 I would like to call to order the South Burlington City Council on Tuesday, January 18th and our first item of business is to pledge allegiance. I'll start. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. We have three members who are joining from home. Counselors Chinden Barrett and Koda, and I'm anticipating that Counselor Emery is going to join us in person. She's not here quite yet, but we're going to begin. Instructions on exiting the building and review of technology? Yes. Thank you. First, thanks all for being flexible with our move up to 301 again tonight for the as it's Tuesday night and the DRB is in the auditorium. So if people were in the room, I would say that you go out the door in either left or right down either the front staircase or the back staircase and then out the doors in the front of the building or the rear of the building. For those participating remotely, thank you for participating remotely. If you are interested in providing comment during any agenda item, please just indicate so such in the chat and we will be sure to call on you. We are not monitoring the chat for content. So if you want to make a content contribution tonight, please indicate that you would like to and we will call on you. That's all I have. And I would just say counselors, it probably would be easier if you keep your face visible and raise your hand rather than having a two step process. We'll try to watch carefully. Okay. Item three, agenda review, additions, deletions or changes in order of agenda items? So staff does have a request to add a new agenda item to consider impossible possibly approve an amendment to the land development regulations that are in draft form for your hearing on February 7th. We recommend including that between items 11 and 12. So a new item 12 then numbered down from there. We anticipate if you choose to add this that the first half of that discussion will be an executive session to provide attorney client communication. And then you may come out or you will come out of executive session, but you may take action after that. Okay. Anyone have any problems with that? Okay. Seeing none, we'll add that as well. We might get 11B. We number everything. Okay. Comments and questions from the public not related to the agenda items? There's no one here. So if there's anyone online, Robert McDonald, did you want to? Yes. Hi. Good evening, everybody. Thanks. I just wanted to bring up something that is kind of a safety issue as far as travel by vehicle down Hinesburg Road. When you're going southbound, down Hinesburg Road, when you go over the interstate and there's speed limit change that goes from 40 to 45 right by Oak Creek Village. And then it continues at 45 miles an hour up to Van Sickland. Speed is one thing, but the other big issue that I see here with this stretch of highway is that I live off of DuBois Road and I've had some people visiting me in our neighborhood when they leave our neighborhood. When you're turning right off of DuBois Road or the new road, Wildflower, for example, Wildflower's new road that went in several years ago, but nothing's changed with the highway. So what happens is you have a line of traffic going northbound on Hinesburg Road and people who are turning right are looking to the left and the traffic passes and you say, okay, it's good to go. So what does happen on occasion? Somebody has passed another person going southbound on Hinesburg Road. I had a friend leaving our neighborhood in a pickup truck was passing somebody just as he was leaving Hinesburg or DuBois Drive and this person was out passing and he had really a very little place to go. He had to veer off really quickly and almost had a head-on collision. I've been passing that road as well and I always think about, I hope nobody's pulling out of Hinesburg or DuBois or Wildflower because they're going to get clobbered by somebody passing. So it's a big stretch of road. It goes about giving a lot of visibility. Helen, you probably know this, you drive it a lot, I'm sure. I almost got nailed. Yeah, there's plenty of visibility there to pass and you have inpatient drivers who just want to take that 45 mile an hour, kick it up to 50-55 and boom, it's an accident waiting to happen. I'm just bringing this up because I don't want to see a serious accident happen and I think my suggestions would be, number one would be, first of all, get no passing signs posted on that stretch of highway. We have to go to the state to do that and probably partition them to do it. I'm not sure if city council can ask them to do that or how it works. Number two, I talked to an engineer who just recently retired from the state who worked on highway and he said a good thing to put in there would be a rumble strip as well, which is on the median. So not only do you have the no passing signs, but you have a rumble strip that runs right along the median. Right now it's a double line median and I think people still are allowed to pass on a double line median. There's no signs that says no passing. Those are just some suggestions. I think 40 miles an hour probably is one thing to go back down to 40 miles an hour for that stretch. Number two, no passing signs. Number three, the rumble strip. I just want to bring that up because it's an issue and I've had other people have had encounters like that. So it's just an accident waiting to happen someday. Well thank you very much. I'm sorry. I just want to add one other thing from last week's session. I know I was on the planning commission for seven years back in I think I was off in 2012. We were always looking at bicycle and pedestrian friendly items on the agenda trying to make the city more bike and pedestrian friendly. It's a tough nut to crack in some parts of the city as you all know and when you are bike paths or our rec paths are really critical in the city and I think I noticed that there's no line items and I think Bob Britt brought this up last meeting about maintenance of the bike path rec paths. I've been watching kind of the bike path deteriorate off of Butler farms, the big huge cracks in the bike path and every year I say well they're going to probably seal that or something or fill the crack but it doesn't get done. And I've also called the city engineer in the past about holes or there was a sink hole at one point that was there for several months before it got filled after even making some requests to have that done. So I just I just would like to see on a line item in the budget that addresses maintenance for the for the rec paths. We don't have anything there and we kind of try to look like we're trying to steal money from paving to get things done but you know when you go to the Burlington city of Burlington you look at travel velocity the top 10 things to do in Burlington the number one thing that comes up is is the bike path. You know so it's something that we we have a real jewel here in South Burlington. We put a lot of resources in it's a great amenity for our city and we just need to take care of them and and put some money towards it. So that's kind of my my words for tonight anyway. Thanks for hearing me. Okay well thank you very much. We did several probably months back write a letter to actually it was quite a few months back was before your time and we asked the state to lower the speed limits on Heinsberg. They came back with a letter that basically said they could lower one area five miles an hour but that was about it. But we did not ask for no passing or a rumble strip and I don't know what the what are the next steps if we need to get back to them and say yeah well I guess five miles an hour who will is a little bit slower and we'll take it or if they were just going to do it. I don't know so you remind me and we we will all city manager to follow up. Yeah I think in two plays yes I think people are always going to go over that when they see that kind of a long stretch you're still going to probably exceed the speed limit. The no passing signs might be something that we need because you know you really have to almost say that that this is this is not allowed in this stretch you know and the rumble strip would also help I think a lot and the speed limit they all would be off free in my opinion. Well I certainly agree with you thank you very much. Welcome. Is there anyone else wishing to raise an issue not on the agenda? Okay seeing that. Can I just say just on the last topic I know it's public comment but there is a bill in Montpelier H126 a house bill that would allow municipalities to have greater control over speed on state highways. It has a number of supporters. I have no idea if we will pass but it would help us in Tynesburg Road and other state highways that pass through our borders. Yeah. Okay well Jesse had said we could write letters of support for bills right or yeah well perhaps under new business or our next meeting we can have an item related to that and the council could discuss that and potentially agree to submit a letter in support of that. Thank you for keeping us in touch with that. I'm sure there are quite a few little towns along Route 7 that would like to control the speed and I appreciate that. Okay if there are no other comments or questions we'll move on to item five announcements and the city managers report. So Tim do you have an announcement? No thank you. You said no is that right or you did? Okay I said no. Okay Tom. I would just use this time to agree with what I just heard Robert McDonald say during public comment and I think we should definitely look at the rumble strips in the median as well as those no passing signs and I also concur that our bike paths are a true asset for the region and city. Okay Matt. I have stuff on GMT but I'll wait till later for that. Okay all right well I oh excuse me Megan okay I have two updates and Jesse and I met with the school board leadership and which as we do once a month was a good conversation. They're interested in engaging with the climate committee and had identified certain things that they've already done and I suggested it might be really good for the climate committee to hear the different kinds of activities the school is undertaking and get an update in that respect. They're interested and they will discuss I think being part of our charter committee comment or proposal as we direct the charter committee. They did note that the school budget is