 At 631, I will call tonight's meeting to order, and I'll start by talking about meeting logistics for a couple of minutes. Anyone who's joining remotely, please change your name, display to your first and last name, and anyone who is addressing the council, please start by stating your name and where you live. We ask you to keep your comments to under three minutes, and we will have to find someone new to be the timekeeper. And excellent here, we have Evelyn to be the timekeeper. Right. And we'll be able to see that excellent. Anyone speaking about a specific agenda item, please keep your comments both brief and germane to the topic at hand. Anyone who wishes to speak must be recognized by the mayor. And you can be reeled in if you speak out of term, turn discussed non germane topics or go on too long. And with that, it's time to approve the agenda of a remote member. Oh, sorry. Thank you. And Lauren, would you identify yourself? Yeah. Lauren Hurl here with district one. Thank you. Looking at the agenda. We 80 trouts is not available tonight. So we'll delete item six, the eclipse update. We have a couple of meetings coming before the eclipse clips happens. So we'll be able to cover that at a future meeting. And I've been told that there may be people here to discuss the zoning amendment public hearing. And so if it turns out there are a lot of people here for that, then we might move that up earlier in the agenda. The agenda. But for now, I'm not seeing a big crowd. And with that, if there are no objections, I'll consider the amend, the agenda to be approved. Next on the agenda, it's listed as swearing in of new council member, member Gil, but we also have two other council members and a mayor to swear in. And I'll turn that over to the city clerk. Hello, can you all hear me? Yes. Good. Thank you. First of all, for your indulgence and putting up with me being remote, it solves certain logistical problems with my 20 year old so. And Adrian was already sworn in, but if you want to be sworn in for the pictures, then you're welcome to. But I just need to first of all swear in Sal and Kerry. So if you are you're passing on this opportunity, Adrian, okay. All right, well, the Sal and Kerry would stand up and raise your right hand. There are two oaths. I remind you, so don't sit down too quickly. Right. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will be true and faithful to the state of Vermont and that you will not directly or indirectly do any act or thing injurious to the constitution or government thereof. So help you God or under the pains and penalties of perjury. Do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will faithfully execute the office of council member for the city of Montpelier and will there and do equal right and justice to all persons to the best of your judgment and ability according to law. So help you God or under the pains and penalties of perjury. I do. All right, you all are duly sworn in. And now I just have one more to go. Okay. So I don't see you Jack, but I'm assuming you're standing up. Now I see you. All right. Do you solemnly affirm that you will be true and faithful to the state of Vermont and that you will not directly or indirectly do any act or thing injurious to the constitution or government thereof under the pains and penalties of perjury. I do. Do you solemnly affirm that you will faithfully execute the office of mayor for the city of Montpelier and will there and do equal right and justice to all persons to the best of your judgment and ability according to law under the pains and penalties of perjury. I do. Right. Congratulations all. Okay. Thank you. Congratulations to when it was elected and reelected. It's time now for general business and appearances. This is an opportunity for any member of the public to address the council on any topic that is not on the on tonight's agenda. We again request that you keep your comments to three minutes and I see Peter Kalman. You have your hand raised Peter Kalman I live in Mountain Dew Street and I'm on Pelear. I just want to say that I've been to a couple of meetings now after taking some time off. It's getting more and more difficult to find the link to these meetings. I went to the main page where it says click on this. Click here to get the agenda and join the meeting. It's not not active. I've complained in the past about the website how continue to complain about the website. It's not user friendly. It doesn't work the way it's supposed to work. And if you notice, there's very few people here remotely. And last time I was here, there are also very few people remotely. I really would ask Evelyn and the tech people to take a look and to make it really easy to get to find the city council meetings if not all sorts of other things. Thank you. Thanks Peter. Anybody else seeking to be recognized? I will pause for a moment to make sure that everyone has the time to be heard. I'm not seeing anybody. So we can move to the consent agenda. Is there any request to take items off the consent agenda? Okay. Then the chair would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. I move we approve the consent agenda. Is there a second? Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. And anyone opposed? Okay. Thank you. Next up we have appointments to the conservation commission and the homelessness task force. I do not see any of the applicants. Online, but if I, if, if you're here and I just didn't see you, please. Let us know. Okay, folks. What's your pleasure? We could, we can. Entertain a motion to go into executive this carry. So I will move that we appoint jazz Smiths and Joanne Garten to the conservation commission and Beverly Allen to the homelessness task force. Is there a second? I will second. Any discussion? Okay. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. And anyone opposed? Okay. Thank you. Next, we have item nine election of officers. You're a point of order here. All your front doors are locked. You can't hold an open meeting with the doors locked. Is the back door unlocked? It's not sufficient. The next item on the agenda is election of officers. We have to elect the council president, council vice president and parliamentarian. Are there any nominations? Terry. I'll nominate Lauren Hurl for council president. There any other nominations for council president? Okay. All those in favor of. Lauren Hurl for council president signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Next up. Council vice president. You are allowed to nominate yourself and you can also nominate anyone else. I would nominate Carrie Brown. If she wants it. Are you willing to do it? Yes. Any other nominations? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? And finally parliamentarian, the most fun job of all of them. Is there any nomination for parliamentarian? All just at once. Right. Jack has been our. Yeah, I'm the current parliamentarian, which probably nobody realizes since. There's not much to do as a parliamentarian and I'm not an expert, but it's a great position for learning about Robert's rules of order and meeting procedures. So. I'm, I would nominate Sal if you would be interested in doing that because like something just tells me you might be interested. Yeah. Sounds like a plan. Okay. Does anybody want to fight Sal for the job? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. And anyone opposed. Okay. Next up, we have. Adoption of the rules of procedure. The rules of procedure have been. Published in, in the council packet. And so. The floor would be open to for a motion to re-adopt the rules of procedure as, as they are now, or to. Propose any amendments. Not hearing any proposals of amendments. So would someone like to make a motion to re-adopt the current rules? Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. And any opposed. Next up, we are to ethics policy. And. We are same thing here. Bill, do you want to give a little introduction? Just that. We have had this ethics policy for a long time. I'm not going to go through it all, but I would advise everyone to read this. There are times when there are conflicts of interest or apparent conflicts of interest in, you know, being good stewards of public process is important for us to maintain high ethical standard. I was actually at the state house yesterday. There's a moment of foot to have a statewide code of ethics for municipal employee for municipal officials. But at this point, there is a state requirement that we have an ethics policy. We ours actually predates that requirement, which is great. But I think it's pretty straightforward. It's it's served us well. But certainly. Is worth meeting over and I am always available. We can get help from the league of cities and towns. If there's any questions. And our attorney. So if you ever are struggling, even before a meeting, should I address this or not? Always happy to talk that over. So it's important that we get this right. Okay. Is there a motion to. Readopt the ethics policy. Awesome. And is there a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. And anyone opposed. Okay. Next up we are to standards and group norms and. I'm sorry. Sure. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And they've served as well. I will say that they were developed by a prior council of now of whom none of. None are sitting. And it was done at a retreat. So if, if we choose to have some sort of retreat, and this is the sort of thing that you'd like to discuss how you operate together and come up. Even if they ended up being the same and come up with them that are your own that you've reached, and they've been doing this until such time or, or not, but they were, it was done at a time when the council was having a little bit of difficulty working together. And so they sat down at a retreat to figure out some sort of rules of engagement. And that's what they came up with. And it's, it's been good, but I think it's better when it's the group. That's doing it has reached them on their own and looked each other on the eye and said, this is how we agree to function, but I just want to mention that. I think that's a good thing. And if you're not aware of scheduling a retreat. The agenda. Later tonight. Everyone feel good about. Pushing that off until then. Until we have a retreat is something we do. Cool. Committee assignments. All right. Now. I want to remind people in the warrant book. There's also the loan documents are in the. Yeah, I think Sal's got them. So that's probably the most important thing of all the sign. Because they're one of them is on a very short turnaround time. So Adrian. Adrian. Yeah. This is. You've just approved these things in the consent agenda. So now they need council signatures. So it just goes around. So. Most of us have been through this before we have this. List of all these. City commit committees. Many of us might not have known until we were elected that. Part of the job was not only to come to these meetings, but to be. Member of. Exactly. That's right. The, the bonus meetings that you get to go by being members of committees. And so. The list of committees has been sent out and, and many people. Already have their assignments and it doesn't mean you have to stay on those committees. But why don't we just go through them. The ADA advisory committee. One of those committees that meets during. Regular business hours. And I was on it for a couple of years and it's. It's really pretty good to sell your on it now. Yeah. And. Do you want to stay on it? Yeah, sure. Anybody else who. Is interested in doing it. We, we have this whole process. You know, the city is required to. To comply with the Americans with disabilities act. And this committee is in charge of. Reviewing essentially all the buildings and facilities of the city. To ensure. Compliance with the ADA. And it's. Of course, a many year process because. A lot of it involves. Expensive capital improvements. Anybody else eager to get on it in addition to sell. The only quarterly. That's true. Okay. So good, good to go. The building code appeals committee. This. It's probably the easiest committee to be on, right? Hasn't met yet. For me. There you go. There is a, there is a provision in the building code where people can appeal the decision of the building inspector. And this is the committee that hears those. It was pretty active in the days when we had. A requirement for residential sprinklers and people were seeking waivers to that requirement. And so the committee since the council repealed that. I'm not sure they've ever met. But it is, it is in our ordinance that does need to exist in the event that somebody were to appeal it. So there's three people. We are going to go to vote on this. Okay. To not to a council member and to other folks. You have to stay. Okay. You to learn. Okay. She's on it. Yep. Next up the capital improvement. Plan committee. Current members include Kerry Brown, Lauren, Hurl and Tim Heaney. I think I've been to one meeting and we talked about the funding for the capital plan and I would like to stay on it and that's about it. Yeah so typically this year like a lot of things we were compressed with time typically this committee does review the draft capital plan for not only the current year but for going forward so that when it comes to the council's part of the budget I mean not that the council can't change it but at least three council members have seen it and said we recommend you know this going forward like I said we were everything was behind schedule this year so we did have one meeting the council did go through it I think it would benefit from a couple of meetings during budget time and you know maybe one one other time of the year when there's less pressure on but it is not a you know monthly meeting or weekly meeting. Tim are you interested in staying on it? Yes. And Laura and you too. Okay I think we're and with all these meetings of course everybody everybody can go. Cemetery Commission we are not represented at this point. No we shouldn't. Right it's a separate separate body. Central Vermont Regional Planning Transportation Committee. This is an important committee every every community in the region has a rep and it is the group and I'm looking at Mike to correct me once I go awry but as I understand it it takes the various transportation projects in the region and prioritizes them essentially and so when funding comes from the state for transportation projects and they go to the regions they go down the priority list is that yet please please. So yeah that's pretty accurate it's an important committee there are subcommittee of the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission and they are usually separately staffed so for transportation related so a lot of the federal money for transportation it was all set up to travel kind of to the Regional Planning Commission for prioritizing it was just at the time the programs were all set up they were kind of set up to skip the states and go to the regions so that's why it's set up that way. And so we have a representative to we actually appointed commissioner to the Regional Planning Commission but then there's a separate representative to this Transportation Advisory Committee and it's I think it's been Wisconsin member bait for a long time so it is an important voice to have. I'd be interested in that. Great I probably know some of the people on transportation and I think that's important so I can sit on that committee. Great. Mr. Mayor if I could just point out I was looking at the list and I usually have to jump up so I was ready to jump up and I see it's not on the list so another appointment on the list is usually the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission which is separate from the TAC that is usually a appointed as a member of the Planning Commission which has been Ariane Kasam for the past couple of years and so as far as I know she's still interested in being on that so it's usually an appointment that the council makes at this time. Everybody happy with maintaining the status quo there? Okay. Thanks Mike. Solid Waste Management Lisa Stewart yeah she is a resident who is our appointee to that and actually a former executive director of that organization is a great rep. They aren't strongly advised that we keep her on keep her on. Okay. Community Justice Committee that's you now. So if anybody is interested in it's a community justice center and we help them with their programs volunteers. We haven't met recently after the full out we changed the meeting times because of the emergency so we haven't had the like new setup date but it is very important the community justice center creates so many beneficial programs for our community youth so if anyone interested in it would be great to have another council but I want to thank you. Great. We could have more than one but if everyone's happy. Okay. Community Advisory Board. Community Advisory Board of what? I think that's the CJC. Same thing. Advisory Board yes. Okay. So these two things go together and the Community Fund Board. We don't usually have a council rep on that. Okay. Complete Streets Committee. There are these two committees that are kind of related but they're not exactly the same. The Complete Streets Committee and the Transportation Infrastructure Committee which I'm not sure I'm seeing on the list either. Oh okay gotcha. I'm on the Transportation Infrastructure Committee and we just met last night and talked about actually inviting liaisons between committees. We have several committees in mind actually but one of them is Complete Streets so we'd have a representative at our meeting and if they were interested they would have representatives from us so it sounds like a good plan to me. That makes sense again. Coordination needed for that. And so it looks like we don't have a Complete Streets representative now which if we don't we don't. And we probably won't. If this liaison system gets up and running quickly which we think it will we won't need one because we'll get input. We'll get a report from liaisons. Okay sounds good. Conservation Commission. Again we don't have a representative design review. Same thing. Development Review Board. Same thing. It's a quasi-judicial body appointed by the council. Energy Advisory Committee. At present we have Sal and Lauren as a backup and you both willing wanting to stay on. So there you go. Okay. The Harry Sheridan Scholarship Committee. Now we when Anne Watson was here it was considered to be a great thing for her to be there given the fact that she teaches at the school. And I had the impression that maybe there was a fixed term for that seat. Do you know? I don't know. I do know that it involves giving a scholarship to a student in either my pillow or U32 that has done civic things. And obviously Anne as both council member and mayor was a good person because she was already at the high school and knew the people but we have had others do that prior to Anne's time in this room. So I think it's a once or twice a year meeting at you know whenever they decide scholarships in spring sometime. So if someone wants to be on it I'd love to hear it but I also I think Anne is a perfect person to have serving in that role. Okay. Senior activity center advisory council. Do we usually have someone on that? There's nobody listed now. Okay. And historic preservation commission again it's not something that we have a person on. Homelessness task force. Tim aren't you on this too? No. Okay. But Pellin and Sal you're both on and you want to stay on that? Okay. Moving right along. We have the housing committee at present. Tim and Kerry are on it. And you're both interested in saying investment committee. Sal you're on that. Does it meet very often? It does not. I'll stay on it. Right. Yeah. My Peeler your life's board. Great. Yeah. Parks commission. This is something that Donna was on there. Okay. So I think the parks commission is elected. I think we nominated Donna or she volunteered to be a liaison from this council to the parks commission. She attended their meetings but there's the parks commission as structured in the charter is its five person elected board. So its question is do we want to have an additional person attend? You had a lot of interest in that and chose to do that. I think and they liked I mean it was good to have the liaison but it's not a requirement. So I'll see if there's anyone who wants to take that slot. But don't feel under an obligation. Okay. Recreation advisory board. We don't have sorry public art commission. There have been years when we've had a member but just not every year not seeing any takers. Recreation advisory board. I don't think we have okay. We'll be interested in the recreation. Okay. There you go. Great. We do. Okay. Restroom committee. Kerry you're on that. You want to stay on it. Yep. Great. And C. Jack the social and economic justice advisory committee. Kerry you're on that. Is there anyone else who also wants to be on it? Because you know it doesn't have to be limited to one person. Okay. Sprinkler variance committee as needed and are we supposed to have someone on that? I don't think we even need to have that committee anymore because it never comes up. Right. Well we don't long to have that. We don't have the requirement. I think actually that and the building code appeals are the same one in the same. Okay. Stormwater utility committee. Tim and Lauren are on it and Donna was on it. I think it's fine if you guys both want to stay. Here's the transportation infrastructure committee. Sal you're on it. And I was on it for a couple of years and it looks at all pretty much all the alternatives to driving cars around the city to get places. So a lot of people who are on our bicycle activists. Thank you. Thank you. Three board. Do we really have someone on that? This just exists. And the Woodart gallery board is the only board that is really designated for the mayor or the mayor's designee and I am happy to stay on that of course. All right. Good work team. It seems like we got through this faster than we do sometimes. Maybe that giving it out in advance helped. So I am going to suggest that we do the FEMA buyouts and the zoning before orientation. So let's move up to the FEMA buyout presentation. Josh is that you? Yeah. Okay. You want it? Should we do the zoning first and okay. Okay. Good evening. Mike Miller planning director. So I'm not going to go through another presentation unless people would like to have the presentations. I was just going to quickly update where we are. So we have online. Excuse me, Mike. Yes. I will call our public hearing to order. Okay. Or open the public hearing I should say. All right. And so we obviously had a first public hearing on 14th of February, a second public hearing on the 28th where we made a number of smaller changes but enough changes such that we are required to go and have the planning commission provide comment. Their comment after meeting on Monday is that they agreed with all of your changes. The only note they wanted to make was they felt that the council should consider at some point having a review, a legal review of the shading requirement to make sure that it is actually a legal item but that they are fine with how things were decided. So between the last meeting on the 28th and today, online, there are updated copies of the draft zoning regulations. There's an updated copy of the map which I gave you guys a final copy of. I didn't get it till this afternoon. There were back and forth on a number of small changes that needed to get cleaned up on the map. So that's all set now. What changed from the 28th to the copy that is online and that you guys have access to now at your request? So the zoning map for