutually was initially agreed I mean not to interrupt you but I think I so that's yeah I appreciate that but again I wanted to make sure that was all at least on the table and yeah so yeah that's important because I appreciate that again I acknowledged it's just a matter of I want to make sure are they are they really distinct things I feel like what I'm hearing the nods I got is that there is alignment here with those two discussions so just outside of the agreement portion if you make the motion about passing staff to start this work at a certain time period in two weeks you can come back and say you know what that was a wrong day we want to change that so just because we make that motion out doesn't mean that I can't change the future so you don't need to necessarily worry about it in terms of the organization and staff can request it changed so do you have any specific language in mind okay I'll move that the city council approve the Champlain Valley Expo CBE sound indemnification agreement as amended to expire December 31st 2027 with the requirement that staff revisit the policy and ldc regarding noise nuisance nuisances no later than 12 months before the renewal of this contract and authorize the city manager to execute the agreement I think that works I also have note that we will correct the numbering yeah right we'll add a number two yeah I'll second that one next uh any further discussion all those in favor say hi hi hi hi all those post name motion passes can I just add really quickly I really want to re-emphasize what Raj said earlier that this is not a let's ding the CBE thank you no please don't think of it in that respect really just want to get a handle on how we deal with noise citywide and this is a big big part of that correct no I appreciate that very much and we want to be good neighbors think we are yes I don't I don't mean to category noise nuisance that kind of you know but I know it's a buzzword type of thing but uh but no we you know it has to work for everybody it has to work for everybody thank you for everything you do for the city and for your patience while we work this out I don't know thanks for time appreciate thank you all right folks need a break are we good okay um 5f discussion and consideration of rental registry and inspection program chris is here hey chris yep we want to share the memo over here I I can share uh oh I I guess I could um I can share them well chris see you're getting this up just real quick for full transparency there's a part of the memo that references some work that's um students of mine in a class that I each did um my name is not on this because I didn't do any of the work I did not direct any of the work but I was paid as a part of my work to connect these students with the city of sx junction I don't believe there's a conflict of interest I did not profit from uh the the production of the report and or its findings nor did I influence the findings in any way any of you that should review myself I'm happy to go sit on the other side in the audience so I'll stay here if you're okay any objections for Andrew I appreciate your disclosure yeah appreciate the disclosure I can't see you amber but your silence tells me you're good he's all good all right thank you for that all right chris I guess take it away so yeah I've uh there's a memo that explains the uh proposal that we put together but um I think one of the most important uh parts to this is uh is uh some of the the data analysis that we've done behind the the the the issue all together um our rental units data and I want to make sure I can put this on the screen and uh you know answer any questions that that there are about that so can I share as well all right so um committee development departments did some work with ccrpc to try to figure out where our rental units currently are and how many we have um and what type of units they are because I think this really affects how this program will run uh if it happens um this analysis was done based on uh from the grand list data uh it centered around figuring out when uh the the owner uh the the landowner uh the mailing address for the owner did not match the physical address of that parcel and uh out of that we found uh that there were about 279 uh rental properties and properties means parcels uh or lots 1,954 estimated rental units and uh there are out of that number 116 of them are condominium units um and just for context that's about 43 percent of households in sx junction and um so yeah you can see over here there's there's a kind of inverse relationship between uh the uh the property counts and uh unit counts and that's because many there are a few rental properties with many rental units and this is a map that that's uh where we try to map out uh where these are located uh it's scaled uh by size and but uh but it's not proportional once it once we get to about 200 uh I just kept the same size and it's just darker but you can see uh there are yeah the rental units are spread throughout the city except for the R1 zones that those are the lower density places with HOAs uh but the Pearl streets and uh the the uh the city center and also autumn pond they're uh big uh there's a big concentration of uh uh rental units available there and this over here is our only I think non-profits uh housing development uh that exists is that wick and woods that's right wick and woods while we have this up any questions about the location of rental units no but help me put a pin in wick and woods try to remember to come back to that actually because I didn't think of that until you just brought it up all right never mind um so yeah so we took a look at uh we classified the the units by a small landlords versus big landlords and you know it was just basically anybody that's uh owned uh this this is uh this is a pie chart that shows the units by the how many units are on that property this just shows that said the multi units um uh uh properties really kind of dominates and out of the largest and these are the four largest landlords and how many units they own uh one implication of this is that if we have a rental registry and inspection program if we can get in touch basically if if we are good with getting uh the major landlords on board um we are most of the way there in terms of getting like in terms of revenue but in terms of getting most of these uh units covered um yeah that's that's it in terms of these the uh rental unit data any questions about that so Chris I'm just under Trump want to understand the distinction of why you pulled out the condos from the rental number what what the why the difference there so condos are just uh we have uh like the ownership is just distributed between many different owners on the same property it's as opposed to uh multi units uh apartments where we deal with one person one person would register or one company would register and we would have everybody on board it's I would say it's condos are more similar to kind of detached houses in terms of how uh we would be dealing with the registration and inspection thanks so you're saying condo would register much like a rented whole house that's right yeah okay because we would be dealing directly with the owners and each owner would only own one unit all right so so the next big thing is uh the draft ordinance uh hoping that's uh that's everyone's had a time to flip through that there's gonna I mean obviously there are opportunities to make amendments multiple times before before this is adopted if if you decide to move that way um but um any questions to start and I can put this I can put this up I do a question as you start um can you uh just explain uh how much time and or how much effort has already been put into this yeah coming to this point in time this isn't something you've been working on in a vacuum how did this come together certainly so I mean this all started well before I was here and I understand that there was there was a uh council direction to uh to develop this this program further uh the planning commission has uh taken a major role in uh in coming up and uh and advising on how how to proceed with uh with this ordinance and uh this program um that has been uh over the last about six months we've been staff and planning commission and the planning commission has been working uh to contact a bunch of different municipalities around us who have gone down this path and and created a rental registry and inspection program uh and and uh we've looked at their policies to figure out what might be a good fit for our purposes um the planning commission has then adapted uh some of those uh the other municipalities ideas uh for the needs of the city here and uh this is the the products that they have recommended so you and the planning commission have been working on it for with your role the last six months but they've been working on it before then so all in told this has been happening for about a year or so give or take a few months right yes okay um in the ordinance you um specify short-term rentals and I wanted to know if in the data you showed us about the apartments in the the collection of apartments in this city are short-term rentals included in that number so to a certain extent those are estimates and we there there's no easy way to tell but if somebody has a mailing address on on the ownership uh you know ownership