only rising 0.6 percent so they were kind of happy with that. They're working on the impact fees as you recall they had raised that issue and they are working on it and at our steering committee meeting next week we can anticipate some kind of update. Then oh and then they describe I thought this was interesting they have sort of three phases that they're discussing or how they're dealing with the challenges of too many children and schools that need updating or maybe even a new school. So their first focus is going to be the elementary schools and they're planning on I think they said they had agreed that they were going to use some trailers for administrative purposes which would free up space in the school for the additional students in the elementary schools the elementary schools. I don't know if it's all three of them but they have talked about that. Did you get a sense of how many? I think at least two of the schools and four trailers per school I remember something like that yeah and then phase two and then they're going to continue with you know what do we need to do and hopefully we'll get a new or better demography about the community and they'll consider potentially even building a new school. And then phase two is the focus on the high school and they are anticipating some kind of proposal I guess in 24-25. And then the third phase is dealing with the middle school and he did say that the high school would probably include building a new structure in the back where they had originally an entirely new school. That's kind of what he said but that's a couple of years off and they don't haven't taken any votes on that or anything but that's was kind of the phasing in of their work. So I thought that was helpful. Then I also attended on the 13th the climate task force and we got an overview of the Vermont Action Plan and we talked quite a bit about the audiences that we are interested in engaging with and we came up with about five. One was residents the other was the city government which I guess would include the school board as governance as well. Then the schools landowners was recommended businesses and bankers and then employees. So trying to engage these different populations. I mean we're part of the I guess government part of the city council to get their interest and engagement and thinking involved in the action plan development. That's kind of where we are. They're going to come back with looking at the state plan which has I think they said 200 strategies and hopefully being able to go through some and identify some that clearly aren't municipalities playbook and then further refine that list to I don't know no one knew what a number was. They said a hundred but that seems like a lot too for that the city could focus on and then the task force is interested in dividing up in small groups to take one of those areas because there's I think four main areas in the plan. So that's kind of where we are. It's still more gathering information and organizational kinds of efforts of how we will go forward. But again I'm always so impressed with the residents who serve on that committee. Holy moly. So that's great. Okay, those are my reports. So I just have three quick updates. One as I've been doing the last bunch of meetings want to give you a quick update on the South Burlington COVID situation. So in the last week between January 5th and January 12th, South Burlington saw 357 new COVID cases. It's almost 100 more than we had seen in a lot and an increase of 100 from what we've seen the last week and a 21 percent overall increase. So pretty big numbers. We do understand that there is legislation on the governor's desk to allow for remote meetings. We are monitoring that. Likely some of our committees will start moving to full remote and if the council would like to consider that in the future we can. Although this seems to be working out fairly well in a hybrid model and just encourage folks to be careful, mask up and get vaccinated or booster. I want to send a quick thanks to the public works team for coming in on the holiday to take care of snow operations yesterday. They're working really hard and in a leadership transition really appreciate their extra efforts. And then finally just a reminder that our next meeting is next Monday. It will be a steering committee with the school board and it will be in the auditorium downstairs. And then we are back to our regular two meetings a month. So really appreciate the weekly meetings through the month of January. So the following Monday we're back to our no we'll be on coming Monday for steering committee week off and then February 7. Thank you. Two meetings a week is going to seem like we hardly see each other. Okay. Moving on to item six then the consent agenda. There's three items disbursements approving the FY 23 unified planning work program project applications and approving that transportation impact fee credit request for 1068 Williston Road which is the Hampton holiday insight. So I move that we approve. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Is there discussion? Exciting to see the pedestrian bridge over the interstate on that list. So yes it is. Yeah. This is your 2022 project so it's been bumped up there. It's good. Okay. If there's no further discussion you're ready for the vote all in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. But passes five zero. Moving on to item seven which is considering an extension or amendment to the city's mask mandate. So per the state law that enabled us to impose a local mask mandate we are required to revisit that initially every 45 days and now every 30 days moving forward. So we are coming to the end of our 45 day window as you remember you previously passed a resolution mandating masks and publicly owned buildings that were operated by the city and open to the public. You now have the option to renew that or do something else. We've provided in your packet three different options which you also previously discussed. One is to maintain the first one linked is to maintain the current status quo. The second is to require masks in all city-owned buildings as well as all buildings open to the public in the city. And the third is that same city-owned buildings and all buildings open to the public with the opt out option that councillor Chinden suggested in our previous conversation allowing businesses to put their own practices into place. Okay well I would like to propose that we I will move that we move the second resolution which is the use of face coverings within city-owned buildings and then places of public access within the city of South Burlington. The reason I would support I support that is I think this Omnichrome is pretty scary. I get concerned when I I don't go out to very many businesses but the ones I do go to I've seen an uptick in people not wearing masks because it's not required anymore. And I think that puts us all at risk. Granted we have a high percentage of people who are vaccinated but we also know that even if you're vaccinated and boosted you still can contract that variant. You may not have any issues but you can spread it. And I think it's incumbent upon us to really keep our the public as safe as possible. And even after we failed to pass that the last time I continued to get and I think all of you did as well numerous emails from the public saying please impose a mask mandate in public buildings. I'm shopping elsewhere where I feel it's safe. So I know that's anecdotal. I don't have any you know hundreds of people who made those comments but I think there's some validity to their statements. So if there's any comments discussion. Matt and then Tim. Yeah Ellen I certainly share your concerns and I hope everyone wears a mask. I know I'll be wearing a mask long after Omnichrome is gone but I cannot support. I support the extension of the existing mandate in city-owned buildings. But I can't support an amendment to extend it to privately owned buildings because we can enforce it. We don't have the resources to enforce it and we shouldn't be finding companies, businesses that fail to enforce it. So if we're not going to find them then it is essentially an unenforceable mandate and we shouldn't pass laws that we're not prepared to enforce. So I share your concern. I hope everyone wears a mask. I think we have the right and we do and we should enforce it in city-owned buildings but in private buildings they're open to the public. I don't think we can enforce it and I don't think we have the ability to enforce it and therefore we shouldn't pass it. So I'd be voting. Okay thank you. Tim. Yeah this is a public health message that we're sending to all locations where the public is allowed to enter inside during an extremely contagious variant of the COVID-19 virus and we did not know that this would happen the last time we passed the partial mandate just for the city buildings. So I in fact yeah we don't have any way to enforce it but to me as a consumer walking into a retail establishment if there's a sign that says mask required to enter I believe that we're going to get more people wearing masks in those establishments than we had for where it doesn't you know I don't know what the sign say because it's left up to every business right. Burlington has a mandate and I can tell you that you know if you go to city market in Burlington I don't think I've ever seen anybody in there without a mask on right it's also a grocery store. Some of the other grocery stores in South Carolina are very high percentage wearing masks but if you go to Lowe's it's not and I was at Costco on Sunday and I was appalled absolutely appalled at the number of people not wearing masks people who were very old as well older than me even and I just I was dumbfounded that they would take a chance to be at a crowded retail establishment you know amid the Omicron period and not and not have any fear of it whatsoever which I mean it just so I think if we just say that it's required we don't have any way to to back it up and I don't want any penalties I just want every business to have that sign that says masks are required to enter and I think that you'll get a higher percentage and our goal is that everybody should wear a mask but we're not going to get everybody but the more that we get the better right. Tom? Yeah so I want to say a few things one I'm generally the same line as