Country Club Road was updated. We updated the map online and here. There was a discussion about potentially adding Steve Ribellini's parcel which is if you are at the Country Club and looked across the road, there's a parking lot. The back of that parking lot off into the woods is owned by somebody else, Steve Ribellini. So it's about a five acre piece. It's not really greatly developable. It's got a lot of steep slopes and pieces but at the same time, it is a budding and it is right there. We have talked about potentially in the future we might subdivide the parcel and sell pieces. So there would be a potential there that the city could consider going and saying, well, he has a little bit of developable land but is right next to a developable piece the city has. He might be the person that buys it, merges it with the rest of his lot and therefore could participate with the same zoning designation that what we called urban residential. So I did put those on the map in the draft map. If people want that changed or don't want that in there, we can certainly vote to move it back but I did put that one back in. And does that potentially also bridge over to Sabin's pasture, like if we keep going? Nope. No, it doesn't go. His part doesn't go far enough. Okay. No. But there is room for housing on it at the top part. It's got a sleep slot but there could be, it could be integrated with a housing project with others. Yeah, it's just unlike what we zoned for urban residential. It's all open and flat and very easy to develop. His parcel has some space that would be relatively easy to develop but then also a large portion of it that's not easily developable. But that said, as we've been talking about maybe subdividing or selling portions off, he could certainly take his smaller piece, add it to a piece that's part of ours and therefore be able to have a piece that would be developed within these rules. So I thought it was a good idea. It was a good suggestion to add it in. So I did put that in related to that. There was a question about what other places might we consider urban residential. I looked at the map, kicked around some different ideas and I actually think in the future, if we were to go and say where else could we use an urban residential zoning district, we could actually think about national life. If national life did have an idea at some point in the future to say, you know, that's not a bad idea. We could go and do a similar type project up here. That same type of zoning district could be applied in another place. We're not proposing that here. We're not proposing that now. But the question was, could this zoning district actually be used somewhere else? And I think actually it could and it did not very many places because we don't have a lot of big flat open parcels. But that would be one I think potentially could that the district could fit. So the other quick changes, there was a request for waiver language for the signs. I did insert some language in 3012. And I can go over these if people want. There was an additional minor edit to stormwater rules in 3009. That was after I had a discussion with Kurt Modicat. And so we did make a few small adjustments. We added back, I added back the solar device protection that you requested. So that part has been inserted back in. And oh, and last thing was just the planning commission review, which I had mentioned, that they approved your changes with a note that you should consider illegal opinion on the solar changes. So those were the only changes we had. We'll let you have any questions or public comment. And in terms of what we could do tonight, our options are either to adopt this tonight or to schedule a second, a fourth public hearing. Correct. You could adopt it as presented in the March 13th edition. You could amend this. And if it's not a substantial change, you could adopt it as amended or you could warn another public hearing and we would consider another public hearing. And is it your opinion that we, this changes are not substantial enough to require another public hearing? Oh, we've already, that's why we're having the meeting today was because of substantial changes that were made on the 28th. You made changes, but they weren't in the text yet. So we put them in the text, we reviewed them with the planning commission, and they are okay with those changes. Okay. All right. I'll open it up to comments from members of the public. Let me just check and see what the sequence is. Peter Kalman, it looks like you're first. Peter Kalman, Mountain New Street in Montpelier, just like to reiterate a couple of points one I made at the first hearing, which is that I think we've seen over the last six years, since the overhaul of the 2018 unified regulations, that merely making zoning amendments while necessary is not sufficient to achieve the kind of housing results that are needed to address the housing crisis in our area. And I think that we really need to figure out some ways to do that besides simply passing enabling legislation or approvals. And one of the now, there are two general areas. One, I said to members of the city council, two notices recently, this is two out of dozens that I've seen over the last several years of other cities and towns doing very creative things to do housing with public private partnerships, with developers, with individuals. I just don't see it happening here. And, you know, Mike talks about, well, you know, I don't know, you know, you don't know what we're doing. Well, I don't know what you're doing. But I can see nothing done. Right. I have high hopes for country club road, but that's going to take years. There are many other opportunities that have slipped by, or that are still out there. And I think the city council should instruct Mike's department to be proactive in going out and going after some of these opportunities and encouraging people, individual property owners to do their own subdivisions or dividing up their homes, etc. S 100 was passed and has a lot of opportunity in there for people to do things which were not possible before. I encourage Mike to explain this to the public. And I haven't seen any explanation to the public about how to do what you might do as an individual property owner to improve increase housing. Thank you. Thanks, Peter. Anthony. Oh, you muted just second. Oh, sorry about that. Can you hear me now? Yep. Hi, Anthony, our Pino resident at four Sabin street and also a downtown business owner want to thank the planning and zoning department and the volunteers and the planning commission for their hard work on the zoning update and want to endorse partially what Mr. Kalman just said in terms of zoning being one piece of the puzzle. But there's certainly more that can be done by the city to encourage current property owners to unlock the development housing development potential that we have in the city and to attract others here. It was about a year ago that the seven days magazine ran a story in which one prominent developer was quoted as noting that Montpelier has a reputation as a no development community. And that is a really sad statement about us in this moment right now when we have a housing crisis. And it's not just about bringing new people here. It's also about the businesses and people that already live here. We have a demographic stagnation where we have an older population that's contributed so much to this community. They're in houses that are probably bigger than they can afford to keep up. They have no option to downsize. We have less as a consequence we have less housing supply for younger families who are starting out. And as a consequence we have also less opportunities for renters and that's really critical for our downtown businesses in terms of workforce housing. And my law practice I represented several restaurants and bars in the city who say it's really hard for them to make a go in Montpelier because the people they employ can't afford to live in this community. So I agree with the spirit of the previous commenter but I do want to say I also support the aspects of this zoning proposal that increase opportunities for density and infill housing. I think it's absolutely critical. We have some tough choices where to crossroad in this community a lot of people are chafing about tax increases but at the same time our schools have tremendous needs and our municipality has tremendous needs with crumbling roads crumbling sidewalks and water infrastructure that needs an overhaul. And you know we have executives in the city who are foregoing cost of living increases because our situation is so tight. So I for one do support raising the amount of revenue we need to pay our bills but I also think we need to do what we can to broaden the tax base and you broaden the tax base by encouraging development and shaking off this reputation of Montpelier as a no development community. And I think the zoning amendments that have been proposed are a positive step in that direction and I encourage you to adopt them. Thanks Anthony. Phyllis. Hi I'm coming to this meeting unprepared. Phyllis would you start by introducing yourself. Phyllis Rubenstein College Street Montpelier a resident a homeowner. I'm coming to the meeting unprepared I cannot find in the 270 some page packet where the zoning regulations are and where the zoning map is and I was not able I don't know if this is new the chat function did not work for me so I couldn't ask the question by chat so can somebody. I can tell you the chat function we turned off the chat function because this being a public meeting we don't want to facilitate you know side non-public conversations as part of the meeting but. Sure I think at some point though I was you know people were able to post something and then one of the staff persons responded with you know whatever the the answer to whatever the minor question was so where are the zoning regulations and the proposed regulations in the packet and where's the map. So Mike could you share your screen to show that the current zoning if you're looking for the current zoning it is online I have to just it's not in the packet it is two 300 pages long. Oh okay but I thought that Bill said something about a map being attached or part of the the documents. It's also posted online but I brought in hard copies for the counselors and for the public who is here but they're but the map is also posted online so if you go if anyone is looking for it if you go to the the main page about halfway down there is a box on the right hand side that says zoning and subdivision regulations and if you click on that then it'll take you to where both the current and the proposed bylaws are. Great thank you so much. Thanks Phyllis. Is there anyone else online who'd like to address the council on this topic? I don't see any electronic hands raised and is there anyone in the room who would like to address Mr. Weiss. Thank you. I'm Thomas Weiss resident in district two and I have a few comments about it. I'm the one who introduced the term urban residential I believe and I'm having second thoughts as to whether that's actually the appropriate term for what this area has become maybe a village mixed use but anyway the second question is last hearing you were questioning the retail was split at 20,000 square feet for indoor retail and the apartment blocks that are in the plan I don't remember the exact title of the plan from last summer are about 7,000 square feet each and the building that's there now from the Alks Club is about 15,000 square feet just give you some comparison scale as to how large I believe the less than 20,000 square feet is permitted so that gives you some kind of a scale as to what's there now in relation to the apartment blocks that are proposed so consider whether you might want to reduce the 20,000 square feet to something more commensurate with the apartment blocks that are there or are proposed the solar two comments on the solar I appreciate it well three at first is I appreciate it being retained second is a jargon issue if they produce electricity typically their solar panels if they produce hot water or hot air they're typically solar collectors so and they're referred to as hot water panels in the in the proposed ordinance so I suggest that for your consideration and I'm still really concerned with the protection only being 15 degrees either side of south my solar panels are facing southeast 45 degrees away and they work just fine at 45 degrees you're only losing perhaps 10% of what you would be generating if you were do self I realize you've already run the 15 degrees by the planning commission and I haven't mentioned that before so those are my comments so I think you've gotten to a point where you're really close to approving it thanks you're welcome so anyone else who is present in the room would like to comment and and one last chance for people who are joining us online if you'd like to comment up Brian Jones yeah hello hi hi good evening can everyone hear me okay yes okay fantastic um so my comments on the zoning are very brief I just have a few comments and a few questions regarding the increase in density I think originally four units was proposed and then it jumped to six units I've had a few conversations with folks and also with with mr miller mike miller via email about the increase I had a couple of notions as to maybe the difference making a distinction between an increase of six units for larger existing buildings that may benefit more from being broken up into smaller units I think that was the original tent of intent of this of this change for increased density in neighborhoods that excuse me you all know this but I'm just stating it for the for everyone else neighborhoods that excuse me properties that are on public water and sewer I have no doubt that the increase in density will bring some positive effects with it most notably increased residency and an increased revenue to to landlords um specifically um I think it's a multifaceted issue housing and um I'm not sure that simply increasing density in all residential districts that are on public sewer and water will effectively address um the housing crisis that is both in the state and also present in town um and but I but I do think that it'll it'll be a good step towards creating affordable housing and affordable units which are smaller um so the recommendation that I have or really it's just an idea a notion a question perhaps is does it make sense is it possible to apply this zoning increase only to existing buildings for the time being um and then potentially evaluate by working with other entities other positive interventions that that may lead to more affordable housing of other types and I think affordable housing is very important and I think that is also um not categorically one thing I think that folks with families being able to afford a house in town in the state at large um is also an issue that that the state is facing and I think certainly the demographics of uh of uh of the town a lot of folks and single folks in houses and also um low numbers maybe eight percent of households being family households would indicate that there are other housing populations to be addressed and I'm just wondering if if it's possible for the zoning to have a more specific approach be addressed excuse me assigned to existing buildings for the time being um I think that as unlikely as some folks think it is there may we may have larger apartment buildings popping up in neighborhoods that would would historically not have um been able to allow this use nor would they be at place and sorry finally um the notion of affordable housing perhaps there are incentives um that the folks who are developing affordable housing uh can kind of reconstruct maybe that's not really the term I mean but essentially create incentives for folks buying homes as well rather than just folks who want to build an accessory dwelling unit or or convert you know larger building the housing I think that that single family home or duplex what have you for folks who might want to buy a home have a rental have the mother-in-law suite I think that in the big picture that fits into affordable housing for the state and formal appeal here um and um there may be folks working on this already but um um I'm not sure that the increase to zoning will only come with the density excuse me will only come with positive results and I'm not sure that an umbrella um policy to increase density will um will solve the issues that we that we're facing so thank you thank you Brian your time is expired and Mike do you have a comment on that I saw that comment it seemed like it was a little different like kind of the opposite of what we usually do with zoning which is to apply it to new construction and not not necessarily to current buildings but what's your thought that just for existing dwellings it can be somewhat difficult to administer over time um and there's a certain equity issue I think that goes along with it certainly in the short term you remember what are the buildings that are new and what buildings are older but certainly as time keeps going on you have to remember which buildings are either pre 2024 post 2024 and then there's the the equity issue of if you've built a building in 2025 that is meets all of the zoning regulations for a street and all of the neighbors on the street are entitled to have six dwelling units and you're only entitled to have two and there's going to be a certain question that's going to come up of well why why why would my my building just because I happen to be built I happen to rebuild it on a foundation of a house that burned down now I can only have two units and there's a certain just equity issue that kind of comes in to say am I really we try to in zoning there's a philosophy of just trying to treat equal properties in an equal manner and I think when you start going and distinguishing between one and another strictly on the basis of the older buildings are allowed to have more development the new develop new buildings are not allowed to have the same development even though they have to meet the same rules so you don't think it's either practical or a good idea to make this change yeah I would think I would think in the fairest thing to do would be to have it apply equally across all the properties certainly there are concerns about bulk and massing and that was my comments that I made to Brian was regarding if there are differences where new buildings can be built bigger and look different than the existing neighborhood then it's not an issue of density it's an issue of bulk and massing how high can you make your building how big can the footprint be how much lot coverage can you have well if the zoning rules are correct what we have is something that either matches what's on the ground or matches what we would like to see in the future and so if you're building something that matches that you should have the same rights that the existing building would have in my opinion okay thank you we're still in the public hearing I'm just checking again to see if there's anyone who's joined us or is present in the room who would like to be heard on the proposed zoning amendments before we close the public hearing um Brian you've already been heard from I would take another one to two sentences but no more than that but I want to see if there's anyone else okay Brian do you have a idea that can be expressed in one to two sentences why don't you unmute yourself yes sorry I was just saying thank you for hearing my public comments okay thanks so in response to the notion of old versus existing I realized that it does create a bit of an issue and I think that that's worth something worth examining in the bigger picture it might be possible to address this by imposing a kind of duration of you know how these zoning how the zoning code affects a building which is old and large and existing I think that and Mike and I spoke a little bit about that via email I do kind of feel inherently the density is the third leg of of the zoning chair that kind of keeps it standing up you've got bulk massing and then density this will make it possible for six unit apartment buildings to be built okay I think I'm gonna cut you there I think we're just mostly going over what we've heard and so I'd like to move on thank you anything else all right I will at this point close the public hearing and we'll get back to the council and ask the council what you'd like to do with this point so well um I got some input from some of the energy committee folks on the solar reworking and it keeps getting more it keeps getting more and more problematic as it's currently written I think it would it would prevent partly because of this the lot line calculation you know where you need to take the height of the building subtract 25 feet divided by 10 and come up with 0.25 that doesn't work in a lot of infill situations right I mean it just it's just impossible can it be uh so and so and of course we have the planning commission's recommendation for a legal review which is probably worth doing I think it's also worth pursuing though because protecting particularly rooftop rooftop solar which would be the easiest thing to to protect is is important I think I think it's valuable to the homeowners it would be it would be easier for new constructs for plan development and I wonder if we can can we can we divide it between plan development and infill or and again you're you're talking about the same the same rules applying to everybody but in this case it's um it's very difficult I think to make it work for everybody all right so I guess the the first comment um I struck figure 3-23 which is the shading diagram and the reason why I struck that is it's a formula that specifically calculated to judge December 21st so but the calculation is still in in the language is in the text itself or is it oh it you're you're correct it's sneaked back in there it is still the applicants may demonstrate the conformance by meeting that technically if they did meet that requirement they would be meeting the solar shading requirement for the 21st as well so it says they may demonstrate so while we could strike it and it wouldn't be a substantial change because technically it's it's not there we could strike it at this time if we wanted to the the formula but that was why I removed the the diagram was because um I think um counselor Hurl had pointed out that these are relatively easy calculations to make based on um the the solar folks that are around there's enough folks around that can do these calculations it wouldn't be a burden for a new project to demonstrate the the shading impact we don't get very many projects that need to go through this requirement the few that do could have that calculation done um so what do you think and sell should that be an amendment well uh yeah definitely I think that should definitely be an amendment I'm just wondering if uh I think it needs testing somehow I have no idea whether whether it would work I sort of threw out the 10 a.m. 2 a.m. last time as an example of how where we could go I have no idea have no idea whether it works whether it makes sense whether it's a reasonable measurement looking at um some of the ordinances that um other other cities have have implemented or thought about a lot of it has to do with actually establishing um you know covenants rights to rights to the rights to the sunlight in adjoining properties and so on I mean it gets it gets complicated complicated um but I think it's complicated for a reason because I think this sort of simple method doesn't work in a lot of situations uh it'd be great if it if it did but it it seems difficult certainly eliminating