records um on the grand list that is different from the physical address that would show up so I would assume if someone owns an extra property for the sole purposes of uh of renting it out uh as a short-term rental but they live somewhere else that might show up but we can't be sure um to a certain extent if if this uh if this ordinance is uh is passed uh there would need to be outreach and there uh to to the city you know to everybody in the city to ask that everybody uh self-serve people have to come up and and tell us and it's a violation it would be a violation not to uh register if they were subject to registration because my understanding of Airbnb is that it's owner off it is not in Burlington that you are required to have all short-term rentals or almost all short-term rentals uh uh owner occupied but uh that is not necessarily a requirement throughout the state as far as I'm concerned yeah we don't as far as I know I know I understand that but the platform of Airbnb is a mixture as opposed to something like BRBO where you rent out your entire property Airbnb's are also renting out individual spaces within occupied homes and so that's the case and maybe it has changed since it started but if that's the case how will we account for rentals that occur in owner occupied homes and if we don't make allowances for that then would that mean that some folks that are renting out their properties are being targeted and others are not I don't think Airbnb operates that way so four or five I have not had the whole units I've not had an owner there so I'm not sure that's accurate but okay sorry they do actually Airbnb has both um as a platform you can search for uh for rentals of both types I think most people most of their business nowadays are four units but there are people particularly people traveling alone who don't need the whole space uh who might rent from somebody just a room from somebody's house um we have in this uh draft ordinance there's a specific definition that that's uh that covers short-term rentals but only if they rent it out for uh over a certain number of days a year 14 yeah and along those particular lines because talking about this it's actually one of the questions I had specifically because if we're looking at making sure that we are pulling in those short-term rentals I do question 14 days because of the fact that depending on how you look at it where like where do you want to draw this particular line because I have a feeling 14 days is actually going to knock out a lot of Airbnb because I'm feeling most people use those services for a weekend or a week not necessarily longer than two weeks so this is a question whether or not that cumulative over the year of overall nights rented not periods of rental per person the renter okay that makes sense yes thank you that actually because it's a little foggy for me so thank you but there is a question around whether we can inspect properties that pay rooms and meals taxes versus simply register them right is that right that's yes and uh that was a question I uh yeah I saw from that earlier so the person I'm sorry one more short-term rental question in terms of compliance with safety rules so if someone's renting out the short-term rental in their home for more than 14 days per calendar year how much do they have to comply with local codes around things like sprinklers and x emergency exits like a bed and breakfast has to have that and a hotel has to happen but someone renting out their basement does not and so I'm just concerned about certificates of fitness being issued to these short-term rentals when they might not be complying with other safety requirements that we have for other buildings so the idea is that well what I mean one of the requirements that's in the in the ordinance is that the property the unit is in compliance with all applicable municipal and state some regulations there are several regulations that that's that come into play the the rental housing health code is one of them that covers that covers what we normally consider rental units as well as I think rental if you rent a room from somebody but on a permanent like on a long-term basis that counts right now the rental housing health code does not apply to short-term rentals but in 2022 there was a in this legislative session at that point the state legislative session at that point there was a change where the there was direction to move to move the rental housing health code to fall under the instead of being administered by the the health authority be in the future it will be run by the fire the Vermont fire safety division and also it is in the future supposed to include short-term rentals so they short-term rentals pretty soon will fall under some rental housing rules but even right now they are required they're considered a public building and they have to meet fire code for that the way I've envisioned this this precision so far is that the person we hire would not have to be a certified state's fire marshal but it doesn't mean that they will turn a blind eye on on issues that are outside of the jurisdiction they have they always have the ability to call up resources from the state as needed thank you trying to figure out like I piggyback off that rush sorry can I piggyback off of uh Chris's comment yes so Chris you mentioned that short-term rentals are going to be included under the rental housing code but you also mentioned the legislature and I guess what I'm just trying to be clear is was that something that passed the legislature yes this was this was 2022 but it took it takes um so the rulemaking process to put the direction from what was passed in 2022 is is just uh is just happening about now um but I have been in touch with uh the uh both the housing I mean both the health authority and uh and uh the department of fire safety um about how how this would work and yeah the the rulemaking process is now happening and it expect that it will cover uh the uh short-term rentals very soon so in the interim using the in the proposed ordinance if we were to inspect short-term rentals there is no ability to start to inspect them under the rental housing code until this rule passes is that correct so that is a good question that I think I'm I would I would have to to figure out uh you know I have to have to talk to a few more people to see if we have authority to inspect them when we don't have the direct when it doesn't fall under a jurisdiction to uh to flag certain things or to require certain things but I feel like we can always we always have the ability to forward concerns that the inspector sees uh to the appropriate authorities as long as there's nothing that prevents us from going in in the first place can I ask along these lines again since this work is based off of work that was already has already been done it's already been implemented by other municipalities have any of those municipalities seen the difficulties or are they including short-term rentals or are we going to be the first ones to be going after short-term not going after but are we going to be the first ones that are including short-term rentals in this particular case so this um so many of the municipalities near us also serve the function of they come they also serve the the function of fire of state fire marshal uh in inspecting their buildings and they they inspect the new buildings as well we are not thinking we would do that right now and that's that's the point of difference over here they don't have so basically if the inspector is also a fire marshal you would always have the jurisdiction to at least inspect for fire safety issues that's required for all public buildings there are though there are smaller municipalities that do not you that that do things closer to the way of what's uh what we're thinking over here um but whether or not they have uh specifically uh regulated short-term rentals that is actually something that uh that's I can do a little more research on hammer it appeared to me just looking at burlington that they require their them to register but they're not inspecting them um now I could have I could have read that wrong and I think to marcus to your question I I tried to do a little bit of digging on where south burlington was because they definitely have included short-term rentals in their discussion but I couldn't really I looks like the last conversation they had was in august and there didn't happen to be any conversation thereafter um so I yeah I don't I couldn't find anywhere that was actually inspecting short-term rentals but that was just based on my quick research so amber in small terms as well um and my understanding of what burlington does is that they have they classify short-term rentals differently depending on uh whether or not it's one room within a house uh whether it's owner occupied uh and how many days a year uh I think there's there's two levels of it and there's some at a certain threshold they if you pass a certain threshold I think you still get inspected you okay with that answer you look like you're thinking about it I'm thinking okay keep thinking I am thinking I I think um I didn't look at winewski too in in too much depth burlington obviously has a minimum housing code in addition to the rental state rental code so they have a they have an entirely different set of rules that they're