counselor Barrett there I don't think we can win on this there's going to be opponents for this for whatever reason and there's going to be proponents for it I will say I received some pretty compelling contacts from people I greatly respect in the community and this Omicron variant is killing people and it is overrunning our hospitals and this mask mandate might not help but it might and it's only for 30 days so I'm in support of it I do think I'd love to hear other thoughts that if you were seeing the same emails I'm getting I think that the exception in the version three will reduce our headaches for the stores or the public places that just really don't want to require a mask right now we effectively have an opt-in environment any organization can put up a sign and say we require masks if you look at organ donation countries that have opt-in organ donation they get very low participation rate what I'm suggesting is let's enforce this let's put this in required masks across the board South Burlington for 30 days but then acknowledge that there's going to be a small percentage of organizations that just don't want to do it because of all the reasons you've probably seen in your emails and that's why I think the language in the third version is worth considering if I don't have three votes for the third version I will support the second version because I think it's important to do but I would love clarity on what Tim Barrett just did state from the city manager and I don't know if Chief Burke is on but could you speak to the enforcement piece can you confirm that we will not be enforcing this that cops will not be issuing tickets or arresting people or citing for trespass what could you tell us about the enforcement that will be implied by the second or third version of this resolution sure and so I just want to clarify for those looking at the attachments the specific paragraph council chin and is talking about is the paragraph immediately after the second now therefore so if you are looking for that specific language that's what he's talked about for the opt-out so Chief Burke is here and can speak to that what I how I can answer you counselor chin is that in none of these resolutions do we have any enforcement mechanism this is this would be the same approach we previously took and are taking currently at city hall which is education education education so that's been fairly successful here at city hall and that's the approach that we would recommend that all public places take how do I get on the screen sit there and I will move the camera over to you for no reason to zoom so what I have to offer as the police chief is that you know even this mandate as you as you have it written now would imply that government will do something what we need to avoid completely is involving the police where we have absolutely no authority and what's going to come down to some type of civil trespass issue if the property owner is the complaint what that doesn't where really gets confusing is when another patron of a commercial space then calls the cops into that space to talk about this mass mandate it's putting police officers exactly where we don't want them and I'm really against you know the this this idea of having a mandate that has zero enforcement capability yes and then Megan I think it was Tom I'm I thought it was Tim that's your hand Tom talk to Tom you go first okay you go first I think I want I want to confirm I heard from the chief of police that you are against us instituting the second or third version of this resolution did you just say that so I will confess that I am not completely fluent in what your what each version exactly has but what I am fluent is is our inability to enforce any of this which doesn't preclude people from calling the police and involving us in something that we have no authority over so if they were to call you you can't say that's just not our we certainly can't we can ask our dispatchers to do that but at one it's putting additional work and you know a lot of time when you think about our one dispatcher on duty trying to talk someone who is really a contentious issue and ultimately what will end up is that the complaint will require some type of police interface whether we physically go or whether then we put them on the phone with the officer in charge it will just involve the police in something that we have no really no reason to be involved with at this stage actually I said why don't we let go and then Tim did you have another comment or were you done yeah we had a mandate once before how much activity were did the police have at that time so under executive order we also had a stay you know stay at home order so the amount of people that were actually out in the community the number of businesses that were actually open was very very small and we handled executive order complaints between myself and lieutenant shawn demore we would actually follow up with each business that we got a complaint about to just educate them and then report them back report the resolution of each complaint back to the attorney general's office now again that was like two years ago and at a time where community doesn't look the way community does now our city is fully functioning and again the telegraph that we have a mandate will trigger calls to the police one we can't handle two we have no business being a part of have you heard from burlington what their response is how many times the police have been called about their mandate I don't even know what state the police department's in in general terms right now they have had to prioritize all of their calls for service so how they're even contending with whatever calls may or may not come in I don't know I can follow up on that I have a meeting with their chief tomorrow yeah I was going to ask about williston which I was venture to say we're a little bit closer to and I'll just say for for the record that we knew very little about omicron back on December 6th and I think that the deciding factor for me is that even vaccinated people are not protected from omicron that they could still contract it where delta you were protected so that to me was tip the balance I am very sensitive to these issues yet when I go to neighboring williston and I saw people prior to their mask mandate whether wearing a mask or not wearing a mask it was up to them now they there's full compliance and I see no issues and I think that the public in general I see it here in south burlington where we didn't have a mask mandate back in December I see now employees wearing masks where they weren't wearing masks prior so I think omicron has put everybody on alert and I think that this is just another little reminder that we're taking this seriously as a community and as far as enforcement goes I certainly don't encourage anyone to call the police I would encourage them to call sorry city manager's office or you can yell at your your city councilor since we're the ones making this decision but in the past what I understand I would contact if I received any email I would contact the city manager the city manager would reach out to the the establishment that's how it was in the past so that is the course that I would see I hear you chief thank you um but oh matt and then it looks like um recovered would like to speak so serving on the green mount transit authority the gmt because they received federal funds has had a mask mandate you get on the bus you wear a mask it has been one of the most contentious issues for our drivers who are short staff who are out sick who are working over time dealing with that so much so that you may have seen it on wcax a police officer with the city of burlington was injured responding to an incident which someone refused a mask and a private employer a bus driver tried to enforce it um top so councilor cota I gotta tell you I was going back and forth on this and I know we're gonna get that that's inevitable uh for me I just see this as 30 days during really cold months in vermont that it might help reduce the demand on our hospital so I'm still inclined to support it I do think that the third version will save us some headaches I think of certain organizations I think of theatrical performances right now the anybody that wants to do any type of show which is happening in other districts like Essex they can't do that without with their masks on it just it inhibits their operation so I I feel like the opt-out language is going to be desired um I still support that third version and I'll support this second I just also want to say I love councilor emory's point I want to say I don't want the police enforcing this at all call us call me if you have an issue I want those calls call your city councilors we should hear it we're not going to enforce it but call us if you wanted to enforce this when I say thank you castle army that's a great idea and if I could just add sure by calling us we wouldn't necessarily have to wait 30 days if a reaction needs to occur right that we would be fully apprised of any issues that would need to any alteration we have rick hovered tim did you want to speak again are you set let rick let rick speak I'll speak after okay rick and then barb service also wants to chime in that's fine I can wait hello everybody can you hear me all right we can okay I don't know if you can see me my I don't I can't tell if my camera is working it's not okay I'm sorry I apologize I know I want to have a shutter discovering your camera right now I don't think so least far as I know but thank you I wanted to speak it's pretty clear which direction we're going on this but I wanted to speak on a on a broader level about the whole idea of what the role of city council it could also be our governor and our legislature or our president and congress ought to be on balancing our rights against the that we all enjoy in America freedom liberty against the fact that when people choose not to exercise their rights responsibly they deny those rights and freedom and liberty to a majority of all of us and I thought I've always thought and Tim I'm a lot older than you try 80 I just hit it a couple weeks ago so you're in good shape so but I've always thought that the purpose of the people we elect was to make well considered thoughtful decisions on the biggest issues that affect all of us and make them in a way not that protects just a minority