the protection altogether helps infill it doesn't it doesn't help find development and you know we're we're poised to need it there you know in a significant significant way in the near future so I'm not sure what I'm recommending I just I I it doesn't seem to work the old you know the even the revised language doesn't quite work and eliminating it altogether that doesn't quite work um you know I I suppose better better to have something than nothing and and review it you know if the issue comes up it doesn't come up that often now with infill if it may come up I mean it's something I think we ought to carefully look at it any sort of plan development um and maybe uh test it before that happens so that we have some idea of you know how to how to measure it is that I mean it's yeah I mean general I guess another practical problem yeah in general I would say where we're at is better than where we are today in the zoning and so it's a step in the right direction it can always move if for some reason we find this is not doing a good enough job protecting solar in the future we can always come back I mean we come back come back about once a year for zoning updates they're long processes but we track how permits are going we look at how you know certain requirements are written could we write them better and we keep track of them and we note things down so we can make these improvements and there's another one that could come back I think this is a step in the right direction what we have is really unusable what we have proposed here I think is a step in the right direction and if it's not protecting enough and the council wants to move it to a higher standard and we could certainly go back and look at that in the future and if it's still still impacting development too much we can move it further but I think this is a step and it's a good good positive step in in the right direction well I agree that's it's better than removing it all together I would want to put it on a list though for review over the next year so that we we definitely had had something to review you know some sort of test or input from some other jurisdiction that's maybe solved it or come closer than we have because we're balancing two things that we want right cell solar energy and more development and we want to and if we want a fair efficient process so if we've got an easy test we should identify the easy test that's like you need to run you know whatever an SR50 test or whatever it is then people know okay you got to run that test contact your local technician that runs it and we run it whatever that so that way we've kind of got a nice efficient way for builders to know I've run the test it come back positive or I ran the test it came back negative I'm going to adjust my project in this way so that way I can get because developers don't want to have issues in in the hearings they want to have very quick processes they want to be able to go and check that box and say I need the requirements Tim listening and processing so there is no test at the moment right the test that is written that we wrote in was and this was an adjustment to what was in there proposed development shall not shade existing and what was changed is to or propose solar devices solar voltaic panels panels and hot water panels oriented within 15 degrees of true south on a budding parcels to a greater extent than the hypothetical 25 foot high wall I think this is what Sal was referring to we could remove the 25 foot wall constructed on the property line between the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. during the primary solar season parentheses March equinox to September equinox close parentheses and so that way there is there is a formula that solar providers they can run these types of tests so you can look at how how high the building is going to be and what is the impact it's going to have and really what we would do as staff is or developers would is to look to the north because suns in your south you're casting a shade shadow to the north to see if there's anything within that 15 degrees that would be a solar panel or a solar device and if you don't have anything over there you don't have to do the analysis because there's nothing to measure it against but if there are solar panels in that window then we need to run the analysis to see whether or not the new proposal would impact them so did you just mention something that you think we should amend in the language that we have right now? Yes Sal pointed out because what this was on an abutting parcel on abutting parcels I think we would have to strike making sure I get it right. I ignored it on the fly like this can't be good. Well in this case we could actually could leave the language in because it as we said that is if you meet that requirement but if you take out to a greater extent than a hypothetical 25-foot wall constructed on the property line then it would instead if you just took that section out which was the December 20th it would be oriented 15 degrees of true north on abutting properties between the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on the primary solar season so it would just require striking that piece of the middle of the sentence there. So you're raising a question Tim, are we ready to vote this or should we take schedule this for another hearing? I might get a feeling it's not but it just seems like legal challenges in the making sounds like we're not ready. I see nods from around the table everyone agree with that. Okay why don't we take a motion at two. Are you talking about simply the solar provision or the whole thing because you have other sections that are not related to the solar you could approve those sections and if you chose and go forward and then look at the solar as an independent issue. Which I think is a sensible thing because that way we can be moving forward on the other stuff yeah. Is somebody prepared to make a motion? Harry? So I'll move that we approve all the proposed zoning changes aside from the solar regulation. Does that work? Is there a second? No I thought that was what you just said you agreed you wanted to do but I would approve everything else but that was what she said all the whole thing except for the solar right. And I'm saying in the whole thing there's other things I have issues with. Okay yeah okay so gotcha Adrienne. Is the question? Sure I'm still waiting for a second for Harry's motion but but yeah go ahead and ask a question. Will we finish that? No that's okay. It'll be changing the subject a little bit. Oh within that's okay. I'm not hearing a second to Harry's motion so it fails for lack of a second. Does somebody else want to take a stab at making a motion? Mike? Can I just go and I wanted to respond and get to respond to Mr. Weiss's comment on the 20,000 square foot retail. That was recording the progress minus 25 feet formula which we've just said doesn't matter so we should just strike that second. The applications may demonstrate conformance by either one or two. So that takes that removes all pieces of that 20 foot 25 foot high wall formula that was right there. And I'd like to be clear too what I suggested that we could approve the other side didn't necessarily mean right that second I just meant we don't if people get comfortable where we end up on the density and the the urban residential and those kind of things we don't necessarily need to move those to another public hearing if the solar is the only thing that's out. If we still if we want to you can but I just meant at the end of this conversation you can approve some and keep keep it either. So if there are amendments that you want to move. Yeah maybe a little bit up front for what they're about for me. Yeah and I just put Adrienne on hold so let's hear from you first. So as I had a crash course in zoning this might be outside the purview of this policy but I did want to ask and learn a little bit more maybe offline but I did want to make a comment about you know we have this 234 page zoning which is very important. We talked about this today it's really critical to think about our future of Montpelier and creating high density opportunities for both our current homeowners and new development and talking to some of my neighbors and thinking about how does this apply to them. There's you know a big disconnect in terms of the complexity of zoning and so thinking about or for me to learn about what are the current efforts to take this complex document and market it promote it to our neighbors that may want to subdivide their homes or for new developers to be attracted to our city because this is such an amazing opportunity for Montpelier. I didn't know if there was a part of this document I didn't see a chapter in here that kind of took it to the next level of being proactive and marketing and sharing this information to entice this type of development within our community and so I just was wondering what that looked like. I can answer that quickly this is the governance and regulation itself so this document would be the regulation how we choose to then promote it market it we would do that through communication. Once it's changed then we can say these are your new opportunities so that is clearly something that we would be wanting to do but it wouldn't be part of the actual regulation much like some of the other comments we had earlier but this isn't enough to to solve the housing problem I think we all agree but this is the this is the zoning part of it we still need to talk about the other aspects of it at different times what we're doing with the other things so this is we're focused right now on the ordinance itself. So the ordinance itself they copy the darn thing today because it's hard to read online it's just unnavigable it's not it doesn't work and I think that's a national problem it's not just here the way zoning codes have built over the years all over the country the more I read about it communities are grappling with the same problem everywhere in this country and this is just a glom things should keep being added to it we're doing it again tonight. What happens in these situations is because really nothing can get through or very little through the filter and that you'll find that things like our own country club road property doesn't even fit the zoning for the uses we want for it so we're effectively generating a giant variance here by creating this new urban residential zone just for this property effectively and I think we've got to look harder at this you know I think in your in the recent election you commented that there hasn't been new housing and the private sector hasn't produced it and you've given them a chance and now it's time Jack to look at public options and that hit me pretty hard because I came to realize that the reason big reason we don't have housing here from private sector is we've zoned it out effectively you have when you look at this and even the country club road project we couldn't do if we didn't change the zoning to accommodate our own wishes so what I love to see us do is urban residential is a neat thing I really want to see housing there but I think it's a new zoning category and it's it's a it's a new idea largely put together by staff I think it needs more time and energy and community engagement just to look at it and look at other properties there's got to be more than just country club road at Steve or Blaney slice and national life that we can have for places we want to see housing where this type of zoning would be appropriate so my take for maybe a suggestion tonight would be to approve all the changes in the zoning ordinance that are largely to increase density to increase the pagination and page numbers and all those pieces as well and the only pieces I would remove would be the the urban zoning pieces so that they have additional conversations so we can look at other properties that can benefit from this as well as the country club road property and the the shading ordinance I think should also be held out for future work so that's my suggestion so Tim I'm trying to figure out what how I should think about what you're saying because at our last meeting we discussed the very thing that you're talking about applying the urban residential definition to other areas of the city and you know we talked about Steve Riblini's property we talked about potentially savings pasture and and I thought we came to a point you know I hadn't we hadn't talked talked about national life although it seems like a sensible idea but I think we came to the to a point where most of the council was agreeing that we could adopt this the way it is and continue to look for other locations to apply the principles of urban residential in other parts of the city I don't I my my impression of the sense of the rest of the council was that the majority was not in favor of holding up this whole package and or even the residential urban residential part of the package while we did that last bit which which I agree is a good idea to find other places where we could do it so do you think I'm not under correctly understanding what we did last time yes your interpretation in mind very a little but I mean you know we both I think have the same end goal I think it's it's like how do you get there and you know part of it is I think we still haven't done the basic homework it's talking about about a year ago for the country club road property I mean I think we have plenty we can be doing there and moving that forward and still have good conversation about this and refine it and not just kind of push it through it feels like there's some pressure to push it through to get a process going for development but I still firmly believe we've skipped some of the first steps and we've got to get back to the basics on this one we just we're doing it backwards and you've got to do the engineering upfront you've got to do the site assessment work I know some's been done but not enough to find the project and then you have more public input and and design we're not there um Ellen so if you leave the country club road portion out and to discuss more and decide later would we affect this approval in how will it affect the whole process let me ask that we can't move the growth center designation forward unless the zoning changes and we can't do the TIF application until the growth center application so I think the proposal was if assuming we pass the zoning around now that we would then seek to amend the growth center which takes two or three months and then seek the zoning and while that was happening do the engineering other work that needed to be done so that by the time we had all the legal underpinnings to move it forward we'd also have everything on send and I think that's what the council said and then seek a development partner once we had the whole package put together so we can't so that that's really that's the difference if we if we don't do the zoning change then we delay then it's just takes longer for us to do that growth center change carry yeah so I take the point about doing the engineering and all of the due diligence on that property very seriously and so I want us to do that but I I don't know that that failing to change the zoning would speed that process up so if we change the zoning we're not obligating ourselves to do anything we're simply opening doors to allow something that could happen if we don't change the zoning then it keeps the door closed we can't change the growth center we can't get the TIF so I would I'd like to change the zoning I would like to continue that conversation about where else might have this urban residential zoning because I do think it's a very interesting idea but I don't want to hold up the current properties that we've identified for the zoning change so I'd like to make the zoning change now I would like to continue that conversation about where else this could apply and I and if we don't do whatever other due diligence we need on the country club road property then I don't want to move ahead with that so that's but that feels like a separate issue to me then the zoning change so so um until until um I was on this council I didn't think much about zoning frankly um but I think of it as doing three things talking about the use or in this case we're really we're changing the use to accommodate housing and and we're changing density which I uh put in that category it describes the physical attributes the architectural elements of the structures and it it defines a process I think I'm okay on the use side I the description of the architectural on the architectural side of things is is very much like what the buildings we have downtown is that that what we want what we wanted country club road in it is that can that seems constrained I'm thinking the country club road property is a pretty spectacular piece of land particularly if you stand with your back to it and look south and west the way the zoning's written uh you know it talks about blank blank walls and um you know base middle and cap and a lot of stuff that that describes a downtown building but I don't know that it makes any sense on certainly doesn't make any sense to restrict people to that kind of thing so how how restrictive is it exactly there's a lot of stuff in here about um you know blank walls and number of windows and windowsills aligning with adjacent buildings I mean there are no adjacent buildings what's going on there so a lot of the architectural standards are trying to you can look around occasionally don't want to go and pick on certain buildings that are out there but certain buildings have been built that you can look at and go into is just something doesn't look right about it and so usually it doesn't have you know maybe the building doesn't have a cap on it you know and I'll throw one out there city center is one that architects can kind of look at say oh it's missing this it's it's missing this it's missing that and having those elements provides a certain amount of character and you don't want these long walls of nothing so by having a requirement in there it says look you we're going to make sure you you have to have changes even if it's a single building it's got to change it's got to have a step out here in there and you'll find a lot of even um buildings if you were to go down to Essex in South Burlington and these strictly residential buildings you'll see they're no longer these big flat walled buildings they they step out they have balconies they have different features because that visual those visual changes are important to making things look attractive and dynamic and so it's trying to capture just the architectural standards are really basic and just trying to capture some of the base things the best thing to have is to have design review standards that are much more like we have for the our design review district but this is kind of a you know for areas that aren't in the design review district this gives you that opportunity to at least go and start to take away some of those those problem things if you're going to build multi-story buildings and that's what we've talked about here we want multi-story buildings then you should have those definitions of those different architectural features um but again uh I think some of these we will we will see over time what gets proposed and you know until they get tested you you don't know 100 how everything's going to work but um yeah no thank you that makes sense and I I love the caps on tops of buildings I think it makes a huge difference so I understand what you're what you're saying I was just wondering how constraining it is in a in a completely new development um one other thing I wondered about is this um the the lowest area of the property the the flat area where you first enter country country club road uh is where we're allowing the tallest buildings does that make sense don't say don't say block everybody behind them that's where the the public hearing process came out that process that we had last year um we we talked about various different options and various different heights you know how how big of a building would you think would be appropriate and they had straw poles and they had pinions and that's what came out and you know I was surprised to see that people were willing to see five-story buildings in there but you're going to build those on flat areas you're not going to build those higher up on the up on the hill on the on the uneven parts you're going to put those generally in the lower parts um for for those those types of buildings and we talked about should they be on the left and have the park land on the right or should they be on the right and the park land on the left and the park land would be on the the east and the developed presidential units would be on the west well I was just thinking you know we we talked about the solar shading thing now we have a six-story six-story building that's across the street from from what another six-story building okay but if it's a you know two-story town home not so much um does it does it make sense I mean the public may have said sure we can you know we can put a five-story building there um it doesn't make sense to me does it make sense it may end up being eventually end up being exempt right now um the urban um shading rules don't apply in urban center one two and three basically for that reason the buildings well I'm not talking about shading just I'm just talking about view I'm talking about looking at the back of a six-story building instead of the sunset on the other side of the valley um well it might be worth pointing out that throughout the meetings we had with the with our consultants they constantly were saying what you're seeing here is not a picture of what we're proposing should be built here what this is this is sort of an idea of what might go here once uh you know just to put some flesh on the bones but we're looking at uh the number of units how those units might be distributed we're not though all those pictures we're not a picture of what they're saying is going to happen I just point out to you that you know these are the the trade-offs like that you know if the more density the more housing we want then they probably will be bigger you know I think these days is more cost effective to build multi-unit buildings to build you know if we want three or four hundred units they're not going to build three or four hundred single-family homes there it's going to be multi-family stores five or six stories so there will be some compromises probably to view and other things I mean it's you know we don't know and I think that's what our development once we have a developer they're going to say this is what we think is the mix and what this is what we think we can sell and or rent and this is where it would go but this gives them the biggest opportunity to have the most choices and you know if you think about the property if you have the higher buildings down below the next part is up higher so it's entirely possible that those I could actually even still be looking over them I'm not I'm not a mass expert so I don't take that for anything other than just my opinion but you know I you those are there those are the questions that we will be continuing to ask throughout this whole process until we build whatever's there and it won't be us building it and we own the land so at this point anyone who comes in with a proposal to build something that we just think is awful we say no we're not selling you to land to selling you a parcel to build this awful thing so I mentioned three three elements the third one being the process what what does this revision do to make the process easier a lot of the complaints