looking at when they're going into buildings and inspecting but I don't know if winewski does that as well and that might be their distinction between why one does and does not again it goes back to my question about can you inspect currently based on the uh state law sure yep so I've got a question around I've got a couple of questions one is should the legislature pass a statewide rental registry get it passed the governor what happens to all the communities like ours that already have one are we superseded and this goes away um which will matter to our structure of how we're dealing with this budgetarily and employment standpoint so do we know I'm sort of feeling like the state's proceeds and everybody else's goes away so because the the last summary of the last bill that went through for instance the fee schedule was vastly lower and some other aspects of it were different than what municipalities have done so I just want to make sure we're we're able to continue this program right and then we just supply data okay now okay and the only caveat being that the legislature can at any point in time decide to change the sale sure of course and if they do since we are creatures of the state they can say thank you but we don't care we're going to change that bill so I wouldn't let personally I wouldn't let that potential be anything to take note of the progress no but I think I think that answer is good enough because I think you know there'll come a time when we've got a significant number of apartment units in the state under these programs so it'd be very difficult I think politically for them to just nix that but I will say that should be for me it's more motivation to get this done sooner rather than later sure yes also that we're not requiring owners to register in two different places that they can just stick with right with one system the other question I had was um let's say uh we've got around I think of several um somewhere on the spreadsheet uh rental property is inspected how how much of the entire property is inspected so will they get a certificate if in a sort of we're calling it if there are any number of any one or more other normal city ordinance violations so if the building passes if the unit itself passes but they haven't addressed an ordinance violation is discovered and or they haven't addressed an ordinance violation on the property will they still get the certificate will they still get the passing inspection so that is that that is a detail that I would say is not covered specifically by the ordinance but the ordinance does say that um a property can be issued a certificate of fitness with some minor violations but then there there would need to be follow-up um but major violations uh which are not specifically uh I I think there there was a list of the uh of major issues that are so bad that you they would be required to take remedial action immediately um so if if anything falls under that category um those would be major violations that major violations of this particular ordinance or any city ordinance do you know what I'm saying so we have a property I'm thinking of under this program the property the apartments itself the house would have to be inspected in my past certainly there are three or two probably two um ongoing violations um and I guess I'm just wondering at what point do those impact this um I don't want to hold this up for that and I don't also want to tell somebody they have to not have a place to live while they figure out an issue so I I guess it's it's layered you know people we're help we're trying to help renters let's say so let's say there's an issue with the structure of the building there's no fire there's no smoke alarms or there's something um that's not been dealt with windows aren't shutting or whatever we want to go in and inspect the property we discover this we want the landlord to fix it for the tenant what we don't want to do is hold up a tenant's ability to live in the space but we want other property ordinance issues dealt with I just don't know if we're I guess the conversation is around are we going to leverage that or are we going to keep them separate my initial reaction is that everything should stay in its length okay if uh the sergeant has to go to um let's say well the family property for the apartment inspections for this purpose and then have them to notice uh let's say trash but the dumps are open and the trash kind of all over the place I think this person would then follow the appropriate ordinance for the trash correct LBC or ordinance around trash and follow whatever mechanisms are necessary and perhaps that's somebody else in the community development department that's handling that or however that works that's the steps that will be followed for that I don't know that we would uh withhold that uh certificate of fitness associated with the rental ordinance because there's a land development fund violation okay yeah and I would echo that as well like that would allow us to stay true to the objectives of this program you know at least the proposed the objectives of this program which number one is to ensure the adequate life and safe safety of all uh residential rental properties part of the reason I ask is because our intention is to have the same person doing some of the same work and so I just want to kind of understand how that's for for the conversation is to understand how that's going to come together right and the same person can wear two hats and it could be under different the enforcement mechanisms can be under you know two different places can I ask about the rules to which we enforce that I understand from any particular building let's say it's built in 1960 or it's built in you know 2023 are we holding that building to which standard the standard to which it was built or the standard to which our ordinances are today and I ask because obviously building ordinances change over time is technology change things of that nature just natural progression so I'm wondering what ruleset we might hold a particular building to because it might not be it might not be a safety issue but it may not fit the current code but it fit the code and I don't know if that's so anyway that's that's so we don't have building codes here and like municipal bill uh municipal building code this would be uh the the most common code to enforce would be the rental housing health code uh and that the the requirements are pretty generic they're they're you know things around uh smoke alarms and and points of points of egress and and mold um there when it comes to uh fire safety regulations which we would be able to to uh forward to uh the state fire marshal there are differences between age of building I think newer buildings have stricter standards in terms of like the fire the smoke uh smoke detectors need to be hardwired or something some stuff like that I know I know that we kind of jumped into the discussion I don't know you need to give a more overall on this or not but I have a couple of questions on pieces in the ordinance that you've decided so I don't know right now is the appropriate time or you need to share a more overall view I was not planning on on uh going through the entire ordinance I figure that's uh that's in your packets uh but if yeah I'm happy to take any questions uh but just so you know I think we'd also want to uh talk about the uh costs and revenues and uh and uh public engagement uh before the end of the end of the day so why don't you um why don't you ask questions Marcus so let me end up okay let me ask about in the ordinance there is the mention about um local emergency contact and the the way that it's written in here is that they are required to have a local designee for emergencies and I'm curious about this the local designee I'm not sure how we're enforcing where that happens that we're enforcing that rental unit has to have a local designee and I wonder if it's even appropriate um because again I'm not sure where this language came from and I don't know what what that specific reason is to have that there because I think that a property can be managed remotely it would be I think preferred that there's somebody local but you know an owner for their property can still call a plumber in order to resolve a plumbing issue in their renter's house for instance or that you know their apartment so I'm curious about this language so this one we did not make it up from scratch this one actually I I think this uh this came from uh Winooski uh so they must have found that it was at least they must have not found a legal legal issue with requiring it um I mean they haven't I mean they must have not found it it might be there um but I would say from reviewing some other municipalities as well there like Winooski wouldn't be the only one that requires a local emergency contact and um but is it legal that is a that we can certainly um uh you'll double check that with our with our city attorney that's right in Winooski's so well so do you think Marcus do you think that is bad policy or do you think like potentially bad policy or do you think it's just it's just um maybe unenforcing I think both I think potentially because I think that it's good and you can have good and bad local or remote owners right so I don't think that it necessarily matters the enforcement you know I don't I don't know