not that protects a majority of 50 plus one but makes decisions that benefit the greatest percentage of all hundred percent of us and with that in mind it's pretty clear that covetous in some form is around to stay for a while whether we like it or not it's also clear that masking social distancing and vaccination really helps and if you get the percentages up high enough we can we can reduce its spread it's also clear that the best way to keep our businesses open our schools working to keep people employed not staying home either minding kids or because they're scared to go to work is to do those things mask social distancing get vaccinated so my question is this right now a minority of people there's a majority of all of us that are perfectly willing to do the kind of things I'm talking about but there's a significant minority of us that feel that their right to freedom and liberty gives them the right to do whatever they want and when they do that they spread the virus it screws up households it screws up our business our economy and isn't it the job of legislators to consider the fact that when we're making policy if the people who choose to ignore our lives face no sanctions they can do whatever they want even though they are adversely affecting the interests of the majority of us how are we doing our job how are we making policy that serves the purpose of the greatest percentage of all hundred percent of us if we don't enforce it I mean if we didn't have a line saying you've got to drive on the right side of the road our poor police force would we'd have chaos and that's a rule that is set to benefit all of us there are sanctions for that it's perfectly possible to set up enough negative incentives for people who are not going to to give them incentive to imply but if we don't go to that level we are implicitly just approving the behavior of that minority of people that aren't going to apply and my question for you to think about is I don't think it's going to affect the outcome tonight is are you really doing your job if that's the way you let it end up what's your responsibility as people we elect to serve us all thank you thank you bar service hello to all of you I miss you but this is an important conversation so I wanted to be sure that I was here tonight I think I've got all the wrong buttons going here or something there we go okay all right good anyway um I I thought Rick's comments were interesting but it would it might lend somebody to think that you should hold off on this decision I certainly um being in a place where there are 40 million people and there is a mask mandate and I go in stores and I see the vast majority of people wearing masks I certainly don't understand why Vermonters can't do that however I accept that there are some who don't but I would certainly support that you act um I'm I'm mildly inclined to agree with Councilor Chittenden that that the third option might be an interim choice with some discussion then with Chief Burke about what you're going to do in 30 days because I think in 30 days you're still going to have to review and renew a decision and so there may be a modification that you make in 30 days I certainly don't want to make Chief Burke's life any more difficult I would like to hope that most Vermonters would follow it and that most of the stores would I mean we see lots of stores already that have mask mandates even though the mandate isn't there so I certainly support what I hear is the general direction of the discussion and would encourage you to consider maybe some enforcement guidelines that you would add at a future meeting date. Thank you. Are there any other comments by the public or councillors? Oh we have a public member here would you come up to the table please Michael? It's very quick I believe Williston has a mandate that I believe they do too and can we find out how well it's working for them and whether how they're managing with enforcement somebody told me the other day that he went to Home Depot and thought that this is a good place call the police because they can collect dozens and dozens of $50 fines so I'm not sure about enforcement how it's working but I think it would be worthwhile for South Birmingham to find out how they're doing. Before we vote on this is that what you're suggesting before we make a decision? Well maybe for the next round it's a bit late tonight. Okay so this the paragraph that starts a location that is open to the public is the opt-out language if folks want to take a look at it. So that's a third option that's the third option and as I understand this Tom supports this as his first choice in large part because of theater that you can't it's harder to I mean if you're going to put on a play if you can have your theater have a sign that says masks are optional then the actors and actresses can perform without a mask otherwise they would be required to perform with a mask or in some other words it's also sort of like let's see who wants to be a spreader what what you know business puts up a sign that says you don't have to wear a mask if you want to do business with me. So really both but in that first example that theater could still require it of the attendees they still have that authority but they could in fact opt out so that they would allow their actors or actresses to in fact not wear a mask in order to do the performance and then on the second one I'm thinking the targets the Hannaford's the Shaw's I'm not sure I'm supposed to list names they're gonna enforce it and they can rest on the fact that the city is mandating it but I can think of small sole proprietorships with very strong points of view on this or if they really want to opt out I think this language will is honors the spirit and intent of what we're trying to do while still gives them at least for the next 30 days the ability to not be forced by their local city council to have to require all their patrons to wear masks again I will support option two but my first choice is option three to give this off that language for the next 30 days and thank you made yeah I think that the opting out is not really enforced here because in either case you have to put up a sign right whenever you go to a neighboring community where there is a mask mandate they've put up a sign so you have to it's basically choose and to put up the sign you want I don't see the same ease to just opt out and I just I think that I feel very strongly that we are in a new phase of a public health crisis I feel very strongly about us making you know a decision that is sensitive to to that crisis and to the most vulnerable among us it's now scientific fact that vaccines do not protect people from the omicron variant and having had the the illness before does that mean that we cannot spread it again I mean these things now are scientific fact I think that we are in a position to act on that fact and if we need to alter as we move forward we can certainly do that you know I to Tim's point I mean we're human beings we're not going to get a hundred percent compliance rate I was in a country where they've had four lockdowns and they weren't getting a full compliance rate with their masking mandates that which were outdoors following Christmas so it's it's you still have to at some point say we are taking this seriously and I think that's what this the second option says to our community we're taking this seriously and then we we act based on how the situation situation progresses I certainly don't want any you know brawls in the aisles of stores or outside of food franchises that could be something we would have to take into a serious consideration okay we have Cindy and then Diane buggy Cindy first yes okay um I just want to say that I was the one or one of the ones that messaged Helen about how I would know I would be shopping in Burlington after your last decision I still am shopping in Burlington um and I go to city market there's never an issue they have a huge sign out front that says mass required and everybody's got them on and prior to the Burlington mandate not everyone did have them on in city market in the south end um and some of their cashiers did not have them on either so this hasn't been an issue it's now the rule and they're abiding by the rule I don't know about the buses I don't ride a bus so I can't tell you how that's working for me but I think this is more about public health than it is about private interests and private businesses and small small proprietorships which I understand might have more of an issue for some reason I'm not sure why um but this is public health and I think it's the duty of the city council to go with option two because that will provide for the public health to the best thank you thank you um Diane so um kind of picking up what Cindy said I do think that option two best supports public health and our obligation as a community to support public health if we're not able to come or we not we you are not able to come to some consensus on option two I do wonder about option three as an intermediate step um businesses would have to disclose that they evaluated the mandate request and that they have made a decision to opt out that would also give people information about whether to um frequent that business thank you any other comments Rick you have your light on did you want to say something else just one small comment and it relates to what Tom Chittenden said in talking about some of those businesses who might not want to comply and I just want to point out that when they choose not to comply they just have the opportunity to pass on the virus to all of the customers and people who pass through the business and spread it around to the rest of us you know it gets back to the point I'm raised that's all okay thank you Michael I know I'm late to the party but uh Tom mentioned something about theaters and uh I don't know if anybody's been to the Flynn race lately but you go to the Flynn you have to have a vaccination certificate that you must wear a mask we recently hosted one of the members of the orchestra for a couple of days they are tested twice a day so it's pretty rigorous and uh I think option two would be just fine thank you okay there's no other oh Tim just two words as people travel from town to town Burlington South Burlington Williston Colchester I for the next 30 days I just want businesses to have that sign