that I've heard not not just at meetings but you know on the street is that the process is the process is difficult it's complicated and it doesn't encourage developers does does this revision alter that in a significant way or does it does it make it worse or does nothing change on the process so I mean certainly making the the rules removing density it's going to remove a set of requirements um so usually you know a lot of people I think have different opinions of the regulations many times based on old stories um you know I got a design review approval in 2006 and then I get denied for the same thing in 2012 well the the rules we don't have those rules anymore well I had a friend that had this happen to him and I had a friend that had that happened to them for the most part the zoning we've had since 2018 is completely different and yes these are very big heavy thick documents but they are designed to be more administrative so the big answer I try to give everyone is if you have an idea the the best thing to do is to call the planning staff and they'll walk you through it because most of these rules don't apply to you but under the old rules you could write very simple things and leave them open to interpretation and have them go to a board so most decisions most projects had to go to a board um we had rules before 2018 if you lived on Town Hill Road that your front setbacks and your back setbacks were so big that they actually physically overlapped on many parcels making every single property non-conforming so every single property had to go to DRB for a non-conforming use determination so everybody would comment on everything for every swimming pool fence doghouse it I don't understand how people live that way but most of our rules now as I said the the time since I've been here we've we go literally 10 times faster that's not an exaggeration that's literal truth we are 10 times faster about issuing permits the decisions but in order to issue decisions administratively we need to have clear rules zoning administrators do not have the right to have to administer subjective rules so you need to have a lot of rules about how do you you know you can't just say have a height of 30 feet what happens if the front of the house is here in the back of the house is here how do you calculate the height well now I gotta have rules so how how do we measure height and everything as you start getting into the details has to have that detail answered which is what makes things get big you know how do we do landscape plans we ever used to be every site plan would go to the to the DRB now we have administrative site plans so we have very clear detailed rules of what you have to have for landscaping that way Meredith can answer that and make that decision administratively rather than having a board hearing and notifying all the butters so it is it is longer it is clearer for for people who know what they're doing they can look at these rules go through and say okay what are my requirements for landscaping they can look them up in there they're written right there and you can and you can work them out if you don't know that's perfectly fine everybody's tax dollars pay for Audra and Meredith to help you through the process you don't have to pay Audra to ask questions you only have to pay if you actually are doing a project and doing a thing you can go in and call and ask questions at any time it doesn't cost you any money and our job is to help everybody through the process and as I said most permits 90 percent of all permits are going to go through administratively which means the only person you're dealing with is going to be either Audra or Meredith and they're going to go through the process and they're going to issue the permit and there isn't going to be a hearing there might be a DRC hearing if you're in the design review district but now those are administrative as well you go to the DRC goes back to Meredith and she issues the permit so it's it's a much clearer set of rules again we wrote new design review rules because the rules in the past were five sentences and those were the design review rules and the board would decide what each one of those sentences meant so if you applied in 2005 you might be denied and in 2008 you might be approved for the identical project and it shouldn't be that way rules should be administered consistently over time so the new design review rules are much longer but they're also allowing for less issues as they come along but again the biggest thing we try to tell people is contact Meredith and contact Audra and they will answer your questions they'll help you through they'll tell you what permits you need and they'll tell you if you don't need a permit we have a lot of exemptions in here that say you don't need a permit for a number of things if you've got a question I want to repave my driveway do I need a permit for that no you don't and we can answer those questions I want to need new shingles on my roof do I need a permit well no you don't you might need a building permit but not a zoning permit so that's that's usually the advice I try to give people when it comes to certainly the thickness and the heft of it and the process of getting permits at this point is as easy as we could make it there's a state law that says certain things we have to do and we've got a process that is about as streamlined as we can get at this point yeah thank you yeah I I'm I'm not sure I want to hold up the the process provided that we that what the sort of process you described Bill of simultaneously laying the groundwork while we go back and do the the sort of dirty work to figure out what's what if they're how deep the shorelines can go for we'd have to blast or something who knows it just it's it's it just delays I think the the opportunity we have to move forward so to get sort of the straw poll on things does everybody agree that we should take more time with the solar part of it okay good um what would that mean can I ask um does that mean we're going back to leaving everything the way it is today and have and requiring it so shading would still apply to roofs walls and yards that's what I'm trying to make sure as I understand is when we say we're not doing the shading does it mean we're going back to the way things are today does it mean remove the entire thing and we'll come back with a or does it mean what or does it mean be be ready can we be ready to vote the solar shading rules out in two weeks that's that's really the question right probably not my sense is that they're more complicated than that okay if we want them to work and if we want them to stick in a legal challenge I think we we have to go through a process so I'm with you Mike I'm not sure what what people are saying let's be set here leave the whole thing the way it is now until someone has taken more time with it uh it hasn't come up has it uh currently I mean it's been a project's been turned down due to the walls the existing solar wall the roof walls and yards rule the crazy math with the yeah we we haven't we had a close one but we it worked out because basically because the property the new property that was getting built was on the south side of the street so the shading had to cross the street in the front yard before it was started that to us last week yeah but had it been on a on a different orientation on a street it would have impacted its neighbor I'd be inclined to to leave it to protect to protect properties and and existing solar installations I mean right now there's not there if we take it out and someone wants to block I mean it's it's hard to do but you you can do it you can block a rooftop solar installation we have nothing that prevents that not even doesn't even require a review without without something and so who would need to be consulted to get to the point where we can be be satisfied with it because Mike's department has looked at it planning commission has looked at it who else would be part of that conversation before we're before people feel we're ready to go ahead meet is someone on the act who would wanted planning recommended a legal review of this of this ruling but I think what we need is a legal review of existing solar solar zoning and and pick pick what we think applies best to our situation and propose that with the very least we should test what we're proposing because I mean right now I can see you know it says right now it says between but March 21 it says for the whole season so the people are going to wonder do I have to measure every day and I think the answer is yes you have to measure every day because the tall structure in the middle will block at a certain angle that won't block in the morning or in the evening but it might block you know so yeah I think they would probably have to probably analyze two days the the September and the March because if you don't impact on September and March it's not going to impact it's not going to suddenly become an issue as the sun gets higher and higher 10 o'clock in the morning yeah shading gets shorter and shorter so the most likely days for it to impact would be either because the building is over here because the building's over here we'd have to measure we have to do a study of the March and the September and see if either day has and we might want to check the time uh the the the current the original was nine o'clock on December 21st and nine we might test nine versus 10 and three versus two just as a if we're going to test and we have a comment from Mr. Weiss who I hope you're going to be slashing through the Gordian knot well not quite but you only have to do it on the equinox either the 21st of March or the 21st of September because they're equal the way that the way the sun goes they're they're basically equal so um if it meets the criterion on either one of the equinox equinocies then it'll meet it at any other time in the period between the two going through the summer solstice good point because hence the name equinox that's equal that's where it comes from yeah like days are equal yep in terms of how okay do you have it uh is that help mike um yeah I mean it just it does clarify we just need that one that study on that one day and really as we said even at that one time it really doesn't matter you're not really having to look at noon because the the shade's get shading gets shorter so it really is although you would in that case probably need the beginning in the end because the sun moves it may shade more on the 10 o'clock it may shade to the left on the 10 o'clock and the right on the Thomas Weiss again um I would say that one would need to do it for the entire period of hours because if the building is due south that's obstructing it's it's one set of conditions but if the building is offset one side or the other from the new building is offset one side or the other you'd have to do it during the whole period and they're saying sunrise to sunset on either equinox you've got it set between the hours of 10 and 2 right so if you leave it at 10 and 2 you'd only have to look at the the solar curve I don't know if any of you have seen a solar curve before the the time of day in the angle when the sun does this during the day I mean you you've all watched it from sunrise to sunset and how the sun changes during the day so if you choose nine to three then you'd have to look at how the shadows occur from the new building during that entire period to see whether they affect the building because if if the new building is it is over here then it might affect it at 1 30 in the afternoon but it wouldn't affect it any other time so you'd have to check all of them yeah no I think that's okay and the solar people as somebody said you know they've got all the little gizmos and computer programs that can can work that out pretty quickly whether they do it for free or not that's a different question I don't I don't know the answer to that well if you're the developer and you're investing money on putting up a new building that's just another cost so um do we think we can have that ready by two weeks from now I know that there's the question of of getting a legal review and I assume the question Mike was whether the city has legal authority to regulate this at all is that what you're thinking yeah that was their concerns um you know Bill and I talked about it and you know we have these existing rules our thought was you know we're trying to be judicious judicious about how we're spending our money that we have we're making the rules less restrictive so we've had these rules since 2018 um so if we're making them that much less restrictive that we're probably okay for now and we could review that at a later time rather than holding up the re-adoption because especially if we're going to go back and have another set of reviews on these at you know at a future time I mean we could option we could adopt these rules as proposed in the March 13th and have a set of things that we're going to look at for the next set of amendments so that way we've made we're not removing it all together we're not keeping what we know is a problem or somewhere in the middle um and we'll continue to study the issue and come up with new recommendations we could work with MEAC and maybe MEAC can also help to try to come up with some better language that helps you know their meet their objectives um you know what is what is the best what is the most appropriate path for us to protect existing solar devices yeah I think you can do this with a sketch-up model and I know a guy who knows a guy who might be able to do something okay so what's your proposal now it what did you say how's that to to adopt it the way it is now with the plan to come for it you're going to cut the math out though right you're taking out the 25 foot wall or yeah the the 25 foot wall is out there were those two that piece of one sentence I would suggest taking out and that three sentences again those are just all references to that yeah you took out the illustration but the language was still yeah yeah so those three sentences I would suggest taking out which I would not personally consider a substantial change because they're reflective of the old rules that we had changed and then the other thing is change the use table to from 20,000 to 10,000 for retail that would those would be the two suggestions that I would and having heard that is someone wants is there someone who wants to move this the way it is with those a couple of amendments what it is with those amendments is there a second and there's a second well I'm sorry I without being able to see it in writing and just kind of hearing these notes I have to say this is challenging for me to be able to vote on it so would not second the end because of that yeah no we don't have to vote now um I think that's where we are then right so we would just need a motion to continue the hearing to what date so on everything yeah and I don't know if we could and I was gonna comment on that I don't know if we can adopt in part I don't know if that's an option I don't know that we can't but I've never had any community adopt in part and leave part of it in theory they could say we adopt this chapter this chapter and we don't adopt this chapter right yeah but then we would have to then then it's done everything that was not adopted has been by default denied so does that mean we're scheduling another public hearing in two weeks then can we or it's probably already scheduled right it's not already scheduled this we would be continuing the hearing to April 3rd I don't know when the next meeting is it's March 27 March 23rd okay so it's up to you guys whether it's March 27th or April 3rd no April 3rd is your night right April 3rd is going to be a very busy night already but yes I wouldn't want to go and do his owning hearing in front of Kurt again no no it's on April 29th March 27th that's what I say if you go to March 27th then you're at my at Kurt's meeting what are we doing April 3rd then that work is that were you saying you would prefer not to be on the same night as Kurt it's up to you I was kind of joking because last time Kurt got to sit behind me while we had a very very long meeting on the 14th and Kurt and Kurt really had a lot to do that night too so yeah but all right why don't we I will strike those three lines and we will and the change in and the change on the use table and yeah I'm we continue to March 27th April 3rd April 3rd and there's a second and I know that we all like to save the paper but I'm going to request to give it everyone on the council hard copy okay all those in all those in favor signify by saying aye and opposed okay thank you thanks Mike all right thank you um so Josh we are up to you and we're at the time where we would ordinarily take a break so I'm going to say we take our 10 minute break now I was going to say why do you want the folks with their housing issue and then take a break for my presentation that's fine they've been waiting for a long time unless people are really eager to take a break now okay good I I don't like to make people wait for their break but okay Josh come on up we're up to FEMA buyout item which is item number 16 on our agenda great Josh Jerome community and economic development specialist thank you here tonight we're going to talk about property acquisitions the process and the timeline and the reason why we're doing this is because of the flood obviously in July there's three properties that we're considering acquisitions for tonight 189 State Street 197 State Street and 127 Elm Street all three of these properties were considered to be substantially damaged during the flood event and all three of these properties are in areas of the community that are considered to be repetitive loss zones um so this these are zones where we have experienced multiple losses structural losses during flood events over the years we know this because of NFIP information properties that are on NFIP and just by talking with the property owners the three properties that we're discussing tonight have a grand list total of about 800 897 thousand dollars and the three properties contribute just about 19 thousand dollars annually and that's municipal and education and these are the red highlighted parcels on these two pictures yep okay so why why are properties acquired um one it's it is a mitigation measure that communities can use to remove people out of harm's way for future flooding you will see property acquisitions for substantially damaged structures those that are repetitive loss structures and those that are considered to be severe repetitive loss structures in this case like I said these properties three of them are considered to be substantially damaged as a result of the flood which means the cost of repairing the structure to its before damaged condition is more than 50 of that structure's market value before the disaster event who acquires the property it's the community the community acquires the property it becomes public property in the transaction and it can only be used as green space in perpetuity this city can create parks with it river access wildlife refuges they can even use it for parking as long as it's undeveloped and unpaved this city can also lease it to a private individual that's something I learned recently this week in the federal code of regulations it can never sell it to a private individual although it could sell it to a a certified conservation organization with the intention of obviously placing a conservation easement on it and for using it for conservation purposes one thing I will also put in there there are some caveats interestingly enough acquired properties can have public restrooms cited on them that's just one of the only things that can be developed on an acquired property I just thought I would put that out there because the theory is it's like this is a very enclosed space it's only used as restrooms it can get flooded and can get easily cleaned out acquisitions also require voluntary participation from a property owner in a community right tonight we're city council you all are considering acquiring these properties on behalf of the community and the property owners have already indicated their willingness to go through this transaction power properties acquired usually the funding mechanism that's used for acquisition is typically through FEMA right they have a series of programs hazard mitigation grant program flood mitigation assistance the BRIC program which is building resilient infrastructure in communities and newer program called swift current right the state of Vermont also has a fund that they use for acquisition projects in the state that's called the flood resilient communities fund it's doesn't have as nearly as many resources as the FEMA programs do and so they're not able to do a lot of acquisitions and projects how the the programs that we are looking at right now are going to be the swift current program and the hazard mitigation grant program those are the two active programs right now the the FMA and the BRIC programs had already had deadlines that's already gone past us swift current has a deadline in May for an application and hazard mitigation grant program has a deadline of June 21st although that will be extended because the state of Vermont is allowed to request two 90 day extensions so realistically the actual deadline is is January 25 but we're talking about it tonight because we want to get these in the queue immediately who's involved in the process so the city of Montpelier as I mentioned in previous meetings has signed an MOA memorandum of agreement with Vermont emergency management for them to do the administration of all of our acquisition projects they will be communicating with FEMA and the FEMA officials on these applications in the city myself we will work with property owners to get paperwork filled out and to help get to the closing date if there is additional paperwork which I've been already warned that there will be because that's how FEMA operates the might reach out to the property owner but more likely they'll reach out to me and then I will help facilitate getting that paperwork submitted so that's the sort of the chain of communication between the city them FEMA and the property owner there's also how was the value determined you know the city is acquiring the property through the state of Vermont but you know as from FEMA funding and so and a forensic appraisal is used to determine the fair market value of these properties on the day before the flood event so you know eventually Vermont emergency management will hire an appraiser and they will do this forensic review in the process once that value is determined you know it's it's then provided to the property owner and they can appeal it they can accept it or they can reject it if they appeal it that process requires the property owner to hire their own appraisal own appraiser to do an appraisal and then that is then given to Vermont emergency management and they will hire a third party to review both appraisals to determine what that fair market value should be and whatever decision that is it's final is there a substantial difference between an ordinary appraisal and a forensic appraisal why why do they call it well because they're looking back in time yeah yeah because right now if you did an appraisal of these properties they wouldn't be worth that much right right so but they were the day before the flood yeah just wanted to make sure yep so once yeah if there was an appeal that the third party decides what that fair market value is and that's the final decision um also usually related to the the funding mechanisms there's a cost share depending on the program it could be as high as 25 