what the legal precedent is so I mean that's my that's my gut feel and that's why I asked about where that kind of came from the understanding around it it felt like a very I thank you for pointing out that it's in the Winooski one because I thought it might be coming from Burlington's which obviously has a very narrow and has a particular lens that they're looking for um not that it's good or bad just understanding where it's come from the other just generally speaking if in a multi-unit building if one if there's a violation in one unit just the whole building then not get the get the certificate or is it just the certificate I guess applied unit or to the whole my intention is that it's by units in order to contain you know any any effects but there is there's a provision here to say that say the frequency of that you are inspected may depend on a number of factors including violation history and that violation history can be associated with a specific like with the landlord as a whole or the property as a whole you know because age of property was also one of the one of the factors the risk factors that was that was um uh that was included in that uh in that clause so if you have a couple of units in a 30 unit building that's uh that are problematic it might cause other units to be inspected a little more frequently but it's not you know at least as written it's not intended to hold back everybody else but to clarify if upon that inspection of the multi-unit building there's an issue that affects in the common area that affects the whole building what what do we envision that doing well in the lobby and it's clear that the sprinkler system is just can I don't I mean but if there's you know is there enough it seems to me there would be that would be could be the potential I'm just curious how that scenario might play out um I think it means that's a compound to the uh fire marshal that's not something that we would be looking at in this program which is a apartment specific again simple co-enforcement uh ish if it's the building itself that falls under fire perspective I think right and if there's something major with the building that is clearly affecting many units the affected units I think because like let's say there's the the roof is like you're deciding get gets water in there and there's mold that would be a problem with the building but it would affect all that it would affect multiple units and uh I think we would have we would be within our rights to to withhold the certificate of fitness for those units that are affected or the whole building if the whole building is affected but there's always the the option of just going to the state like regardless of if we if a unit is issued a certificate of fitness we can always forward any any concerns to state fire marshal or any other um authority uh at the state level you mentioned the age of unit risk and I noted that in the reading that obviously you say at least in the ordinance it says at least every five years a housing code inspection for each rental housing unit or short term rental unit is required later on there's a discussion concerning new construction and it requiring a inspection prior to occupancy but a certificate would only be given for four years and I'm and it doesn't feel consistent to say that we inspect we a minimum of every five years but for a brand new construction they're only going to get it for four versus five that's a good point that may be a mistake um where where exactly do you have it open uh just so I know yeah it's on um page nine of the yeah of the ordinance j so that's okay yeah I got that I will um yeah I will note that the other thing I wanted to bring up is within the mention of reasons to deny an issue of a certificate the number one I know that this is probably not based on priority so but on point one it says the physical condition of our use of the property constitutes a public nuisance is this duplicative of our own nuisance rule of ordinances so those need to be called out or I'm not sure I guess what that might specifically apply to because a nuisance ordinance that we currently have somebody throws a party right they could be in violation of our current noise but is that applied to here to removing a certificate or denying some certificate so this was actually uh this this came from uh Winooski's ordinance we actually we took something else kind of along the lines of that which the planning commission thought maybe that's too much they they took it out I think that's this is a this is a a good point to have a conversation on it if it's not something like if we want to deal with public nuisances separately and not leverage people's housing um over this uh this this is something that can come out but as it's written right now it's uh this certificate of fitness can be leveraged based on that which kind of goes back to the question I had before about are we going to leverage certificates of fitness for other ordinance violations um so I can say no um you can see some residents having frustration with that if it's a problem property in the neighborhood but I think Regina's comment about keeping things in their lane really focuses us on the life and safety aspect of this and keeping it focused um I think if we find that we have problem properties and our ordinances aren't adequate to deal with them and that's a different issue I guess is that kind of getting to what you're yeah and um unless of course there's something well still if it's something someone's done to the building to damage it or the property itself we have ways to deal with that sorry no no thank you um the the other thing that I wanted to bring up because I think it needs to be explained for the general public it took me a minute to to figure out what it specifically meant was attractive nuisance so in point two under the reasons that we would deny a certificate it says any physical condition use or occupancy of any rental housing property short term rental property or whatever I sorry I can't pronounce it um that is considered an attractive nuisance to children including but not limited to abandoned vehicles and basements and unsafe fences and structures after researching it I get it but I want to make sure that I kind of call this out for a thing generally speaking the general public looks at this I just want to make sure that we call it out and what is an attractive nuisance why is this being called out so right um I think if we go on the principle of keeping uh you keeping issues in their own lane for in terms of regulation this is something that can be removed as well um I think Wenuski included this and and several other things because this is this is a point at which every few years this the municipality has leveraged um and without this you know there are other ways of of uh of enforcement um but it's I guess uh when Wenuski came up with this they must have thought that it was uh this was an opportune time to uh I mean I can see the point because look every different avenue of enforcement you take adds the expense right and to both parties currently not just the city um it adds extra fines that might accumulate accumulate or duplicate fines that are unnecessary and it would increase the likelihood that something would end up in silver I'm not suggesting this but I but I think it maybe it is worth you know there there are minor violations listed right you know that this may not remove the opportunity to get a certificate of fitness for a period of time until it's dealt with right so I think it's just something worth thinking about like how does how does that play out and again coming back to the central idea of what we're trying to do here that question and I think I'd also have what is the traffic and I think I get it from the standpoint of again and I don't recommend pulling this out because the things I think about are clear safety issues where children don't know the difference it is one of those objects or things that children can't differentiate between it being safe or unsafe what it's you know I was a kid and used to play on the open field and guess what there were broken glass bottles nobody cared now we care so this would be one of those things that would be covered under that and I get that but I think in reading the language sometimes I wonder this has to do with the way the ordinance is generally run sometimes language is used in such a way to try to be specific try to cover the area but the general public has no idea what that means so I think I'm clear but I just want to make sure that we understand I think in some ways part of that is because it's been tried in course so it's been defined in a court case as what that means so then that way when something needs to be enforced there's some kind of back there besides somebody saying what they think it means so totally agree that our many ordinances are confusing as all can be but generally because I've realized or falls back on to it in the court case thank you that's exactly what I was going to say I was going to say attractive nuisance is a legal term that brings me back to my law school days and to have a little bit of PTSD over here but that's exactly what I was going to say Andrew yeah you said a lot smarter and well $150,000 worth of school student loan debt that's what it does for you so there's some more PTSD we're going