on the door that says masks are required I think people walk they've got the mask in their their coat and most people will just wear it automatically because they don't want to get Omicron and some people are on the fence but if they see the sign and we get 89.5 percent compliance as opposed to 84 percent I think an epidemiologist would say thank you that it helps so if we get an extra five to 10 percent of people wearing masks in in our establishments I think that is a good thing for public health and I think it's a small price to pay to put a sign on the door and just for the next 30 days okay are you ready for the vote all right I have to do roll call I should have on the consent agenda too right if it's unanimous you don't have to but if there's a chance okay well we know it won't be unanimous so I will go down Tim Barrett this is for option two right yes option two yeah yay okay uh Tom Chittenden hi Matt Coda no Megan Emery yay and the chair votes yay so option two is adopted I vote four to one thank you okay moving on and that's next time this is good we need it item eight is FY 23 budget discussion and approval of the FY 23 general fund the capital approval plan enterprise fund budgets with direction to send all to the steering committee so Andrew may you have some sure sure I just say yeah in your packets you should have seen a memo where I outline five options along with the associated spreadsheets what those tax impacts would be for each of those options you also see that uh Martha and I updated the CIP to bring the Spears Street Wibing project forward two years based on direction from council at the last meeting before we go into the options at all I did want to briefly talk about some of the cost drivers in this year's budget annuals screen share so hard to see for folks in the room I'll try and show in so this is the CPIU northeast and this is kind of the most recent numbers again apologies about the size so what we are looking at are as you can see significant increases across the board and inflation for 4.4 percent I believe is what when I first came to council about projections for FY 23 budget 4.4 percent is what we were looking at that has continued to increase over the past few months and so City of South Wellington in our budgeting process is not immune to those to that particular cost driver I will show you particularly where it impacts these are are sort of relatively fixed cost drivers my first forecasted this out back in August or September the number number we had was about 1.2 million and increases pretty close to that number that's salary that's that's without any of the newly included positions we're looking at a total increase of around 600,000 that's with the assumption as we are in a contract collective bargaining year of a 3.5 percent increase in COLA plus step which equates to a little over a 5 percent increase in our sort of fixed currently funded salaries back in August of last year council also approved refunding three city positions with ARPA dollars the way that was presented to council at the time as we would slowly roll roll those into the general fund there are 100 funded with ARPA dollars this year there will be 20 percent that's our 80 percent on the next year which means the general fund will account for 20 percent of it our growth health numbers we saw it's still a very competitive increase from where we have been but that's certainly a cost driver pension was a low number we had a very good year this last year our ICMA match that's a function of the overall salary increases our property insurance which i've talked about before is relative to this building being folded into our overall property insurance refunding the CIP was a priority for us this year it was our overall CIP funding from FY 20 to FY 21 was cut by a little over 400,000 this is an effort to get back some of that capacity and also i think we've talked at at length now a little bit about this about the pennies increase which will have also which is also a cost driver i also wanted to show kind of historic tax rate numbers this is over the last say 20 years or more you can see back in FY 26 the point 83 and so and i have noted here when we had a large reappraisal obviously there's a significant decrease in the tax rate proportionate and this might be helpful to eliminate where we've been and where we are now one thing i will note that every time council votes and puts forward a budget there's always the estimate of what the grand list will be at the time we set the tax rate this does not always directly align with what the tax rate change is which is why you will see some differences between the two numbers in the right column and in the tax rate change and i think i think with that before you you have two resolutions one is to set the special funds as well as the general fund to be warned later agenda as well as to approve the use of ARPA funds there's also a second resolution to approve the CIP so with that i'm happy to go over sort of each option one by one with you that i presented in the memo or simply to take it take it from here i think would be good to go over the options is a council want to hear each all of the options yeah okay so option one all right so option one can we project on the screen he's working on that tip we'll get it projected thank you all right so this is option number one this would be to bring the overall increase and the tax rate down and yeah let me see if i can from what is currently kind of the in front of you from the the budget presentations we've gone through in the last couple of months is an overall 7.55 percent increase if the council were considering a a flat three percent increase at or below we'd be looking at cutting a little over 800 000 from the the current budget that's been presented that is option one can you just circle can you move if you move your cursor doesn't move on there or actually i think i can so just by orientation this is the operation tax rate this one negative 1.6 percent so we would be decreasing the tax rate going to operations costs and this is the overall with the pennies added in each spreadsheet has those two percentages and just to be clear and forgive me for scrolling up to the the written text just to be clear how that is divided out because this pennies increase as we talked about for has an overall standalone impact of a 1.08 percent increase and so the overall general fund increase with that removed from the 2022 column and removed from the 2023 column is a 1.92 percent increase option two this option highlights a three percent increase in that first difference that i talked about and also allows on top of that the fixed 1.08 percent increase to the pennies in order for this budget to be approved we would need to cut a little over 600 and i believe it's 620 000 from the currently proposed general fund budget and i've prepared provided a list of recommended cuts from the budget in order to achieve that option three is generally speaking what's in front of you and that reflects a 6.47 percent increase in general fund as well as on top of that the reappraisal and impact 1.08 of the increase in the pennies levy option number four an option that was brought up at the last council meeting last monday and that is some at that includes some sample ballot language to reduce the previously voter approved pennies reduce the amount of that levy down to 0.77 percent that would effectively reduce the amount that is leveled back to to pre reappraisal rates and option five would be in order to offset some of those one-time impacts of the increase to the cents from the reappraisal we could use revenue revenue loss arpa funds to offset that so that would be a hundred and nine a little over 190 000 that would go into the revenue side of the budget okay any questions for andrew just a quick one if um go back to option four i just want to point out that you i think you mean uh point 007 7 right yes yep okay just just making that otherwise it would be more expensive yes okay um option five what is the downside for option five using the revenue revenue loss arpa funds is there any impact or i mean yeah so the the only impact is that that is tax capacity we would need to build into the next year next year's budget um we don't know what factors will be in front of us at that time but we are looking we are coming off a very you know a less than a one percent budget increase last year um and so we're you know a lot of this budget is reflective of that trying to catch up as well as the inflation the inflation costs that that impacts our budget so this would still need to be added eventually it would catch up to us um but it's certainly a way to offset uh kind of a high increase this year well hillan i just option four looking at the the proposed ballot language is uh it is too difficult and and i it's not that i regret bringing up the issue i i think that you would be a poor choice to go with option four at this time that's my opinion i don't know if anybody else feels the same way well i i i would agree with you yeah okay thank you i mean i appreciate right i don't know if anyone else will but yeah i appreciate the work that was put into that trying to craft that language but now they look at it um it could really confuse um the voters and that'd be difficult so yeah and i i do think that when the voters passed the open space fund penny and the the penny to pass i think they made a commitment and i i truly don't think that they saw that as part of that annual increase either on salaries and you know healthcare and uh our fire trucks and ambulances and police cruisers and all these things that we need to take care of including as we heard robert McDonald say maintenance for our our trails so i i i i think it's really important that we you know they hear us talking about this i do see this as a respectful conversation for us to have because the numbers do tell a story but i think that it's important to look at how reappraisals do affect the tax rate i thank andrew for for putting that together i also think the annual increases it's important for us as counselors and therefore advocates for what we determine to put on the ballot that we really point out to to our residents how much traditionally or historically our increases uh are and can put this put this year in comparison uh and you know i i don't uh think that you know this is an