percent or zero percent in this instance the state of Vermont through their fund is coming up with the match for these acquisitions so the property owner is not responsible for anything the city is not responsible for anything i think that's an important distinction because a lot of the FEMA programs do require a cost share unfortunately the state has enough funds to cover this for these acquisitions just to walk you through the process so this is sort of just like the steps of the process and timeline right so right now we have application packages to kick this off we're going to have a vote tonight by you all and then we'll get our documents provided that you agree to accept these properties and we'll get the documents executed on on our end and then submitted to Vermont emergency management they have a about a two-week turnaround time that they've implemented to have their project review committee look at it and send it over to FEMA FEMA's process is much longer Vermont emergency management have said that recent acquisition projects FEMA's turnaround is usually about nine months so we're nine to 15 months is what we are anticipating so that's that's out of our hands that's completely in FEMA's hands once they've made a determination they will FEMA will issue the public notice to proceed it'll be published in the local paper and the project can move forward from that point Vermont emergency management will reach out and contract with your appraisal company or person to do their forensic appraisal um title search company and a construction company to do the demolition and site work um in conversations with them they are hoping to um have an expedited process to do this because it's an important part of um getting these done quickly so they anticipate having like on retainer multiple appraisers um a couple different contractors and title um search individuals so that they can an acquisition project comes from FEMA they can reach out and get them to start getting the work done as soon as possible um the anticipated timeline for them to hire these individuals to do this is is untested really so it's about one to three months anticipated it could be quicker we just don't know um this is completely new for them it's a new process that they're trying to implement um and then then there's the closing that is when the property owner is given the check and um the community takes ownership of that parcel um the um there's a you know a restricted deed that's let's placed on it that you know doesn't allow any development on it um but it becomes our property um and then from that closing date um by by statute um there's only we only have 90 days to do the actual demolition um and turn it into green space now depending on when that determination comes in that could pose an issue in Vermont um and Vermont Emergency Management is aware of that and in statute they do have the ability to request a waiver from the regional administrator and so they're they're actively engaged with FEMA to try to address this because construction season in Vermont is pretty short I assume the demolition includes excavation and removal of the foundation yep yeah it would it would uh require um capping utilities and removing all structural elements on the property um and site work uh to return it to green space um I I have talked with them about what opportunities the city might have um while they are um contracting with a construction company if we want to see certain amenities in these spaces like benches things that would encourage public um use we we might have that ability to affect some of the site work that's completed um so could we do something like the uh the kind of rain garden they have outside of the credit union something else it would be uh it's it's possible water stormwater mitigation yes yep so um so something to think about um on these properties um at that time um so from today it's looking like a year to a year and a half yeah um you know just to recap um for the property owner to get paid we're looking at 10 to 18 months worst case scenario hopefully it's 18 months best case it's it's about 10 months um for the site to be demolished for the structure to be demolished and turned into green space once it's all done we're looking at 13 to 21 months um I there's a buffering here you know I asked vm what do you anticipate as a turnaround time from FEMA they say well we're experiencing nine months but we don't know what this next round of acquisitions are going to be like so I'm trying to sort of like set expectations um with the unknown um so just you know just recapping um vm will handle all communications with FEMA we'll handle communications with the property owners in the process um there's no cost to the property owner or the city for the acquisition uh because the cost match will come through the state of Vermont um and I just mentioned the timeline um and the parcels being acquired um can never be developed um can never in the future um can never have housing on there again um so any questions I might have missed this but what's the cost of the demolition who pays for that this state state what about um I think I've read somewhere that they the property owners are qualified for tax abatement will that be um through this time period will be extended like what does that process look like so they're not incurring additional costs as they're waiting to go through the FEMA process the board of abatement has already uh held abatement hearings on uh on properties that that were determined to be substantially uh damaged and granted uh 100 tax abatement for the for the current tax year and we presumably do the same the future year because it because it's not they're still going to be owners into the next taxable year probably I think I know the answer to this question I'm going to ask it anyway because I know how FEMA works but in in compensating the land owner for this do they also because people are incurring costs now I mean when you say it's no cost there people have costs they're renting they're doing whatever they're doing is is you know what I mean so the I I must is that part of the compensation do you know or I'm not 100 percent sure on whether or not part of it would cover costs that they're incurring now right I'm not 100 percent sure on that yeah might we'll see if we can poke that there yeah anybody else with other questions okay I see some people here in the room if I want to invite comments from from you folks if you want to have if you have anything you'd like to say yeah all three property owners are either in here in person or online at Haggit 197 State Street I have applied for a buyout thank you to Josh um he's been helping and your presentation is wonderful it's a bit fluffy in my opinion the timeline is normally three to five years there's on you know it's been longer um one property in Waterbury took nine years just last summer it was bought out after Irene it's nice to say that these people are going to do all these things in a very timely manner that does not happen and when I hear these zoning things and I hear uh about buyout so you're going to have a buyout in our neighborhood you're going to have a buyout here and a buyout here um there's been no discussion about I know this is going to sound crazy but the state the route two is in a different kind of flood zone now and you may find that route two can't be where it is in the future due to FEMA regulations or whatever so you're going to have some elevation you're going to have some green spaces you're going to have a myriad of different things in in these neighborhoods and it will just look crazy hi here nothing here not hi here because it's historic and they don't have to do anything hi here and then low here it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me but I have I have no choice my choice is when you're substantially damaged you either have to get a bought out or you have to demolish it yourself I'm in no position to do that I'm still unhoused and you know elevation money may not come for another year but I'm finding myself having to do the buyout and at the same time if the elevation application becomes available I need to apply for the elevation also because I don't know if FEMA FEMA rules are very tough is going to buy my house out I just don't know I have to have these options open either I may have to bite it and elevate it or they may not approve any there's a cost benefit analysis that FEMA requires and if you don't meet that for elevation or buyout they're not going to do it you I you just identify a question that Josh may be able to answer how how does is there a possible that FEMA that we go through this whole process and FEMA says we're not paying for a buyout for a particular property and how would that how would that work any property that is determined to be substantially damaged FEMA automatically considers to be cost beneficial for an acquisition project if it wasn't I'd include this in the sort of presentation because none of these are they're all substantially damaged so if there was a property that was not substantially damaged most likely in this community a benefit cost analysis would be needed because the threshold is 360 000 so any acquisition project greater than 360 000 requires a full benefit cost analysis in this case these three they don't need to go through that so you're you don't really see that it's a reasonable prospect that FEMA would say no we're not doing this no okay okay one thing I have learned is I've gotten a lot of lip service for the past nine months and lots of times it doesn't turn out to be what I was told so take what you hear with a grain of salt it goes in one ear and out the other because you don't know what's going to happen when the brass tacks start falling thank you thanks for being here and I I know that whatever we can do to accelerate this process will be done um did you want to make a comment okay and Mary I saw on your uh saw you on the screen great thank you thank you everyone and I'm just appreciative of um the process and the attention thank you so much josh for your presentation and doing so much information gathering and presenting to to the council and all of us I just would like to uh reiterate and I think that I have done this the last time we met that this has been a long and stressful process and it looks as though in terms of money coming from the from legislators to lift our properties may or may not happen and even if that were to happen down the road I am just out of capacity at this point I have a demanding job as a special educator which requires so much of of me and the thought of rebuilding at this point I'm just really out of juice and um I'm going to trust in the buyout process and I just would like to invite and urge city council to approve this acquisition so that folks who do indeed like myself choose a buyout have a way to become whole again and to put this process behind us and find new more permanent safe housing thank you Katie do you want to be heard you don't have to need to unmute if you do oh there we go hi okay can you hear me yes um thank you thank you everybody um and will you start by introducing yourself please yeah I'm Katie Swick and I own um 127 Elm Street with um Kirby Keaton and um but I've been living here um supporting the house for three years now um and I'm currently not living in the home still waiting for FEMA to pay for some rental assistance um in another place and yes it's a very challenging process of still many months of turning in paperwork and not getting anywhere um so hopefully that will come through um I just want to say it's a really hard decision to decide to take a buyout and to tear down a house that's been a part of this community since 1860 um I find it challenging but it seems like like the other two have said that gotta go with the options that are there right now and and go forward with this buyout because it could take many many months we don't know and still waiting on possibilities of elevation um money so it's kind of people always ask me what I'm going to do and it's just it's hard to say with some not having a lot of answers and waiting for answers and seeing where things go um but you know maybe the the this house has been flooded many times before in those years many many years so maybe it's just time for it to be a park where everybody can enjoy it and I'd love to see it a place where um it's river access and people are actually can access the river in this part of the the city there's not there's not access to the river and it's a beautiful spot um when it's not flooded and um yeah I think that's all I have to say thank you good thanks Kirby I just have a quick question well wait Ed we have some we've just recognized someone else I thought you're not I was just holding my finger up to have you pause so go ahead Kirby thank you thank you city council uh yeah so I'm the other person on the deed at 127 Elm street and I do have a clarifying question for Josh and um I heard that the the FEMA full cost analysis uh would take place for a property that's valued at 360 000 or more that that's the threshold um Josh seemed to think that uh none of these properties apply to that but the 127 Elm Street property does have an appraisal that was done right before the flood that set it at 425 000 and I understand that maybe Josh is basing it off of property valuation numbers but property valuation numbers of course are typically much lower than actual fair market value for an appraisal um so I just want to understand better if maybe there's going to be another some some full cost analysis and what that would entail if it turns out that a property is actually more than or worth more than 360 000 um so I can I can stop with that and wait for the question or wait for the answer yeah Kirby um every property that's determined to be substantially damaged is not required to go through the benefit cost analysis because FEMA already considers it to be a good deal to acquire the property if it wasn't determined to be substantially damaged then the 360 000 is in play and um it most likely would have to go for a bca calculation but because yours and the other two are substantially damaged that requirement for b for a bca calculation does not apply but that's really helpful thank you Josh yep thanks um Mr. Haggar if you had another question at Haggar 197 State Street Josh do they do you have to take off your the money you receive from flood insurance off the top of the so what um one of the forms that you had filled out indicated like the the benefits right um that you would receive so those come off the top like a duplication of benefits I I don't know how FEMA handles that I know if you're an NFIP property they probably do take that off the top um I know you're not an NFIP property right what what does that mean national flood insurance I am not I had a private carrier um so I I can get a follow-up answer yeah that um for you tomorrow right okay thank you I would also like to know the answer to that sure thank you great anybody else want to be heard okay come on up so I'm Lisa Edsoniva and I'm at 191 State Street which isn't on this list because we're the only ones living there I have two children we're living in the house we've been living in the house this entire time there have been no benefits from FEMA my benefits were less than five thousand dollars given within the first 10 days to help support commuting back and forth between an alternative residents where we were staying on couches we have received nothing we have received only in the insurance money we've received the substantially damaged letter and actually having a bunch of public restrooms next door isn't actually that appealing although that may be a surprise this whole process has been awful and in doing this no one's even acknowledging the fact that we're still there nobody's acknowledging the fact that we're the only ones there that are trying to raise this property our property is almost 4,000 square feet we currently have one apartment that has been totally vacant for the last year which we rely on that income we're a single income household and if we were to get bought out it would leave us homeless with nothing because the bank owns our property we only bought in 2017 there's a knot we have so little equity in this that if this process happens it leaves us homeless with nothing if your car got stolen today you would expect to go through the process and file your insurance claim and you would expect within a reasonable time period to have that vehicle replaced or to get a check of a similar value I have homeowners insurance I have flood insurance the flood insurance paid out at hardly half and now they're using that as justification as to why my house may not be substantially damaged even though you all determined that it was the lack of support on this and the fact that we're one household means we don't exist no one's offering anything to help us no one's offering us a place to live we do not have a kitchen we do not have a first floor bathroom we do not have walls we have sub floors and no one is paying any attention and you know I keep hearing everyone talk about a quick response for nine months in Vermont I have cooked on the grill the good thing is we didn't have winter so it made it a lot easier but we're cooking on the grill I made spaghetti on the grill tonight before I left my kids to come here because there is no support there are no funding and when people talk about this FEMA support I don't know who's getting it we've gotten nothing we just want to rebuild our house the national flood insurance is paying so little we can't possibly redo what was taken out more or less the cost of raising it a minimum of seven to ten feet and none of this is being addressed so are we just going to be pushed out into homelessness with nothing and so I just want to make sure that we don't get lost in this because we're one household our house had not been flooded on the first floor since 1927 in the flood six months before FEMA it hit our basement and it was remediated since we've owned it in 2017 at least a couple times a year we see the waters come over the the road which is well over that 11 foot mark that's the flood point the patterns have changed but we shouldn't be pushed out we're looking at having three units the amount it would cost to raise our house is less than what you would pay to demolish our house and leave it green in perpetuity and so we're looking to not be lost in this and even though we're one to not be lost in it we're living there right now and when you go by you'll see our lights you'll see our our decorations we're there every day so josh that raises the question we've been tonight's agenda is specifically about the buyout program but where's the assistance and what assistance is there for elevations so I mean there's one there's kind of two tracks um with this because you know there's one track of like trying to wait for the state um the past funding right there was two million dollars that we had requested specifically for elevations um and the legislature does not seem inclined to include that um right now so point of clarification on that so it was not included in the budget adjustment and I'm we're just going to sign today it is still under active consideration but it was removed the night before was it yeah we did not receive notification we didn't know they were pulling it out it feels really underhanded that it was in there until the very last minute and then it gets pulled out without any notification to the community how I mean how is it there were support and I'm all for supporting the businesses I am not saying anything but where are we why are we lost in this well obviously we don't know why the legislature does what it does and we we've pushed us hard you know on them as hard as we can and are continuing to do so to ask them for the funding in this budget that they're working on still now um I don't know why they pulled it out of that I mean if they do that you realize that's a year after we flooded I I do and I'm really hoping the 514 000 that came to this city for emergency relief for flooding doesn't get spent on a new development while there is no support for those of us that already live here that are already paying the taxes that are already living in this state meaning in in the conditions I don't mean in Vermont this is terrible and we're getting ignored because there are too few of us just do is there any more that yeah well so the state is one path forward and actually second path is with FEMA actually had a meeting with Vermont emergency management this morning about elevations and so I think we have a list of properties that we feel are good elevation um candidates um Lisa I know I know that you're on the list and over the next couple of weeks we're trying to identify exactly who is willing to move forward with an elevation application like I said FEMA has a couple different funding rounds in in action right now the swift current one has a May 15 deadline and the hazard mitigation grant program has a June 21 deadline and so what we're trying to develop is a phase elevation project what we would do is we would package a portfolio of elevation projects together and submit that to FEMA and the phase one part of it would be to do the surveying work you know you need a elevation certificate and you need to have a design of the new structure um because FEMA requires certain structural requirements to meet flows of future flooding so that would be the first phase to do that work and then in the second phase would be the actual implementation projects itself now I admit what I heard this morning about the timeline was pretty discouraging um and so it's not a very quick turnaround process what does that look like um we were told that if we submit a phase project now or in the next couple months they didn't expect FEMA to give us a decision until sort of later in this in the year so it's so you're talking about 18 months before we even know whether they're willing to consider it and if we go with this so what when you say an elevation application what funding potentially could be there um so again depends on the program and because elevations are much trickier than acquisition projects um um elevations because of federal requirements have to look at environmental and historic character of properties and there is a benefit cost analysis threshold that can come into play um that threshold is $228,000 um I guess one of the more encouraging pieces is that some of the estimates that we've heard about for elevation projects can range from 140,000 up to 200,000 um that some of like the 140,000 ones is just the elevation closer to 200,000 is the elevation and new foundation work because you need to have a new foundation in order to put the structure on um so really in the historic character piece of the structures that's where the properties on the water very after I read that's where they ran into issues because the cost to keep the historic character of some of the properties push the project over that threshold which then triggered FEMA to say this isn't cost beneficial and didn't qualify some of the strategies that we would try to use to try to figure out earlier on if that's going to play um is to actually use the the benefit cost analysis tool that FEMA has and try to work in some of the anticipated costs associated with keeping the historic character instead of waiting down the line when that's done by FEMA um so that would be some of the the front upfront costs or upfront work that we would try to do with property owners just so that we have a better sense because we don't we don't know that FEMA could come back and they might say well