to send a counselor over call the wife call my wife um are you good do you have any more section 20.08 issuance it's page six of the actual ordinance numbers I'm just looking at paper so I apologize about the packet 20.08 b seems duplicative of d and I'm really just trying to understand what the difference is one has no words which one was this well section one I'm not going to read off the the section 20.08 b and d seem to say the same thing one says it longer right um this I I don't know I could say that there's a reason why this has to be separate this could probably these two could probably be combined okay sorry there's a little more housekeeping than question about it but um and think we have enough questions that we're definitely coming back to this um but my mind just sort of jumped now to um the revenue stream the fees and stuff but is there anybody have any questions about the other portions before we jump to that before we jump to that I have one question to follow up on Marcus's question regarding um the local emergency designate emergency contact I'm just wondering in the case of a townhouse or a condo or a single home rental would that default to the tenant like if you're a person who owns a home but you're spending your retiree and you're in Florida and you're renting out a condo with somebody and you don't have a property manager or anything like that or any designee left in the state of Vermont would it by default go to the tenant and is that appropriate and is it just appropriate for us to require that if there really isn't anybody or could the owner just simply designate that person and that's that because all we're doing is asking them to tell us who they want to be a local contact and maybe some of this is around what are we what are we trying to gain from having that information right like when I think about this I think about who is the person that's going to get called to deal with the gas leak if the tenant is calling in a gas leak or you know it's a health officer contact right or should the tenant be required to be the default superintendent of that property yeah I mean that's really what's this asking so what do you do when you're a single owner and there's one tenant and the owner's not in state that's my question so I think that's uh that's something I can uh research a little bit in terms of best practices and and if there's any I can at least see if if many municipalities are asking for for this local contact and I think if many are at least that might be some I can definitely see the benefit yeah I mean look if we're not getting answers out of someone in Arizona right um with a property here that's having issues and the tenant is sort of beside themselves or we're about to fail an inspection and that person's unresponsive now that the person who's the designee isn't legally responsible for anything right but at least we have someone to go to to help us out on this I can I can sort of see the logic but I don't know how beneficial it is it may imply an additional cost for the property owner who has to then engage a property management company or a long guy or whatever just thinking about unintended costs but the longest the longest ones again if you default to the renter themselves then the owner is not being represented fairly as the property they're not they're not going to be represented only because of the fact of the interest of the rent it was very different than the interest of the um yeah so um sorry not you Amber has a hand up Amber sorry it's okay um before we just jump to the fee schedule one question that I had Chris was about the transition and how we go from zero to 1200 and do all of these inspections is there some kind of process that needs to be built into the ordinance that says because of as it's written right now it says everyone gets a provisional certificate of fitness out of the gate and then needs an inspection within 90 days so I'm pretty sure we're not going to get to every inspection within 90 days so how are we handling that how are we handling that transition into this program so so I think 90 days is actually referring to something else uh it's like the increased fees you would be subject to if you don't if you don't deal with issues within 90 days uh but it does say there is uh there's a in 20.06 it says 60 days upon like basically you you have to you have to schedule an inspection within 60 days of being requested uh an inspection so the intention is that you would be able like we're not going to request the inspection until we're ready to to to move forward and inspect a property during the rollout and that some properties could be on provisional status for four years I mean that that's entirely possible when Uski does they they they do a flat four-year uh uh reinspection cycle and when they launched some people didn't get inspected for like they were they were paying the fee but not being inspected for until the fourth year um and that I think that's that's likely um to happen as well over here does that answer your question it does and then in that scenario right so if they waited let's say four years and they got a five-year certificate of fitness then they would have had one inspection in nine years that's right yeah okay which is it's not a judgment it's just sort of like making that clear right and um and presumably if it's like if they do very well during that one inspection yeah that's that's entirely possible but it's also if they do poorly they may be required to be inspected again the following year and presumably during that period of time let's say for the one to four um as we're transitioning into this program if we take a complaint the health officer takes a complaint about a particular property that would I would presume that would bump that person to an inspection getting an inspection of the property as well absolutely okay it says somewhere that uh it says somewhere that we can inspect kind of like anytime as necessary yeah and just to point out so the part of the intention of this program is to ensure that we are proactively inspecting and it just it doesn't remain solely a tenant-based system that doesn't in any way it precludes any tenant-based complaint system along the way or doesn't require us to uphold the parental code and also the health code at this point okay so we want to go through the proposed budget first or do we want to go through um the proposed fee schedule options so I guess the the budget leads to the the fee schedule option so I think that's a good idea um so yeah so the the biggest items on there is going to be in a descending order is going to be labor um then the software or actually software and vehicle could depending on what we choose um could be about this uh uh similar so in terms of labor uh I think we if we assume that this uh the person we hire is at the same uh pay grade as the planner uh which I'm hoping could be the case so you know yes someone that has the uh that's uh that is the expertise to to do to do the inspections but also to have the flexibility to take on other tasks related to all sorts of you know enforcement and also policy making if uh policy recommendations if uh if it comes down to needing that um that would be nine that would be a you know all in cost of about $97,000 per year um I think there is a question over here as to whether or not it's fair to attribute all this entire cost to the rental registry and inspection program because we are expecting about about half their time would be dedicated to this and half their time to other tasks within the department um so just to be clear this 97 320 is that entire position or the 50 percent entire okay okay sure yep yep um okay just want to make that clear so let's say this is half an fte of that would be roughly half okay yeah so so I think it would be cheaper for the city I'm not sure it would be fair uh the the cost the the real you're using a vehicle in s-exjunction not to cover much distance but for time you'd be working out of it uh for a lot you'd be turning it on and off a lot but the other important piece here is that they're out there doing proactive inspections and enforcement um and I think it is important for for their safety and for the so this for their professionality that this that that it's an official vehicle that is that can clearly be identified as an official uh municipal vehicle yeah I would hate to have an employee so many scenarios of having to do my job for 20 years with my own car um you know someone shows up and has a negative experience now their car is known um and all of all of that that goes with it is first and foremost it's a safety issue but over and above that they're getting tires on the cars in the shop transmission fails they're not doing inspections I mean I think this is just I think in a grand scheme of things it's covered and I would put a plug in to get a plug in um or really kind of leverage some kind of um clean vehicle of some sort um I think long-term it'll pay for itself I'm thinking we should be getting a small electric vehicle yeah like all together because this would require a lot of it would be a lot of short trips which is actually pretty rough on internal combustion engines but not so bad for an electric yeah and so it just sets us on a good path but yeah and I'm bringing I brought it up for discussion but yeah the um along those same