easy thing for anyone to consider either but i would put it out there that because the schools are are forced to work within this act 60 and 62 and and the tax rate has because of our the under values of our of our properties that they have in fact seen increases that did not represent the the actual increase just that number that percentage number i see that the on the city side now the opposite right now that the school has a what a 0.6 percent increase right we don't have to deal with those big state uh you know readjustments that that can throw things askew right now we're having to deal with with the actual and again this is complicated but with the actual impact on on our tax rate because of the reappraisal which makes that percentage look bigger but if we look at the the the actual dollar amounts that we are asked to give in addition year after year um you know if we look at last week's meeting uh before adding the hundred thousand dollars in the cctv for the planning commission i find that 38 for an average home that falls right in that i would say average area about the the annual increases that we have asked our tax payers to consider for approval and then for the condos it's 25 dollars right 38 for the average residential 25 for the average condo and that is without the planning commission meetings without the extra staff support for the fire department and without the climate action plan reserve so that's where i think we come back to our discussion of last week to be honest um i i do not hear any appetite from the public for those pennies to to be meddled with they they've made their decision and and that was some time ago other comment helen can i just you certainly made sorry okay does matt want to speak first you can go ahead tim if you're sorry i just i just want to remind everybody that we went through a reassessment and there's a large percentage of of of residential owners in the city who have seen a substantial tax increase a lot of which can be attributed not only to um increase values but also to the increased burden on the residential part from the commercial part because of the pandemic right so i just want to be sensitive to the fact that we had a reassessment there are a lot of people paying more taxes and they're paying even more taxes because the commercial side isn't paying it because of the way the system works at this point and then if you voted for those pennies years ago you probably had no idea that in 2021 they would go up by 31 percent all right so i just i just keep those things in mind that that you know year by year we are always trying to get a 3 increase as best we can you know so that we're we're not overburdening our taxpayers and and then this year we're looking at and now we're looking at seven and a half percent i mean i i i'll go with the flow here i i don't mind this time but we we've got to understand that that this is i mean we're not burlington burlington it's a really severe shifts in in burden for for residential taxpayers worse than south burlington i think so and they voted down a bond issue recently because they they didn't have the stomach for it so i just want to make that point and i know the municipal part is only about 25 percent of the total tax bill i recognize that as well which is reflected in the dollar amounts for the average condo in the average single family home thank you and i think that that's a more accurate representation of the increase reappraisal just like prior to the reappraisal with the school having to deal with the the state tax process with regard to the education fund right there are forces at work that are our algorithms that are very difficult to explain to the public so i i really think that focusing on those actual figures increases that will come out of your pocket annually is something that makes it clearer okay matt oh it interests the time i i do so it looks like we're winnowing way here um i just want to add that i do appreciate tim bringing this up at the last meeting i think it's an important discussion that we had thank you tim thank you to everyone but i don't support four either i also don't support five it sounds like i'm wary of using one-time ARPA funds as a as a as a budget tool here um so i didn't know if we want to narrow down our choices uh chair really or where we're going to go with it well if someone would like to make i mean i can make a motion or someone else can i think we should go back to let's see can you bring him back up on the screen again yep please i always forget to say please i'm sorry so option one was three percent option two was uh a little over four percent option three was seven point five five percent option four was the ballot item and option five is the offset of our ARPA funds for a total of six point four seven percent chair really well what's so for some reason the option five is option three yeah yeah so i apologize i titled it wrong okay but it is different numbers i just want okay so it's just the the first three is the actual three and the second three is the five right okay the second three is the ARPA funds yes or the second three is using the ARPA funds this is option five i can apologies for that and so option what is it the original one original one is option three option three well i think that's what i would um move that we approve option three the first second so i just want to make it clear that that is not the 38 for the average residential and the 25 for the average condo it is 58 for the average residential and 39 for the average condo so it i would say it is higher than the average um that we generally put forward yeah and um uh counselor emory i do i do have uh i do have that broken out oh wonderful thank you the screenshot is so just to make sure comparing apples to apples between the two other ones if people are wary about the 7.55 we just have to realize that just last week we put three additional expenses right so it's a little bit more than that number um counselor emory comparing the two sort of apples to apples between uh this number point four oh sorry yeah there you go yeah so you can read that yeah oh it is bigger than what you have here yeah so so this is um the point four three five zero is the current tax rate and that's with the pennies factored into it um and this is also with the pennies factored into it so the municipal tax rate would be point four four seven eight but with the pennies on top it is point four six seven eight so the overall increase would be 141.92 to the average residential and 95 to the average condo um and just to break that out i work with bob britt this afternoon on uh the percentage of that that is attributed to the pennies um and it's it's about 20 20 dollars of that 141 for the average residential so just to clarify that at point and without the um the 165,960 um that we added do you have those numbers available to us you don't yeah it represented a percent to yeah a little under a percent yeah so that would make it six point five right approximately yep so if i can just jump in a process here um an option for you this evening is give us guidance on what you would like like that to see that impact and table this item let andrew go back and actually get the math correct and get the language into the valid item and then take it up at the very end of the meeting again just to make really sure we're putting on the ballot what you intend to put on the ballot okay well are people interested in looking at some other numbers i mean the original option three but without the the things we added in and we also have the ARFA funds that would act as a some kind of valid cushion if they're all they're in this proposal yeah so there's there's uh six about six hundred and seventy thousand ARFA funds already built into option three um and that is for uh one time cip projects there's also about uh two hundred and thirty thousand that's pre-approved ARFA expenditures that's the 80 percent of those three salaries that i talked about so we do already have some ARFA funds built into option and option five though had an additional amount correct up to five had an additional 190 thousand which is a little bit more than 165 nine and what would we be doing you said that that would mean that next year we'd have to deal with a bump yeah again right and what would we not be using those ARFA funds for 165 nine or the one in option five that you would said we could use to cover the additional penny amount right yeah yeah just just come from somewhere i assume right no the ARFA funds would still be part of our overall 5.8 million um those are additional ARFA funds sorry so i think what you're asking is in that option five that to use ARFA to close that gap of the 190 thousand dollars we had for the pennies that 190 would just be a new revenue stream into the general fund from ARFA that would offset the additional money we're raising pennies for for parks and open space correct but wouldn't that 190 thousand dollars if we didn't have that new revenue stream be used towards something else so that would stay in your basically ARFA savings account to be allocated a future date so that's and we've talked about some uses that we would have for those funds yeah so yeah the council took the city in total received about 5.8 million right in ARFA dollars right and the council has only allocated at this point those three positions this would be allocated an additional 670 000 in option three in option five it would be adding that 670 000 plus 190 is that 190 000 is it unaccounted for us but now we don't have it yet then but next year we will have to use general revenue to replace that because we will have presumably spent or have been right spoken for that was that's i would consider that to be business that is already concluded whereas these three new additions are are seen as transitions in a way right where we don't quite know what will come out of the climate action committee where Helen suggested we put some funds there in order to have a reserve fund of some kind in order to be ready to do something if if that's what you know comes out of that committee at the fire ems staff support right we don't have a specific title there right so that again is the transition and the planning commission that's that's more i would say kind of the you know the nuts and bolts of the general fund so that's that would be for me kind of less of a transition