this this structural elevation um to keep its historic character is going to put it over the threshold and not qualify. Josh perhaps I mixed it but how much money is available if they were to authorize it is it an authorization of a full amount I don't know of anything I and and I'm saying because I do not know I have not heard of FEMA paying anything for elevations yeah how much money would if we went through this 18 month process and got approved through everything that has to be approved what's available well it's based on the project okay so again projects can vary depending on the structure that's that's needing to get elevated how high it needs to get elevated right so again 228 000 is the threshold to require a full benefit cost analysis by FEMA so if you can if some some structures can elevate to the required elevation um and get it designed that's less than 228 000 then FEMA considers it to be cost beneficial and they will approve that project so this is above the 30 000 through increased cost of compliance because as far as I know I haven't been able to find anyone that has received more than the 30 000 so does anyone receive more than 30 000 as to wait 18 months for potentially 30 000 well we live with no kitchen and no walls doesn't sound that great the the 30 000 is is a separate sort of program called increased cost of compliance that is made available to NFIP insured properties who are substantially damaged the intent of that money is to be used to help with mitigation expenses like an elevation certificate or design work on a new structure that's what the intent is it's not just to be like this is the only amount of money that you're getting but it's in addition to to help start a project to get some of that work done sooner have we seen in Vermont got it right Mike do you have an answer I think what she's asking so of the 200 000 thank you so I think what she's asking is how much money she would get so if it's a 200 000 elevation you would get 75 percent of that which would be 150 000 from FEMA to elevate the house you'd then use the 30 000 from the cost of compliance to get you 180 000 and that's where we would start having to have conversations about what are we doing about the delta of the gap of what's left but we don't again there's so many variables between here and there I believe and you can correct me the FEMA program pays 75 percent of the cost of elevating the house that doesn't count if there's insurance money you can put insurance money into that you can put cost of compliance into that right thanks thanks thank you I think we're I'm going to jump in at this point and say I think you need to continue to be in in communication with with Josh and Mike to move forward and I want to move forward with with this agenda item because because that's what we're on for tonight and it's worth knowing that the things that Josh said today about decisions that are being made I don't know about any of those that's why I'm here we aren't hearing things we don't know what's going on and it's month after month after month and I'm really hoping that I'm not looking at two years before a decision is even made about what could potentially happen yep yeah I think that we'll be we'll be looking to Mike and Josh to keep us updated on how this process is going I assure you that you are not being ignored so Josh what you're looking for today tonight is an approval of the acquisition plan yep is there a motion to approve the acquisition plan I'll move to approve the acquisition plan is there a second any further discussion Ellen I just want to support and help all the households had this like incredible distraction but I didn't hear any solutions for one household and we talk about that it's a voluntary process and I'm hearing that at least one household is not volunteering but they are getting affected and negatively affected so what is the solution for this issue how we can help all of them at the same time and if we cannot help I don't know again I want to support everyone but I don't know if it is the right had to go so is there any solution can we offer that one household we don't have any back to do it it is also okay I mean this really is just a factor of money right we have to use the FEMA process because they have the money and so until the state approves funding that we can use for elevation projects we're really at the mercy of FEMA's programs because I'm not aware of extra money from the city to help with any of these mitigation projects and you know there's acquisitions there's elevations and then there's a whole downtown that we need to consider how to flood proof because we're going to you're going to flood again and so there's other there's other projects that we we are working on that will have to be considered with FEMA through their program so I wish it was a different answer but we have to work with who has the purse strings so you're willing to pay the money to make us homeless but not the same amount of money to make it so we have three units going forward nobody's talking about paying money to make you homeless and and the acquisitions the acquisition program which is before us now is not affecting someone like you and I appreciate your decision not your desire not to be bought out but the buyout doesn't affect someone who's not choosing to be bought out I mean the different what the city's doing and I you know I was going to respond to to Palin is that there are different programs and choices three of the people have opted to pursue the buyout I think Mizzett's and explained why doesn't really work for her given the mortgage and everything else was good logic and so she's pursuing a different path through FEMA which is I think more complicated and difficult and we are trying to help all the people equally get through the programs but they're not our programs the federal programs and they're complicated we've been advocating for state money which would help speed these things up and hopefully we can we can get that and you know I think in terms of the city being willing to spend the same money I think if it was up to us we'd take FEMA's money and give everybody what they needed for what they wanted to do and they don't really give us the choice I think our choice is saying if they are bought out through the FEMA process we'll be accept the land and perpetuity and say I can't you know knowing that we're foregoing future you know public or private use of that land that's what the city's being asked to do to approve that process similarly if we were to approve a process and there was a match component and we might be need to put in some money on the match for your program we'd be asked are we willing to do that and we're not at that point with the elevation process we are at with that point now with the buyout so I don't think anyone's speaking for myself and what I'd recommend to the council through our department we're not recommending that we don't do anything for anybody we're trying to move these processes along as quickly as we can but there are two different processes three people are choosing a buyout and one is choosing an elevation and so you're on sort of different roads yes that affect to each other that's yeah I was trying to buy out the three doesn't change whether what we do for for Lisa yeah and if we're getting money from the state if the state legislature is saying well we're they're going to appropriate money to cover the city's 25 percent match I would like us to be advocating to the legislature to say they're going to make up the 25 percent from the 75 percent that FEMA is giving for uh for elevations to and I don't know where that's going to be in the conversation but that's a longer term thing yes are we ready to vote on the motion to approve the program all those in favor signify by saying I anyone opposed okay thank you josh we have approved that and we'll keep working on your your part of it and now do you have a I think I asked maybe the last time you're here do you have a cost estimate for your we've already submitted because we wanted to move forward months ago and we're asked by the city to stop until the um adjustment act went through well we could talk later a little bit the numbers we don't need to open public I'm just curious we will go into our 10 minute break now so return at 9 32 all right let's come back to order and bill you are up thank you mr mayor members of the council there's a reason why we normally try to have the first meeting of the new council not have anything substantive on it obviously we failed at drastically tonight but you took care of far more important things uh and you've already elected your officers and adopted your policies and appointed your committee so you've done a lot of good work tonight um I do want to like to run through this I will try to do it more quickly for uh most of you it will be a rerun for councilmember gill it will be new um but I suspect for uh the the I need to share my I thought you did that oh I'm not repeating I thought that's what you did when you oh I thought that's how that happened sorry that's all right you're good now you're good I'm ready look at that beautiful nobody can move mr jones over to the side here okay um so and I suspect for the three of you that were hearing this the first time last year some of this may resonate more than I did last year now that you've done the full cycle so I will try to speed it up but I you know there's a lot of important information here so I would like to beg your indulgence and try to get through it if we can but if it gets to be too long so quickly I will not read this I in you do have this in your packets the Athenian oath which was from ancient Athens about the city leaders and I think the the most important line is that you know we will transmit the city not only not less but greater they're more beautiful than it was transmitted to us so that is our sort of mission ultimately as public officials and kind of the holders of Montpelier right now is to do our part to move it further down the road as we go things I want to talk about our governance and council operations what everyone's rules are what policy making looks like which is most of yours very quick summary of city operations departments and facilities um what some of our current projects are and again this will be at very high level and then charting the course moving forward for the next uh few months uh so quickly governance and council operations I think the most important piece of all of this is that we are what's called a Dylan's rule state and that is a legal term but what that means is that we are a state where towns and cities have no independent authority in and of themselves they only have what is granted to them by the legislature so as much as we like to think about home rule in Vermont and New England and all us have actually New England is a very strong bastion of Dylan's rule states so town meeting and all of that is great but you can only do what the state authorizes hence the city charter which is approved by the legislature and then the state statutes title 24 in particular lay out the powers of cities and towns so often we'll hear you know the city should just do such and such and oftentimes we are not able to do that it's not we are not empowered to do that that's sometimes why we seek charter changes uh to to anyway that's that's the key that's just the most important part is we do not we are a subdivision of the state you may notice the oath that you took today the very first thing you swore was allegiance to the state and its constitution before you actually swore allegiance to the city because we are political subdivisions of the state we operate under a council manager form of government that is a term of art in in local government there are many different types that's the one we're in this council is the legislative or governing body and people get confused whether the council is the mayor and the six council member together the seven of you are the city council the authority that you have and the sort of the weight of the city government comes from the actions that you take as a whole so certainly of you are important especially to me I you know I'm trying to be available to all of you as many as you can and certainly with constituent concerns and those kind of things will work on you but in terms of speaking as a city council it is your role as a group and to do that you need four votes not just a majority of those present you need actually four votes so if there's only four of you present for a meeting you still need four votes to pass an action and that is in state statute I think sometimes it gets confused there's five people here to three to vote it passed no it didn't um so that's that um the mayor by tradition not necessarily legally but our tradition here is the mayor can vote to break a three three title or to make a fourth vote or can choose not to so again there's six people here to three to vote the mayor can either choose to make that fourth vote or not that is mayor's prerogative the mayor may veto any action of the council provided they do so before the next regularly scheduled council meeting and five votes of the council can overturn the mayor's veto probably happened four times in my career here the council appoints city manager the treasurer our attorneys and board and committee members and then the city manager is the chief administrative officer for all operations so well I already stole some of my thunder mayor presides over the meetings you elect your officers the mayor makes the tie you've already adopted all of those things you can create committees subcommittees typically the regular meetings are scheduled for second and fourth Wednesday they can be changed by group decision as you did for April where they are the first and third Wednesdays but normally you will get a weekly memo sent to you that describes things that are going on in the various committees and departments and it also includes tentative schedules for upcoming council meetings and then we have an annual strategic planning session at some point over the course of the year this year as you know everything got compressed with the flood so it was later than we had expected again most of your old hat now so I'll skip over for council meeting basically you get the agenda in the weekly memo each agenda item typically as a cover sheet with the high points of background information and we try to be clear with a recommendation for action if we're really on top of our game the recommended action is the motion we would like you to pass or we're suggesting you pass you can certainly pass whatever you want then it includes the review of the agenda that is a state law by the way that we review and approve any agenda it's also the time you can add something new if it's unexpected general business is in appearances is when citizens can make their public comment the consent agenda as you all know is a group of items that are considered administrative or routine in nature that you can pass all at once any one council member can pull an item off for discussion if they'd like to and certainly and if there are questions on this consent agenda we certainly appreciate if we get those in advance so we can be prepared to answer them or answer you before it even has to get pulled off public hearings we held one tonight they're slightly different because the mayor will open and close the public hearing and there's usually a period of time for public comment and then the council then the public hearing is closed and the council will have its discussions at the end of every meeting you have a council report to your chance to say what you want about almost anything and then occasionally we go into executive session there's a very specific set of laws and in the handbooks you'll notice you all have handbooks on your desk that's the we update that every year with some changes in even other public records law and the open meeting law so the open meeting law in particular sets out the rules for executive sessions and they're very specific and we try to have as few as possible but when we do we always follow the statute to why we go in this is the cover sheet that you get most of you have seen these and council member gill if I'm going to fast any of these either stop me or keep a note and we can talk about it on our Monday meeting yeah just so the I'm not going to go through all these but I would say these are very important things for you as a council member to to know and be familiar with the open meeting law absolutely that really is the public records law the short version of that is anything if you assume that any document that you get any email you send is a public record that's wise there may be things that are exempt but don't start with the idea oh this is probably exempt assume that it could be subject to public request and so think about that when you're writing something the ethics policy approved tonight very important because it really sets a high bar for how we conduct ourselves and you lose a procedure and then the code of conduct for meetings which the council adopted recently agenda preparation we try to close I know there was a request we're still trying to figure out we can get more done earlier but typically we close our agenda by noon on Friday and for the public we are really trying to amend the business on Thursday obviously if it's you folks we can make an exception for that there is occasionally changes that come in on Monday and Tuesday we try to keep those to minimum but sometimes they do happen any council member can add an item to a new agenda the easiest way to do it is during your council report just to say hey I'd like to add this to the next agenda but you can certainly do by email you can call me you do whatever and we'll help you sometimes people will say I want to talk about something and so we'll say well what is it you want to talk about like what we we're not trying to edit you we're trying to help you shape it into a productive agenda and not just some open-ended thing so again things you want to know the budget process we'll spend more time with that and I think there was some desire in the council to revisit how we do that just knowing the annual elections time meeting deadlines there is a specific process for approving bonds that is different than the council charter change process has its own dates and again then once we vote it like the citizens just voted the change on just cause eviction that still has to go to the legislature so it's still a legislature does anything with it and the governor signs it it's it's still not in our charter we have an ordinance adoption process and a zoning process even though the zoning is an ordinance it has different processes under state ruled and regular ordinance adoption so just being aware of that and I did say this last year and I don't think anyone paid much attention but as council members you're also members of the board of civil authority and the board of abatement and that was yeah and so that you do hear abatements you hear tax appeals and many of you got many gold stars for that this year just want to point out that although we have a council manager form of government there are still certain positions and roles that have independent authority so it's also comes up sometimes about why you know what the council can and can't do so the city clerk is elected they have total independent authority or their operations obviously we work very cooperatively with our city clerk and and they're part of our team but they have final say of elections over land records over any operations from their office I am not their boss you're not their boss they're their own boss the voters are their boss but we do have good rollers cemetery commission the same thing they're going to come in well actually yes one of you might be their boss that is true but I was trying to keep that up um the cemetery commission is also its own independently elected board they're going to come in and present to you at one of the upcoming meetings about how they function the parks commission is also independently elected that's a little interesting because the the parks are also a department of the city so the employee alex is an employee of the city manager but the parks have sort of control of the policies of the parks the rules and those kind of things but the city council still has to approve any ordinance changes so if they want to ban dogs or something like that it would still they could vote to do that but that it would require the council to take that action so there's there's kind of an interesting um interaction between the parks commission but generally you know if it's a decision to create a new trail or do whatever that is the purview of the parks commission wouldn't normally come to the city council uh and then of course the board of civil authority and board of the abatement you take those actions um and all of that the recreation board is appointed by the council the and they form a similar role for the rec department again there's not binding they can't you know spend the money they can't enact ordinances but they might make decisions of you know we're going to run this league this year or you know we haven't had much attendance should we you know certain operational things for the rec they help their citizen advisory board the development review board that you appoint makes independent decisions on zoning applications or variances the ones that go to them this council has no say in those and in fact it's inappropriate they're a quasi judicial body and the council should not be in any way trying to interfere or influence any member of the drb on a matter that's before that if that matter gets appealed to court then it falls in fact with any of these groups if once it something goes to court then the council is now the legal agent for the city and then you can settle it then you can get involved but not until then the treasurer as well the treasurer is appointed by the council used to be elected uh but the treasurer has there are independent duties in statute status treasurer does city manager doesn't do him the finance director doesn't do them the you don't do them so the treasurer has rolled and then they're even under the city manager um there are people that I appoint that have very specific authorities that I cannot interfere with so I point an assessor but I have no say in the actual assessments that they grant nor like the whole grievance process and you know that makes sense right there shouldn't be a political weighing in of you know stick it to mr alfano but give a break to mr heaney right it it should be based on the facts and the records and um and those kind of things the same thing with the fire chief and the police chief obviously administratively operationally I have say over them but the statutes are very clear I had certain emergency scenes um at the emergency at a fire scene the fire chiefs in charge not anybody else and um the police chief I can't interfere with arrests I can't direct arrests to be made I can't you know patrol so so in a DPW director I think has some authority over a certain connection so even though these people are employees of the city and the director of course may run laws provides specific authorities for them so that's a little bit different than maybe say private company where you know you can tell them what to do these these cases there is public laws I'm not going to read all these but I just say these are key resources that you should take a look at um you know by next week uh no but over the course of your time these are all things that will come into play that you'll hear about over the course of the year the