lines though again timing of things right like the higher person on day one you have vehicle on day one are we getting a vehicle forehand or after you know can we still manage within this particular budget let's just say we hire the person first car comes later because of the way purchasing works we prepare to do mileage or something of that nature in the interim so that they can do their work before we have this vehicle necessarily that should be possible yes all all the questions that we've been thinking through just puns there's puns everywhere right yeah but you know another thing that you can look at is are we replacing the vehicle in the city elsewhere and does there have to be a vehicle that can be used like so we'll be investigating all all of those all of those options certainly want uh it is incredibly costly adding so certainly we prefer not to do it I think 100 percent for this position it's it's really necessary and we'll figure out to do it there's also going to be a period of time where this person needs to come on and get things going right are we so yeah I think they'll be I don't know what that period is but there'll be a period of time where they're not out in the field necessarily doing this work there that's right Mike but yeah the mileage reimbursement for a period of time might be necessary just because it is impossible to actually continue the software subscription blew my mind um to be honest with you so I I'm I'm not gonna lie I'm in shock um so um we've looked at several options and it is certain like I put the highest one plus a little cost escalation here just in case in order in in terms of setting uh the you know in terms of planning but there are there are options that are less costly but there are you know the the I think the the best software that I could find out there has uh capabilities that I think have has the ability to save on labor um significantly and also identify you know work with uh uh analyze data more effectively to to identify potential uh rental units that we might be missing um but uh I'm certainly not set on it and and I take your feedback um seriously about uh about the cost yeah so that that really is there certainly are cheaper options one of the things that I think will be a question that we will figure out is how realistic is this situation that this work can be done in 50 percent of the time the co-enforcement and health law so it can be done in the end of this particular software system provides a level of efficiency all within the administration and data keeping at the program that puts us in a place where we are comfortable with that 50 50 split um but it is not necessary there are other software programs that can view this task at a lower rate and I would say this was also this the the expensive software has has more capabilities for uh the a public facing portal to uh for transparency to to to see the status of rental rental buildings uh that you're curious about um and the other the the the less costly option does not have that but yeah the the differences are significant there may be more negotiation that's uh um I just wondered you know when that transparency on the dashboard side of that right like if if some of the lesser expensive software allows us to export and we can use the rbi we already pay for to take that excel data or take that data and beat it into a or just take that data and make our own static six-month big snapshots mm-hmm you know I think my main we don't have to get on the software road but my main concern would just be you know picking someone that's if if they should get bought or go away we can get our data out right um and make sure that we're not we're being more forward thinking in terms of how we are we recapture our data because I'm going to assume a lot of it's probably going to be cloud-based what that means for privacy um that kind of thing um any other comments on the budget from folks all right how about these scheduled right I mean do you is there anything you need to know in that regard from us for the budget I I don't have anything specific so right in terms of revenues and I put together two options um flat fee of 115 dollars this would match uh or be similar to many of the municipalities around us but the other option would kind of offer a volume discount and this is really to reflect the fact that it is much more difficult to deal with many small landlords versus one landlord that has a property manager that has the keys to 40 units and they register once and you talk to them once um just in terms of the time you would spend per unit uh you would expect to be a significantly lower with volume but option two does not generate as much revenue um unless you know because I'm I'm thinking we we don't want to increase the the the costs anymore for for the uh smaller landlords you know this would be a discount on the on the high end but not an increase on the on the small side so option two would uh likely not you're generated enough to cover the whole the entire person the the entire FTE um but also we're not expecting the full FTE of this new person we hire to be dedicated to rental registry inspection I think the scenario you describe is predicated on the fact that those 40 units or 20 units the property manager will have prearranged access and permission from all the tenants in the same day within the same eight hours um and I'm skeptical that that's going to be possible and multiple visits to the same building are going to be required you know I I just totally get this I'm just I've been trying to think about scenarios where you know small landlords could say you know they've already got the income from the bigger building and the bigger operation why why don't I get the discount for being a small landlord there's a couple of scenarios I'm thinking of but Andrew you have to point out I'd keep it simple but would one be administratively that would be easier it's more consistent for everybody they it's more upfront to assume then easier to to implement policy I would just keep it simple I agree with yeah I agree with Andrew too but I do have a question in regards to the time of sale so um the time of sale when we're talking about this um if if I am a property owner and I have my certificate and let's just say I'm a good land you know good homeowner or good landowner because I'm a person um so I've got my four year certificate three year certificate but I'm going to sell my property in the next year am I then going to have to pay these new fees again even though I have an existing certificate that that's not well at least that was not that was not intended to be case there is there's a time of sale out of out of cycle inspection that is if you request it so if your bank asks you to do something for the purposes of the sale um and your bank says we need something that that shows you have just recently been being inspected uh then we would that this this 125 would would kick in but it's not a requirement it's not a municipal requirement there is a municipal requirement to update like for the new owner to update the registration so that it's under their name to update the registration but if I'm buying a property that has a good certificate say for the next year whatever it is for the length of time do I need to immediately pay the fees for the for those properties I just bought or do I pay that at the time at which the certificates come and need to be redone the the intention is that it would it would not cost anything to update the the the valid certificates of fitness to the new name I can double I can double check that just to just to make sure we've really covered that but the fees paid annually regardless fee is paid annually regardless yep so they may they may I guess the question is will they inherit the fitness certificate for its duration and the ex and the renew date for the fee right yeah what happens in burlington yeah if they buy it in july but it's not renewed until january they keep that six five months whatever six months yes okay that is how other municipalities handle it um people have any other questions about the the fee structures there uh this looks like we're leaning towards a flat fee um and again this this seems to cover the budget for the entire position um so that is beneficial there are options if we've already planning to cover the other half of the fte we encourage us to think creatively about how we might put some of this back into the community um number of things people could think about between now and then some of I mean I like what Rutland's doing for instance with low interest or zero interest loans to go back out to landowners to improve their rental properties I think things like that would really go to the intention of this program and improve our housing stock it could be um you know assistance for for renters coming into our community that it might need assistance getting into a into a deposit or rental situation it might include um what's the word before the um we just talked about any commission looking at this housing trust fund thank you could go you know help us kick start a housing trust fund um you know really trying to use some put some of this intentionally back into that area it's for great ideas it's 9 30 can we not well I just want to just give them a direction like because if if that's the kind of place we want to go