but it's still a change whereas the penny we've had that for years yes yeah and it's the only comment i would make to that is um you know a salary position you know once it's in the general fund very hard to kind of pull it pull it out and so we would need to find other funding sources for that just like the three new positions that also are being covered by our funds right yep yep and and when we have our kind of a larger discussion about what we do what we're looking to do with our foot funds i think that's certainly something we can talk about is ways we can use our performance of the future to sort of bring us back bring back that tax capacity over time a little bit like we're doing with the three unfunded positions um and as we can have that discussion you know when we go through that exercise well there's a motion on the table what does is there more discussion or did you make a no i'm happy to vote pardon yeah well i seconded the motion so we either call a vote or we or we or we um table table for later well do you wish to table it to get more information i i well i'm seconded your motion so i'm i'm not in favor of tabling it but there are other councilors that might be i personally i'm not i'm not happy with a hundred and forty one dollar increase on the single family homes um this is the largest single tax increase i've ever voted on in south burlington as a city council that's that's six i share i share your sentiment you know so i mean go ahead no no go ahead i just want to say that i too i'm glad option four is off the table i i'd also wanted to do eliminate option one i i don't i think that's just not clear enough to me what the eight hundred and five thousand dollars would be so i'm glad we're not debating that i do think option three makes sense but it seems like uh there's uh interest in discussing and possibly taking out some of those line items to to nudge those numbers so if we're not going to vote on option three and you want to take a couple of those things out uh then we can withdraw the motion but i'm glad that we're not doing option four i cannot support uh lowering the penny for pads and open path i want to make that very clear and then uh as for option five yeah i would echo what council emory said so with that i'll stop talking and let's continue the discussion well i'm willing to table if you want to come back with an option three some alternatives to i mean i'm gonna agree 100 and what is it 141 dollars that's a i mean that's just our part of the tax increase there'll be more i suspected um to look at the school board indicate if the if their budget was 0.6 percent did they give any indications what their total tax rate increase would be no or no okay so so they've got several bond issues that we passed years back and i don't know if those are rolled in or if they're going to be added in separately in the budget i just haven't reviewed it has anyone looked at it they did approve a budget i believe didn't it yes they did approve their budget approved yes yeah but he didn't give any more information than the 0.6 percent he wasn't in the paper i didn't read the details no no it wasn't i didn't read it anyway well it doesn't sound like option three is presented it's going to pass math so why don't we table it and see if we can um do some additional um let me look at those additional uh dollars that we had added to the budget and so so i i never do says it by one percent yeah so i i can project the kind of our working spreadsheet um i can kind of toggle on and off some of those numbers if that if that would be helpful um to go through now i'm just i'm concerned coming coming back later um i just want to make sure we have something a finished project right you can that you can vote on um so it might be helpful just for some uh i guess further further guidance on what what that would look like or what those options would be is it just the is it just those three positions that were at sorry those three additions from the last meeting um or would there be a additional options that you'd like to see all right that's what i saw specifically the planning commission cctv charge but i'd also like the arpa thump funds to be a cushion to be an option for us to at least have a chance to look at i would just want to just to point out that i'm not in favor of option five of using arpa funds more arpa funds than we currently are using for this budget well i'd be willing to back off on the three that we added the planning commission um the hundred thousand on fire ems 25 and 25 on the climate action plan if you want to try is there support for those three things well there is i have i have some support for it but i i'm just curious how much money do we really need for those i mean obviously for the planning commission recording we need 17 grand right that's but they're charging we can't do less than that because they have to record the whole meeting right in every meeting the other two funds are 100 grand and 25 grand right for the for the fire assistance and then the climate action uh fund right and we already cut the climate action fund by 25 from down from 50 correct right although matt pointed out there's a ton of state money that's being considered for these things now whether any of our actions could draw that down i don't know but 43 million dollars in the house energy committee this week will be voted out and probably next week available municipalities to help reduce weatherize their buildings and reduce their climate impacts there's real money available that the state has from arpa um that our energy committee should should absolutely be a part of that getting that money um so i i'm completely fine with dropping the planning commission cctv i i think we're going to be having them on go to meeting which already is an increase in accessibility so uh that just seems to be in the cards and i'm also fine with dropping the climate action plan reserve based on what councillor cota just said we didn't have a clear target for that 25k looking at this budgeting seems to make sense to slash it i'm less inclined on the fire ems staff support and i'm wondering if either jesse or andrew if we had to find another 100k in this list where where would you point our lens if it wasn't the fire ems staff support that's a hard question tom that is yeah that's a good one yeah um sorry i mean i mean the paving is something that we already all asked for yeah right thank you a couple years ago about the city center capital reserve fund so we have dipped into that reserve fund in previous years that's 110 i'm open to doing that again i hope that doesn't frustrate lana but i feel comfortable enough with the tip report that she's given that will be will be okay uh covering our obligations in our planned rollout for the projects that we've approved so far so i'm open to the city center capital reserve fund but i could definitely be convinced otherwise i want to hear from alana before just cutting it and the 100 000 for the fire ems staff support i mean you really don't even know what that's for at this point right we're in active negotiations with the fire department um and talks about how to better support them broadly um so the when councillor chendon made this request before my request was if you want to add support staffing support funds to the budget to be very general about it so we can get through those conversations and identify in partnership with the fire department um what what that specifically should be targeted to what kind of position that should specifically be targeted to so i'll i'll just share our um out of meeting conversation just be comfortable and share no no that i brought up to you okay i my my i don't know what you're going to say so i did look at the national association firefighters association i'm not sure just to look at the numbers and i did see that and it wasn't recommendations it was more just what are the numbers and our town size is below the cutoff of 25 000 which is when they start reporting the average number of firefighters per capita but starting at 25 000 it's two firefighters per thousand right so that would mean we should be in the thirds and so the question i have is how many firefighters since we heard um our chiefs say that the air guards emergency services serve the eastern court quadrant of the city how many firefighters do they have and if we were to add those two forces together how many you know de facto between the two would be serving this community that was that's a question i have um if we take the national averages as kind of the best practices and i'm not even prepared to say that that is the case all i saw was averages um so i just wanted that to be out there as well as we consider you know the needs of our of our firefighter force what is our force 28 28 29 29 right firefighters and emt we did have a we still do have a 30th firefighter that was a um became our assistant building inspector two or three years ago um so we're at a total uh staff it's not like pete not sworn officers but we're at a staff of 30 plus the plus the chief and also in that budget line is uh is jim our electrical inspection inspector as well and do we know how many firefighters are at the air guard base i don't know but on my head the chief the chief may know we can definitely find that up for you though well maybe yeah but that doesn't help us for tonight no but i think it's important for us to have those numbers um we i mean i certainly uh when i hear uh you know people in in crisis i i of course uh alerted to the need to respond um but i think um the the need for us includes putting that into perspective and and also trying to understand um what could be feeding that crisis and how to respond to that and i am not clear that that has been clarified yet um so i did i did not uh see the hundred thousand dollars as something that would necessarily uh be directly providing what the president of of the firefighters association what they were requesting it was more giving our city administration the chance to investigate and to to determine how best to use those funds so it is yeah well when i look at the other options i'm i'm not real comfortable with cutting very many of them um i guess these may be be comfortable with cutting some from the city center capital reserve but i also understand how the numbers go um work out for that and that's a pretty important piece to make