charter the council handbook that you just got our website the budget all of these things there are various plans and the last one I put on there is the vermont statutes and I mentioned that because we are a creature of the vermont statutes particularly title 24 and then title 24 um there's a subsection that has all the charters and inner charters in there so those are important sections that we refer to all the time so are there questions about that part about government governance and operations of the council and I know I was kind of going a million miles an hour okay clear as mud I did mention border civil authority so I put this slide in because it's just a good reminder that what the council deals with at council meetings is really the top part of the iceberg that's the policy area that is the things that people are interested in those are kind of long-term public facing things and the area under the iceberg is really the operation of city government the thing that's going on all the time the the fact that there are firefighters in that building right now the fact that there are police officers and dispatchers in that building right now the fact that if it started snowing people would be coming out those are all things that are always happening the water plant is running on automatic pilot right now the sewer plant is doing its things so these are all the the workings of city government and what the council and we try to do as leaders is to take the vision that we have from a community and the capacity that to do that work and then what our external authority might go along with so you know you the council might think something's a really great idea but we don't really have either the money or the staff or the equipment to do it or you might think it's a good idea and we might know how to do it but we haven't convinced the voters yet so that external authority or that in some cases the external authority might be the state government we want them to approve something so that that can change in my case the external authority might be you folks right we have a good idea as a staff we have a vision we think we can do it you all aren't there yet so and obviously the goal is to make that look more like this where so it's supposed to be a power point we just click it but this thing doesn't have power point on it yet so we have to scroll it so but anyway we're those those circles are much more concentric and um and you know the my favorite example of this is snow plowing right everyone thinks we should snow plow everyone you know it's the vision of the public works department city manager that we should snow plow the external authority the council and public think we should snow plow and guess what we have plows we have blades we have wings we have people that do it right lined up there's there's no controversy over whether we should we should plow snow but there are other things as we look at it this is a capacity issue is this and getting people on board issue or do we just not seeing it yet okay so just taking a look at this who's who falls in these roles obviously you can see that the external authority is the voters the governments you folks as elected officials the vision comes from you folks and elected officials and maybe with some help from us as as we see this and or at least for how to operate we might have a vision approach department might operate and then the capacity is really up to me and our staff and our volunteers to come up with that or to make recommendations if we need funding or whatever to do that capacity and to tell you how that works just taking a look at everyone here so the voters what do they do they elect you they vote on budgets and bonds they engage in local discussions they are the external authority so they are interestingly enough they are owners because they are basically the stockholders the stakeholders of the community but they're also customers right so they they uh they are participated with controversy and complaints and I want to talk about that for a minute because it will come up later in this presentation so controversy is something like should we do something so this wasn't particularly controversial but like zoning density right we just had a con that's a clearly a controversy that you can settle so if there's a disagreement right right right now there's a small c controversy over the school budget so the so the residents are laying in and then the elected officials are trying to figure out how to solve that controversy that's different than a complaint a complaint is you know my road didn't get plowed my you know street needs a this the police didn't show up in time I you know I got pulled over for speeding and I shouldn't have so those are those are different things and so if we think about it that the controversies it's really important that they take place here I can't resolve a controversy for someone in the other hand you should you can hear the complaints people will come in and make complaints here the council shouldn't be spending a lot of its time fixing complaints you can check to make sure they're getting taken care of but that's not the best use of your time as a group so try to think about that so as we go forth right the mayor and the city council it's your job to establish to visit vision policy values and goals through our various processes so the strategic plan city plan and you know the last three months you've really been doing the most important policy things you're deciding how to collect and spend the public's money and your events you know basically setting the community standards for zoning how someone uses their property those are the two biggest policies that you do in and out spending taxing what fees and land use and then any other regulations but you also have an oversight role so you approve certain contracts and bids you review reports you got you know our financial statements today you saw them approve them and so you have you know you don't have to be conversant in them but you should be aware of where they are and you oversee the city manager and you know our our goals and policies being implemented to our satisfaction we've set out certain goals are they being done and you address controversy so that's the thing and then my last note is that the council speaks with one voice and obviously there are seven of you and you have seven voices and you're going to speak and I hats off to this particular group because you've been exemplary at this all year but once a decision is made that's the voice of the council so you know sometimes you're on the winning end and sometimes you're on the losing end of a vote but once that vote is made now you all have spoken and so for me and our staff and the public like that's the voice you know we go to the minutes we look at the motion that's why sometimes it's mostly do we need a motion this I'm like yes please even if I need it's going to be six zero like say what you want so we we know what the voice is we can go back to it city manager what do I do not much right our job and our staff's job is to implement the council's policy again spoken through your plans your budgets all those kind of things to recommend policy of the council so we are not policy makers but we're your professional staff and so it is our job to tell you what we think and it's our job to do what you say even if you didn't agree with what we think right so if you heard my pave the river right if you you know we can tell you all the reasons why paving the river is a bad idea but if you say pave the river we'll be out there paving it and then two years later when you say that was a bad idea we shouldn't do it it's our job not to say we told you so it's just to say okay we'll undo it so we provided vice information to the council I am the chief administrative officer of the city which is other than the specific appointees that we talked about all other employees are appointed by me so I hire fire supervise manage we deal with constituent service it's our job to address the complaints so if you get them share them with us we'll work with you on those there is a code of ethics that comes with the international city manager's association I follow that and I try to insist on that with all of our staff and I did put a copy of that in your books and it's our job to deal with the capacity so if you're dealing with the vision the external authority it's our job to deal with the capacity so then we have council communications if you read the charter it says you can only communicate with staff through the city manager obviously that can be a little bit burdensome and we we tend to observe that a little loosely what we ask is that you inform the manager copy the manager if you're communicating with staff you know you need to ask Micah's owning question please ask him I'm not going to know the answer I just want to know that that conversation happened and our staff will tell me you know I just met with councilmember Gill today and we talked about zoning I just want to know what's said so that I don't say the wrong thing or something different in a council meeting and so and you can go to staff inquiry information and and a staff reply as many of you see will typically go to the whole council just because one of you has a question doesn't mean the others didn't have the same question you just didn't think to ask it so we try to give everybody the same information so that none of you are sitting here in a meeting saying wow I was told and the rest of them are saying how come you told Tim and not the rest of us so that's how that goes with each other your most legal your best form of conversation communications in public meetings with each other if you certainly can talk to one another outside meetings it would be crazy to think that you don't be very careful not to create a quorum which is for people four of you together you better be talking about you know the weather and not city business so just be conscious of that because that's when that's when things happen by accident that shouldn't happen so don't create a quorum you do not use email to discuss council business again that's kind of a work of art you certainly can raise an issue by email if somebody says I'd like to you know I'm concerned about this I'd like this on an agenda that's great everyone else should not be responding and saying well here's what we should do about it right that's just when you say okay good to know that Palin has this concern I'll be thinking about it before the next meeting so I'll be ready to talk about it if you get complaints from the public you know obviously acknowledge the receipt and be clear when if you're responding to people or the press or anything whether you're speaking for yourself or the or the full council and I put an asterisk on that because there may be a time when typically the mayor would speak for the full council or the manager would speak on behalf of the full council but there might be a time when for whatever reason we've designated somebody else just because they might have certain expertise so they're on that committee or whatever and we'd say hey listen if there's any inquiries about this you know Carrie would you be the spokesperson on this issue but so in that case you would say I've been designated to speak for the council on this otherwise you'd say I'm one council member this is my opinion this is not the position of the council just because because people will misinterpret that they hear it from you they will think but because you told them that that is the rule and so it's just being clear and again all all electronic communications are public records so any questions about roles and that kind of thing including texts and emails yeah including texts and emails absolutely yes that's right they're all anything written letters notes emails texts yeah just okay talk a little bit about policy because that is really your job you know we use this airplane so if you think about it you choose your destination choose the arrival time choose the cost so when you're when you're going on a trip right you can just say all right I'm gonna go to California I don't care when I get there I don't care what month I go and I don't care if I have to make seven stops along the way I just want the cheapest price right or you could say I want to go first class I need to get there nonstop today I'm willing to pay top dollar so as you are setting your goals it's like okay what do we want to do how fast are we gonna get there and are we willing to sort of shell out big money or we will do this but we we're doing incrementally we're going to try to be conservative about funding how urgent is this so you think about these things what are where are we trying to get to how fast we want to get there how much are we willing to invest in resources stole this from a colleague but it took the airline thing and really does have a nice job of sort of showing the handoff between the council and the the staff where you know you're at the beginning the purpose and vision that's what you're really saying here's what we're trying to do we talk about our goals yep so we want housing i'll just use that one for example we want housing okay we're going to buy this property we're going to go through these things we're going to set these priority actions and at some point you know it becomes a planning project and it becomes a project and we're updating you and how that's going but you've set the parameters and then we go and do it and you know so by the end by the time we're landing the job you know you've you've already said you're on to the next thing you're already thinking about the next project we're finishing the last so this is the vision statement that you all approved last november or december again it's in your book so i'll read it and then this was the mission statement that you approved and then the core values that we approved again just recently and we can vision those and again those sort of drive the overview of where we're going so the strategic plan we try to do that annually either an update or a full review as usually has most recently been done in september october with a march check-in if there's a cheat like some of you remember we had three new people last year so we did a check-in and you all said yep we're good for now till we get back to it and it's an iterative process between council and staff off facilitated and we established that final plan is adopted by the council and then once that's done that guides our agenda items projects and activities and we issue quarterly reports on how we're doing so why do this basically you know you've heard this before if you add up the number of meetings we have and how long they normally last it's about 125 total hours per year that you're sitting in this room as a council so if you those are work weeks that's three weeks of work so how how do you use this time sitting in these chairs doing this work the best what's the best use of your time you're you know you're not scraping the sidewalks you're not doing these things how do you how do you use the thing and these are steven covey's quadrants right the what's important and what's urgent and obviously you want to be focused on quadrants one and two the stuff that has to happen and get done and specifically what's urgent it's not urgent doesn't have to be on today but it needs to be done so how do we spend our time planning quadrant three you should be saying yep out you know staff take care of it and if it's not important and not urgent maybe we ought to just get rid of it or it certainly should be in this meeting so so you focus on important leadership issues and you provide clarity on your goals and mission and direction I'm not going to read all these but these are the current strategic plans goals to build in and maintain infrastructure to create more housing to rebuild and plan for future resilience face of climate change and good environmental stewardship improve car community prosperity for residents and local businesses people's basic needs are met and improve public health and safety for all we kind of have an unofficial sixth goal which is provide responsible and engage government that had been a goal we didn't add it this year but it's still I think guides a lot of what we do so I kind of put it as a little subcategory there so there's that's that I'm going to talk more about that in a bit the budget so basically our budget we just completed that strategic plan sets the priorities in October we meet we give you some very preliminary projections at that point you can set whatever targets goals and priorities that you desire that either are the same as the strategic plan or different we start working in earnest on the budget in in November we have what we call budget congress which is basically when the staff gets together and and decides what will be in the budget that gets proposed to you I present that budget to you in December and then you hold hearings in December and January you usually approve the budget for the ballot in late January there's a statutory deadline and then residents vote on the budget on the first Tuesday of March and it begins it takes effect July 1st that process goes round and round and so that's that's it for now and again we just went through this so again with policy I think stealing from different people begin with the end in mind that's another Steven Covey so as we launch things what are what are we trying to do right so what's the goal here is it create more housing is it to do this thing so what's what what's we doing this is just a management consultant that I know I heard him do a presentation and he asked this question I thought it was great so what good for which people at which cost what difference do you make what are the outcomes you desire the kind of things to be thinking of so who's benefiting who's paying what difference will it make at the end and then putting first things first and using you know effective leadership is putting first things first so picking what the top priorities are the management is carrying it out and then Brené Brown clarity is kind that sometimes people don't like clarity but it's kind because then people know what's going on and I like that what we use that one a lot so any questions about policy making I know I'm really buzzing through this and that I also wear of the time okay so facilities operations and projects this is now getting more to the bottom part of the iceberg this is just a list of city facilities it's in here you've got it so I'm not going to read them but there's a lot there's a lot so these are things that the city owns manages runs operates and is a response or so again some of these are are below the iceberg but there are things that will come up and are things that occasionally need repair and funding or your attention we're certainly happy to provide tours and visits we wouldn't take you to all of these but we certainly take you to some of the highlights and again our operations public safety our police fire EMS emergency management all these things public works community services parks recon seniors planning and development city clerk finance office and the city manager and the cemetery commission of course is independent they maintain the cemeteries very briefly in the organization chart again you have all of this and here's so just so you have a sense of what we're doing because I think sometimes there's always an idea of what I want to keep doing more but we're doing a lot so these are our current projects that are either underway or in the queue under our infrastructure goals we've set a goal for improving infrastructure these are the things that we're already working on the capital plan the water and sewer plan implementation that you just approved whether or not to have a storm water utility stump dump we just met with the state today all these other projects are in various states of completion or planning or whatever so we are certainly working on our infrastructure goal looking at our housing goal obviously the country club road is the biggest one the zoning revisions are related to that that you're almost done after that we'll be completing the city plan which then starts talking about looking forward to the next iteration of things we want to do and then coming to you are relatively soon now be 12 to 16 main street the property that we own is finally cleared all of its legal hurdles and so not legal hurdles but the subdivisions and all the things that needed to happen so it's ready for us to do what we want to do with it so we'll have a discussion about that in an upcoming agenda a prior council approved a plan for it we're just going to make sure that the current council was on board with that plan and then we will go ahead rebuild and resiliency goal obviously the biggest thing is our FEMA projects just rebuilding all the things that got wrecked and putting them all back together we also have our net zero plan implementation our district heat trying to work on customer expense expansion and making that more financially viable the emerald ash borer response we will be having the modular commission on recovery resilience recommendations coming to us at some point in the future so we know that and then we have grants in for the 55 berry street the rec center systems upgrades if we get that grant that will be something we will be doing to take a terrible building and make it a little bit better and be more energy efficient in our advanced the economy goal we have an outdoor recreation plan we're just launching our recreation needs assessment to figure out what we should be doing about rec facilities and particularly if we're going to try to do something at country club road we have a downtown master plan that was adopted certainly pre-provid and I think it needs to be updated implemented because it was really designed to be done when the the state street bridge day uh realtor bridge was going to be replaced the idea is that streets going to be closed down that's the time to do big sidewalk street scape improvements we got streets closed anyway let's be ready for it and we did an extensive plan and we want to make sure that it still meets today's needs and wants and also to sort of reacquaint people the public with what that is in or to to may recall that was actually the 12 to 16 main street site was part of that remember and there's the berry street cycle track still under consideration and dog river path extension and public health and safety we are still obviously shelter for unhoused persons is a big deal public restroom is still a big deal we are actively still trying to do the regional public safety infrastructure we're still pursuing funding from the state we have a lost fire truck that we are hopefully we have a lead on a replacement we do need to plan for fire tower replacement update our ambulance replacement schedule we are working on our crisis intervention team actively and we have a flood after action recommendation so a lot going on with that goal as well and then again the non-goal of responsible and engaged government we will be updating our communications plan you know a key part of it had been using the bridge and using the Times Argus and we won't be doing that after July so we're going to be taking a look at how we're going to be doing that differently we've got some IT infrastructure that needs to be upgraded we are working on very specific work plans with all our departments which would be folded into the strategic plans we're doing some benchmarking with these are things that are more internal but you'll probably hear about them just so you know I mean these are kind of things that happen that you don't necessarily know about but