we'll have to talk about it later so is that the consensus that do we want to just keep it to a question is for me do we want to keep it to cover the entire position or do we want to explore the other options as a group and can I just add that I use it for other options I think makes great sense I think we would want to see this program and how it works and options for at least two years about three years before we figure out how that great great comment how that actually works and what actual so are you saying operated is as intended with the half FTE and half FTE let it build up a fund and then make sure it works okay great great great great to answer your question I would like to see our program this program cover the full okay timeline I'm not this I know okay so right so in terms of adopting an ordinance uh usually it's him you know there's there's just a requirement for one public hearing prior to adoption and then then if you make an amendment you have to publish the changes and uh and one another public hearing but the warning period is pretty short it's like three days that's a minimum the minimum warning requirement so it's not like a land development code amendment which takes multiple weeks if you want to make any change uh after passage the ordinance is effective immediately but is subject to rescission by special meeting if there's a petition that's signed over by over five percent of registered voters within 44 days so that that's relevant in terms of scheduling yeah I don't know if you if any of you saw the Gantt chart that's also in a proposed schedule um there's some time between when uh the the ordinance is passed and when we want to incur lots of costs because you know if it looks like there's gonna be uh you know if it looks like something's gonna happen within the 44 days you know there could be a risk um in terms of spending yeah uh lots of money before that but likely a small risk I say Andrew I am curious as to why uh a survey to landlords and the significant um public outreach what seems like a significant public outreach campaign that has gone well beyond anything we've done in the past is necessary so okay I think so the reason why I think it's necessary to reach out to all landlords is to make sure no because they're the ones that that are that are gonna be paying and they're they're the ones that are that may face penalties for not um uh for for not registering we want to make sure that everybody knows about it before this becomes law and also yeah this this would be the way to maximize compliance um but also to minimize surprises for anybody and that I think in theory we could have also reached out to you know we could also reach out to everybody else but like if we were to minimize like I think I think that it strikes a good balance to to only get the landlords that we expect we're gonna have to reach out to anyway personally I'm not sure what these results from a survey to landlords would mean to me if I saw the results I don't know what the survey would look like so that could skew it um a rental registry is something that is in existence many other communities in our county these large landlords are already doing it in other communities this isn't a new thing um so they'll learn about it after it's in my opinion they could learn about it after it's been passed and we let them know hey this is something you're going to have to contribute to whenever that point in time is uh from my vantage point if this helps to expedite the process I would say let's do that if this allows you to have more time to then focus on some of the discussions that have night to make those changes I'd focus on that and I just wouldn't do the the survey so wouldn't do the outreach to landlords so I wasn't I wasn't thinking of a so I don't know if there was a previous version of this where I forgot to take it out but I I thought about a survey and talked to Regina more and I actually don't think a survey is is necessary but I do think outreach is necessary this is more a push of information uh to let them know that this is happening um if they have if anybody has specific concerns that you know they would email they would email us basically or or just get in touch or come to the or come to the public hearing and that that was the intention right I think I think the worry is that we get responses back but then the expectation is that this would go back to the planning commission for where it's been in a very deliberative intentional and public process for about a year and I am I'm okay um personally spending you know a few hundred dollars letting them know that it's coming up because I I do kind of agree with you that they're the ones that are going to be impacted so we should some of them don't live here so if we have if we have ways to do we will miss some yeah um right um informing them this is coming up and if we have a public hearing date or how to stake how to stay in the know um and maybe just checking the cd website so they know when the public hearing is coming up it's fine yep I just don't want to give the impression that input is being taken to the point where it's going to go back to the drawing board because we we have an ordinance process and if we decide that we've got some initiative public input we can have a second public hearing yep which on this this might not be a bad idea for that anyway we'll see you know um but so yeah yeah I uh totally understood how I think this would be a push campaign for information um and we would word it very carefully but related to that is like are there are there any is there anything that any specific feedback that so that you would like um other than you know nuts and bolts kind of operational uh how would you register and things like that uh before we get there I just want to go back to this for a second there would the public engagement the first one two three four three or four different uh parts of the gantt chart are about a survey so are you saying oh that oh that must that that's okay that's the problem um so that yeah so are you saying that they shouldn't be there that that should go out and then all those other boxes should then move to the left to account for where we are in the time period so art so that was uh yeah that was from uh sorry that was from a previous version of this when I was thinking about a survey uh that should come out but if you look at just the when we're unlikely to be able to make this go any earlier just because of the timing of uh of council uh council meetings um and the holidays and we don't meet again until the 20th right so just delete then the first three rows there and it just shifts up right yes it would just I think it would shift up I don't think it would shift to the left okay appreciate perfect thank you for putting it out that's yeah so sorry because you were asking more overall yeah are there are there any specific questions that's that's uh that that need to be asked or you know is this really you know a focus on implementation and nuts and bolts of how that would happen just one more thing on the communication I think once we I think at some point throughout this we need to notify tenants so as just somebody to think about I don't know that we have it on the timeline but as I think part of this is tenant outreach as well you know we're it's it's establishing relationships with landlords establishing relationships or at least opening a channel for and informing tenants that it's here um so sometime I don't know if there's a is a you know the software or the process has a trigger so that when a property is registered a letter can go out to the land to the to the tenant or the tenants to let them know that this this is a thing all not all landlords will let them know this is how you contact it would be an interesting way to to establish a point of contact for tenants um you know again from a from a life and safety standpoint you have you have an issue you have a complaint by the way we're here here's how you get in touch with us that kind of thing um that'd probably be a very small financial effort yep possibly automated oh that's like one letter just a thought no no question you can always ask me a question no no I just want to be clear from what I've heard I want to be sure that I'm understanding from the time you're okay with the timing I don't know what's coming up on this one and I'm not suggesting but are you potentially suggesting you would like to see it maybe even on our December 20th discussion versus moving off of you based on how this is currently in Andrew's utopia yes but that's the place that only I apparently enjoy thinking about how much stuff Chris is going to have to do to make the changes that have been requested and to do some of the research I'm assuming that that probably isn't possible if it were possible yes that would align with the utopia I would agree I mean you know care and attention balanced against time you know I think the next eight weeks are very busy and full of holidays all right um let us take if there are no more counselor questions or questions yes I just really want to thank Chris and Regina and the planning commission for the enormous amount of work that has gone into this and this body has been asking for this for a very long time and it's really great that it has come this far so thank you very much this is a good thing for the city second okay you're welcome very well done thank you very much thank you for the kind words all right there is nobody in the room with public comments we will go straight to zoom and uh Annie I saw your hand first uh Ian Cooper thanks um I sent a bunch of links I feel that I emailed them I feel that um a lot of time in this discussion could have been saved by counselors educating themselves better on how these things work I it's frustrating also do I understand correctly that fees will be taken in paid by people who have registered for rentals it would be fees would be uh collected from landlords right thank thank you I thank you because so again and I'm not trying to batter you but put up financial policy in place in the length of time that you're putting into this work you could do that work it is like having a heat centered house where you don't let leaks of air out where you drive an efficient car you you want to close the gaps and it is a waste of taxpayer time and money if you don't stop and put a financial policy in place so that your staff our staff your staff can function in a healthier setting with a more efficient style of ingestion and out flow thank you thank you Jess Wuzlowski hi there um hold on I'm gonna lower my hand um okay so I was at this like community planning vision thing last Saturday and I didn't hear anybody in any of the scenarios that we discussed talk about the need to clamp down on the what is it 61 percent of the units are by small landlords with less than four units and um we still have this incredible like disastrous housing shortage we have the oldest housing stock in in the country and I understand that but everything that I saw on that slideshow it's like I don't understand how we're coming to these conclusions as a way of improving the lives of people in s-extinction oh crap did I jump off the call no it didn't okay still here um like improving the general well-being of people allowing people to age in place and not be forced out because taxes are insane or the additional burden for a small landlord are kind of difficult like the the press conference that Phil Scott said today called it a massive unit deficit that we're facing that were far below a healthy market um rattle borough has a housing finance agency and to get on the rental registry it's free and the incentive is you can be eligible for funds to upgrade your rental unit and even if you're not on the registry you can still apply as long as at least 51 percent of your tenants are counted as like middle or low income tenants but like I don't understand why anybody would not just secretly hide this from s-extruction so is not to have to go through extra hoops extra fees like even the one in brattle bro every four years your zone will be inspected and you only pay when they're doing the inspections because the registry itself is free therefore it's actually stimulating compliance and stimulating an interest to be on the rental registry because like like why on earth would people want to just sign up for another thing I understand oh they're going to face fines but like is that the community that we want to cultivate is this the new s-extruction is just going to be seeing people to death it seems like ever since we became the city of the village of s-extruction it's become harder and less fun to live here stuff that was free now costs money I can't think of a single free thing that's offered anymore but um like renters are already paying very high rents there's no reason to be adding anything that a landlord could say is going to add to their burden of rent Brattleboro White River Junction Morrisville Burlington Springfield Barrie Bennington Winooski Rutland Braintree Brookfield Randolph Lindenville Middlebury they're all creating units right now and what you're doing I don't know under I don't know like how is it how is it meant to improve our quality of life who is it actually serving I hear you board members saying that you're so glad this is finally happening but I don't know you like I don't understand like what your quality of life is that this is not something that could negatively impact you did you never rent property like do you live across from a multifamily building that's falling apart is the city of Essex constantly besieged by phone calls from the Ligard tenants because I kind of doubt it there are so many measures in place for tenants who need help and there are like tenant landlord handbooks there's a tv oeo there are um mechanisms place for search certificate for occupancy there's a fire marshal in place who's really readily available I was once looking at converting my unit and my unit my house into a unit in the basement because it was built like that for an elderly previous resident and it's quite easy to reach the fire marshal to find out what the requirements would be it's quite easy to figure out how to get a certificate of occupancy so like why are we doing all this make work it's so much money and it's like I don't know I just I'd like to know what's this vision of Essex that this is incorporated in because it's not what I hear at the meetings and I don't I don't know I have rental houses on my street and I also have people in multi units and like I never I can't think of a thing that is like oh go get them but people are allowed to have child attracting like vehicles on their front yard as long as they own the property like it just feels we're becoming like we're steering in this direction that is penalizing anybody who is poor or lower income and we sure as heck don't want rental units in our town that's all I hear when I hear this kind of thing thank you for listening thank you all right so we are on to 5g which is a and each which are executive sessions and sent agenda I'll move we approve the agenda second great any discussion all those in favor say aye aye those opposed nay wash passes uh reading file want to go first or do you want to I have a quick question okay um so we uh apply for the vlc group all the day in the community program on November 2nd that was under agenda last uh meeting so applied before um the today chitney county communications union district I handed over the brains so I am out of that thank you very much tomorrow for stepping up to the committee members play that role thank you to everybody who participated in the strategic planning process so far over the same kind of important job and the survey we will be coming out with more information on the next steps and how we actually get to the place for priority lists going forward the community development department has started to be uh signed enforcement lists so sort of educational campaign of um working on those signs so we've got some feedback from that as we expected and we will continue to work on that um and also we now have um second appeal but for that we are being determined on uh fact tree so uh just a little spawn over them of that great anybody have anything else Marcus um I know I said this the last meeting but since our last meeting I went on a second ride along so I want to say thank you to the sxpd again for allowing me on Halloween to go out um I had I was riding along with officer Greg who is our traffic control officer and it was another enlightening session and uh a really great experience and again I would encourage everyone on the council and staff and public at large I mean take take an off take an opportunity experience it so that you can have uh some richer insight into the good work that's being done and again you know get your questions answered about a public service that's being done in our community so thank you great I'm just gonna say really quick um extend condolences to uh the family of the former um sx junction assistant chief Robert Scott Morris um passed away this week I understand um served from 75 1975 to 2017 and also served as a assistant fire chief of my national guard so condolences to his family and uh the last firefighters at the fire department and that's all I have um and also thank you to Ashley and the steering committee for the work on the strategic plan yeah appreciate it all right uh motion for executive session it's in the packet I see it unless somebody has it open otherwise I'll read it okay I move that the city council make a specific finding that general public knowledge of a contract would place the city at a substantial disadvantage I move that the city council enter into executive session to discuss a contract pursuant to one vsa 313 a1a to include the city council and city manager do we have to do this twice or can okay uh make a second on those two motions seconds all those in favor say aye to these two motions aye aye let's pose an aye motions pass do it all again we have a second contract to talk about oh okay I moved city council make the specific finding that the general public do we have to yeah I mean talking about contracts is it general for contracts or is it for one contract right so we have to make a motion it's by subject not by quantity of subject like we're we're going into executive session to talk about contracts we're not going into executive section to talk about contracts and real estate that would be two separate sets of right motions okay great all right okay thank you um great we are not coming back with the decision of anything so we will adjourn thank you very much thank you rosh