they're all going on we're doing some HR improvements and updates and how our systems can work better we're trying to improve our budget tracking our grants management intern in just a bunch of internal processes so we're really taking that on so those are the kind of things we're doing so any questions about city operations again you'll have more time to do that but if there's in general about how they function get it so what's going to happen next and I think this is really probably ties into all of this is our plan unless you tell me otherwise is over the next several meetings we're going to focus on one goal uh and do a deep dive so that you can take a look at you've set this goal and we can talk about the initiatives strategies for trying to you know we we had to rush the strategic plan and so this would be a chance to come back to it and talk to it when it's less rushed and you know in addition we're going to tie a department overview with it so that you get it again we did the quick run through during budget this would be a chance for a little bit more expansive explanation and just ask maybe questions about the department and again without the budget sword hanging over us but chance to find out and talk about departments future needs and those kind of things so the plan is we've just teed them up in the order of the goals as you had prioritized them so March 27 our next meeting will focus on the infrastructure goal and DPW will be here to do their interview their overview and you know their large departments and they they're kind of the equivalent of two or three departments when they go through all their things the following meeting we'll be doing the housing goal and that will include the planning and development overview which is perfect that you put the zoning there uh so that ties that's what we're we might get out we're saying that's aren't you on for the third that's what we were talking about uh April 17th we will be doing the rebuild and resiliency goal uh the Montpellier Commission on Resiliency and Recovery has agreed they will come in to provide the data on their activities and our sustainability board and we'll talk about some of their activities there's obviously more this is the short end the May 8th is be the economy goal so we'll hear from Montpellier live parks rec uh those kinds of actually I think I'm may have moved that anyway whatever and then the health and safety goals so that's we'll do police fire and the justice center and then lastly again the the non-goal uh uh responsible governments who will go through the manager clerk finance ITHR all those kinds of things and we one of the things we talked about during budget I think during my review was then beginning a conversation of what are our core services as we we kind of go into the summer we're going to come out of the summer that's all of a sudden budget will be a month or two away so when we talked a lot about in the budget about uh I know it seems crazy right uh but that's how it rolls um we talked a lot about we got a fund core services but you know core services mean different things to different people so how do we as a group decide what we think are the key things that that are important and um in in how do we prioritize so that when we go into budget we're all in a better shape that we've got a clearer idea of our mission so that is the plan for the next what one two three four five six meetings will be centered around these things obviously other things will pop up like the zoning hearing and those kind of things that need to be dealt with but we're going to really try to keep your time focused on policy things that you should really be digging into you know last year we lost half a year because of a flood and so we were just getting into the swing of things with three new members and then we just kind of lost it so well now we everyone's got a year into their belt except for councilmember gill and we have a chance to sort of do the work that we didn't get a chance to do last year so um the teddy Roosevelt quote the man in the arena uh please please don't mind the uh sexist language it was from 1909 but uh i think the sentiment's important it's not the critic who counts that's not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done them better credit goes to the man who's actually in the arena whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood who strives valiantly who airs comes up short again and again and spends himself at a worthy cause who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so this place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory or defeat and i say this because you are the people in the arena you're going to hear all sorts of criticism this year you did last year you will next year um there are folks and and you know that's fine we're a government we deserve that but you're the ones that stepped up to do it and you're making tough decisions and you are either daring greatly failing spectacularly or doing things but that's that's the risk and and the monday morning quarterbacks will be there but um so i think it's just uh you know we begin with the athenian host and we end with teddy roosevelt so any questions about any of this what's that great presentation thank you well yeah i got it down to under an hour this year you know bill we i don't know how much of this we did last year i wasn't able to be at them but i think this might be a good year to try to set up tours for yep the facilities and offices you know this visit the fire department the police department the public works facilities all that stuff right no absolutely and there are a lot of them but usually certainly police fire the public works facilities the treatment plants those kind of things um rec facilities parks and rec yeah parks you know i mean the list can go on but certainly the big expensive things you know because people don't understand right until some of you i know i've done them until you see the dispatch center and you see what the people are doing you know you know it's just gives you a different perspective the water planet the wastewater plant uh so it's it's you know it's helpful i remember one time one year we did tour bus we actually got a little like one of those and we brought everyone together we warned it as a public meeting with some members of the public team and uh this is a while ago now steve gray was still here as the public works director and all the way we had a resident was here and all the way up we were in the water treatment plant he was just all over us about why we needed three people we're on the place we got there we were on the tour and on the whole way back he's like how do you do it with only three people so you know i think it it helps to to get those uh pieces informed uh yes tours are important and then obviously i will stop talking oh you're charged for the tours like a little bit right for tours of things that people already paid for like museums right it's the nonprofits yeah there we go there we go well i think the most important thing is for you all to get acquainted and i know that the staff loves to have visitor council visitors because they like to to talk and they're proud of what they do and they want to be able to talk about it so uh and help you get that perspective so i'm going to stop then um stop and stop sharing and stop talking and um we can move on to set a retreat i guess this the next so thank you for listening thank you for doing what you do everything i said is in the book i gave you and the outline is in in the packet so it's all there if you have any questions anytime about anything do not hesitate text call email weekends whatever you know i'll get back here since i can so you are my most important external approving authority so thanks bill this is great having even having seen it before i think it's it's a great reminder of what we're doing and why set a date for the retreat so here we are yeah so in the years past we've had a council retreat where we didn't talk about those things the hundred and twenty file did not talk about policy we really talked about getting to know one another better i mean maybe a big picture sort of what people were interested in and how to you know how we function best every group is different some people like to receive information differently some people like to communicate differently just kind of what are our rules of engagement what works for us what doesn't work for us uh how do we want to you know are we happy with outlining the agendas the way they are there's things we'd like change procedurally those kind of things that's the one time to really focus on the function of the council and the staff typically so we you know we can do them wherever the only rule is that you know it is still a public meeting has to be warned and so it has to be a place that is you know accessible meets accessibility requirements um you know in the years past we've done them in the police community room we can't do that now because the planning office is set up in there but you know the library you can you know we really wherever and sometimes it's good to get out of this room to do it i think so just that it's a different dynamics sit around a table somewhere and and do that so but i think once if you want to pick a time that you all can do it we can figure out a place so that'd be like you know and you can just say we either want to be in here or we want to be somewhere else and we'll we'll take it from there and i think to me it makes sense typically i and the assistant manager have been involved but that's also and sometimes it's facilitating sometimes and to me it makes sense to do it i got on an off week how long do you figure it takes to get prepared for it you know i think a lot of it depends on what you want to take on is do we want to have i mean they are good when you have a facilitator because then everyone you know then everyone can participate the mayor doesn't have to run the meeting and can be a equal participant so that you know we got to line someone up and find a space and those kind of things but i don't know no i within a month i would think we could do i mean the sooner we do it the better because you know last year we didn't get to it and then summer comes and then a flood come and right then it didn't happen so that's one of the reasons i wanted to put on the very first agenda so yep well let's see yeah i'm thinking and april we changed our our meeting dates so we're not are we doing the third and the seventh third and the 24th or we're doing the third and the 17th third and the 17th okay okay so we would have the 10th and the 24th free if we wanted to stick well but there were there were conflicts for the 10th and 24th that's why we did that okay yep you would have may first where you had a meeting on april 17th and then not another one until may eighth mm-hmm some of that might be worth doing the first and that gives us we're gonna have to get it blocked out it's all the same time that's exciting yeah i'm just like checking that's right we just see people at least yeah we could do food too you do all of all of your committees happen to meet the ones that only meet once a year they're all meeting that way yeah same here that's why i asked maybe we can meet a little bit early maybe five thirty instead of six thirty so i don't know that works for me personally yeah so just very unusual so five thirty may first okay and facility yeah in a location mm-hmm right and it seems to me at one point we were thinking about well would camera and want to do that please smart cookie you're on it in her own right all right okay yeah to midnight midnight okay i will just like any facilitators a little different what some do just so you know some may call interview some like to because they like to get an idea of what people want to talk about so that they'll perform the agenda ahead of time so that's it's useful so i will let you know once we line someone up we'll let you know and if they plan to do that you can expect a call cool great well that was easy yeah and then we'll see maybe maybe we'll hear from Lauren that she's not available and we'll we'll have to figure that out she's she's she had to get off the meeting she's yeah a long time ago so yeah yep so council reports start at your end to report i just want to say welcome to um consular gill and congratulations uh carry cell and uh jack that's all that's it what are you taking on the queue from the presentation i topic i'd like to get on a agenda but looking at the gender topics it's like i don't know where we're going to fit it in but the pfs is still a concern for me and with the news with what happened in coventry with gisela recently um it sounds like the filtration system won't be up and running till june or july maybe a conversation on our end about i think kurt twice and i don't know if they said that we're not accepting any right now um but just conversation about for how long and and what our standards are because i think after our last conversation was late at night and ended again i when it came out after i just remembered it a little differently so i'd love to finish that yep so um i just wanted just wanted to say that uh i i'm back for for a reason i i i learned a lot in that first year and uh i'm happy to be back it was it was uh fun working with this group i mean uh um considering the long list of intractable problems that we've you know facing us um i think we all get along pretty well we don't always agree on stuff but the process seems to work we know where it has to be improved i think but um i want to thank everybody for that it was a good year for me and um i'm ready for two more i guess thanks uh so i'm also happy to be back here and reelected and um taking on a second term and i want to welcome adrian to join our group um and uh this morning the social and economic justice advisory committee had a meeting and one of the things we talked about was a proposal to change the stipend policy that's that we currently have to expand it a bit and broaden it a bit so i will be they have a written proposal but i will be hoping we can get onto an agenda as soon as we can um the committee recognizes that the stipends are not in the budget for next year but wants to still have to make the best use of the time that we have left with that money in the budget and also to um hopefully look to the future when we can bring that back you know not assuming it's gone forever and so in the meantime to try to make as good a policy as we can so you'll be seeing that soon great well thank you all for the warm welcome i'm excited to be here um one thing that's been on my mind the past like week um and just listening to the constituents over the past uh month and especially after tonight i wanted to this is my first time i've ever proposed anything or sharing my thoughts with these groups or tell me if i'm doing this wrong um was to think about adding a new committee to our long list of committees um if we have to add this to an agenda but thinking about opportunities of volunteers to pull together a grant funding committee um there's a lot at my background i've uh grant wrote wrote a lot of grants i've written federal grants state grants nonprofit grants brought in 50 60 million dollars to organizations and i think there's a huge opportunity for our city to look at diverse funding opportunities um and it ties into our core services right like what are we funding what do we not fund so i think this is could potentially be a big project and a big undertaking but i know the staff doesn't have the capacity to do all the research and the folks that i've talked to in the community are super excited to be charged with that task so um i would love to capture that energy and that excitement and and propose you know on an agenda that we form a committee that focuses on grant writing fundraising for the city cool okay um it's to me a couple of things one uh thank you to the voters for returning me to this position i'm certainly didn't know whether i was going to be reelected or not and i appreciate the vote of confidence and we've got a lot of work ahead of us and i'm happy to still be here doing it um and thanks to the my fellow counselors for running again or and running and and being ready to do the work um i got a couple of other things to mention one i i just got a notice recently of a of a new movie uh directed by best o brian called just getting by uh that it focuses on vermont is dealing with food and housing insecurity and it's going to be shown in a variety of places including at the savoy theater on april 12th and so uh i think that and i think there's another day in april that i'm not seeing but but i think that that's something that uh people in montpellier deal with just like people in other parts of the state and so i think it's it's going to be worthwhile and i also want to take a moment to remember ken libertoff who who just died and ken some of you may have known him ken spent uh many years working in inner adjacent to the area that i work in which is uh working for services and rights of people with the psychiatric diagnoses and ken was tireless in doing the work and was always able to maintain a sense of the humor and and human connection while doing it and so he will be missed and i see the city clerk has turned his light on so it's time for his report well first of all i want to thank the voters too for electing me to uh find however many terms this is i always appreciate the support and that's it was great to see i'm glad that the board of abatement and board of civil authority have been mentioned as part of the council's responsibilities those are not optional responsibilities you all are on that board and boards and so many of you have been doing such a good job slogging through it the last few last few months several months and uh in terms of that coming up we're going to have a so the flood abatement requests are still coming in so we're going to have meetings with the board of abatement on the 28th and whatever the following thursday is which i don't have in front of me but i think those are going to be coming right up to that deadline that we have under statute for april 15th to have all these requests in uh to get the assistance on the education portion of the tax abatement so it'll be really important to have them we do have capital plaza for example which is probably the biggest single question mark we have to to address so yes please try to make those and we do have to have the majority of the council there to constitute a forum as far as the board of civil authority goes uh there is another election coming up it has not been formally set but informally it's going to be on april 30th and that'll be to consider whatever new budget the um the school comes up with um the guidance from the secretary of state is no longer that this is an extension of a previous election that is a stand alone election which means if any of you all watched the school board meeting that i was at i informed them that we would need to be sending absentee ballots automatically to everyone who voted early um for the previous election that is no longer their guidance so this will be a stand home election and folks who want early ballots will need to request them and there will be since i have um moved from the authority in the past for things like tabulating ballots early from previous authorizations for town meeting day for the board of civil authority since this is a different election we may need to have a board of civil authority meeting to authorize me to do that again should i even choose to do that i might might not be uh might not be called for this time but anyways i will be in touch i will also get you all copies since it is a new election of the folks who've been registered or removed from the the roles since then i'm overdue in getting that to you anyways um so that's i think that covers your bca and your boa stuff and other than that um i don't think i have anything else cool to you thanks i haven't talked much tonight yeah uh just quickly good news uh today the governor did sign the budget adjustment act um so while it was not perfect and did not contain everything we would have hoped it did contain 825 thousand dollars for the city to help offset our revenue losses for this current fiscal year so we'll be giving some thought and come back to you with a proposal for how we would allocate that as you know we caught a lot of projects and delayed a lot of purchases and those kind of things and have not filled some vacancies so we'll take a look at how that all works uh and with some thoughts uh we are still pushing for an additional we had asked for 1.3 million that is what you all had cut in the budget this year uh to to rescind from the budget so we're asking for another 475 thousand to get us from 825 to 1.3 million and we continue to push for the 2 million dollars for elevations and dealing with the properties we do believe that if we get the money in our hands we can turn it around uh much more fast efficiently and faster than uh FEMA can and others and so um we'll see uh where they go i know the state has particularly the administration has been pretty uh they they want to help but they've also but you know kind of i think take i understandably i don't really want to criticize and but hey that's what FEMA's for that's what that's money for why should we put up state money but it's the time it's time versus money and particularly you know cases like we heard tonight where people are really living in in tough situations so how can we we help so we're continuing to push for that uh so there's that we learned just today uh and so i don't really anything about this but our big changes in the hotel program coming at the end of the month and i got a call from Representative Casey saying there there's going to be some kind of grouping of like a hundred people in dear Berlin immobility wasn't sure where so we're still trying to learn more about that i don't know if you've heard about this yet chief um maybe national guard armory maybe something off dog river not sure so uh what's that is it this Friday i wasn't sure oh it's this Friday end of the week okay no i'm sorry end of the week you're right i said end of the month so those are hot off the press and we have not really been included in the planning on all of that so um more to come and we will keep you as informed as we can i've already mentioned you got the do updated handbooks and i would also say welcome to uh councilmember gill welcome back to all of you and thank you for running ever doing these jobs because we don't have a local government without you so appreciate it oh i realized there was something else i should have mentioned under my report you know people hear about criticism of our public uh employees and i also have a bit of praise for public employees uh on town meeting day when i was out parked across the street i uh wound up getting a parking ticket and it was obviously it was my car it was the car with my uh magnets on the side and someone pointed out the agent well you know that's the mayor's car and she said well i give a parking ticket to the president it was parked over time and and i think well that's that's great that's exactly what they're supposed to be doing so nobody is usually happy about getting a parking ticket but i'm very happy about not getting special treatment and not getting a parking ticket when i deserved one did your campaign pack paid for the ticket uh no what's with him do you have to do you have to provide any campaign expense disclosure form paid for the by the super pack or yes i'll just pay it out of contact and with nothing more we're adjourned at 10 44 p.m. thanks folks