matched exactly in the presentation yeah so i know we did it in the past but um but then we made it we didn't have city center then we didn't what we didn't have city center really back then right and and there's the cost to having city center and our new building as well that's always um and i guess i'm let's certain about the hundred thousand frankly for the staff support for fire at ems i think megan raises some good issues it is nothing that their budget request that i'm aware of included it was just a response to the president of the firefighters association about some concerns which i mean should be investigated that should be clear yes and i think that um jessie as i understand it isn't doing that it's not any to do that it's working with them but for us to just kind of throw money at it yeah i would be willing but i don't think we're throwing money at it we're not throwing money at this problem this is a significant issue this is our essential workforce um we've hired jessie to manage this very important department and that was just a recommendation and i i'm with her i wouldn't support removing the hundred thousand dollars for ems staff support what can we reduce it man if if we weren't in a situation of over seven percent increase with a hundred forty dollar increase i i'm hundred percent with her as well um we don't have a blank check to write however matt and so perhaps throwing money at it was not a very nice way of phrasing it but i think that having a specific use attached to that would be helpful it gives her it gives her some um room to maneuver by having money at her disposal but i i think that having it a use specified is is something that would bolster my my confidence that i can go to the voters and say we need to do seven you know over seven percent increase ask for 140 dollars more per year um that's going to be a really tough sell and generally the firefighters are going to get the support of the public um maybe in your in your estimation it can be sold i just think we have to talk about it well i'm not exactly sure it was jesse's recommendation she was we agreed with tom that let's you know he suggested hiring someone and said they need another person a hundred thousand dollars her response back as a manager was no it's probably a little quick to just hire another firefighter but rather give me some flexibility you want to spend that money um on how best to address the express concerns by the firefighter association's president which is a little bit different than saying she asked for it and i want to support her because this is what she wants this is how she framed it that she could use it um thoughtfully and not just go willy-nilly let's hire another person i have a question with regard to the ARPA funding and i realize that our general budget fund uh you know that we're going to be putting before the voters includes our funding if we were to determine future uses of ARPA funding would it have to be included in the annual budget to go before the voters no please can't let me decide at any time to allocate ARPA funds throughout the fiscal year so and i understand that the three positions are in there because that means that going forward that this is what we will need to cover so if we don't have a specific position in mind here for the firefighter uh could the ARPA funds come before the city council or jesse to say this is what i'll now that i've been able to study this this problem this this is the solution i propose it would help if i have this amount of of funding in order to to bridge over to to the next uh fiscal year and general you know town meeting that's something that could come before the council and we could say that's with the use of our ARPA funds we agree we vote do you have it yep yep that that seems to me to be a responsive way to go forward okay tom has his hand up i'm not sure i followed that last point but i want to make sure that i i agree with council coda and that i fully support keeping the fire ems ems staff for support support in there i really think we should look at the indoor rec or the city center capital reserve fund to find another hundred k if we're really looking to get the the overall percentage increase down i in my seven years here i've never heard the uh fire come before the council and express the exhaustion that they're seeing so i i think that hundred thousand dollars really needs to stay in there so that the state the administration has some flexibility in the coming year to address the overtax first responders that are doing everything they can during the most challenging times and we all share about that sentiment um i mean i will say that you know it did out but what i think you have to realize is the indoor recreation center is coming from rec impact fees so we can't simply redirect it uh to to the hiring potential hiring we don't even know the potential hiring um i think that i'll repeat so uh because you didn't hear what i suggest is that we uh let the work that jesse is doing our city manager is doing currently in order determine how to best respond to that extreme fatigue that our firefighters are experiencing and then if determines we need to have a new position and this is between our town meetings they can come forward and say we would like to propose that the council adopt this use of ARPA funds until the next fiscal year so that we can hire we have determined that this is the necessary hire and that is something that the council can take up so this is this is simply a kind of a placeholder for a decision that's still to be made what i'm suggesting is we wait until that decision to be made and we use those ARPA funds at that moment in time and then next year that would be folded into the general fund budget i just agree with that approach i'd rather put the hundred thousand dollars in this budget so the fire knows that we've got that money committed to helping them address their staffing issues and i think that's a better priority than the city center capital reserve fund as for the indoor record want to confirm that that is from impact fees and that couldn't be there because it's on our list to cut so i assume these were all fungible but i'm just of a different mind i'm just of a different mind yeah i want happy firefighters to believe me but if they get the budget they're not going to be happy so i think that we also have to make sure that this budget passes and i i just i'm concerned by the numbers that i'm seeing the increase that i'm seeing with 140 dollars so point point of order chair uh what number do we have a consensus on what we're trying with the number we're trying to reduce out of this list well i think we have a i don't know if it's a consensus because not everyone is weighed in with concern about the seven point five five but there seems to be a majority who are concerned that that's too high so we'd like to to lower that my understanding is you lower at one percentage point that's about a hundred and twenty thousand dollars one percent is a hundred and seventy six thousand one hundred and seventy six it's just under one percent yeah okay so i guess that might be a goal yeah so i'm happy for you to move forward in whatever way you all deem is appropriate for the taxpayers i do just want to make a quick clarification about the rec center so it is absolutely true that in the long-term plan for that project we would be using recreation impact this seventy five thousand though is specifically general fund dollars that would go to um one start building up tax capacity to support that project over time but to go to the initial assessment phase so and then it's also money that we would recoup through a bond issuance in the future so if the council decided that that was something to eliminate from the general fund capacity we could use either fund balance or arpa dollars to move that project forward as a one-time project and then as we take it to the community to inquire about a bond vote that seventy five thousand would be built into the future tax capacity we would need if a bond vote was proved that we would spell out with that decision point so i just wanted to thank you clarify that is that yes impact fees for the larger project but this seventy five thousand is actually from the general fund thank you well again my question to the council is what percentage or is everyone looking for is reducing it well we have in the motion about a hundred and seventy six thousand dollars out of some of these things um would reduce the increase to six point five five is that low enough to what what would the effect on the taxes for house b we reduce it one percent one percent from the hundred and thirty yeah yeah i mean is that what people would be willing to support or you're looking for more i mean if you're looking for more we gotta go i'm starting to feel like the indoor rec center right we considered as well but i was absent for a little bit getting my charging cable uh from downstairs so did i miss anything uh there there are a bunch of pseudo discretionary items in that long list of the six hundred fifteen thousand dollars i liked megan's idea of letting jesse move forward with the the work to figure out what helped the fire department needs and then coming to us for requests from our but i mean that that makes perfect sense then we can strike the full hundred with the commitment that we will fund whatever it is necessary to do that work and it and relieve the fatigue and the other issues in the fire department i fully support the department i just i want to make sure that when we are allocating money that you know we we know exactly what the line item is and right now it's it's kind of a fuzzy thing so if it's fuzzy it might have more clarity later on as work is done and then we can pull that money out of arpa funding but there's some other line items there i mean you can get rid of the planning commission recording we can get rid of the climate reserve fund we can look at the you know city center hundred and ten thousand or some portion of it maybe i i don't want to reduce paving because we need a lot of paving it's still a little paving i would look at the rec indoor rec i would too so so hang on i have to answer a question hell on the top so so so sorry so sorry council barrett you know council barrett you said that you stepped away and you missed a little bit of the discussion so i would not agree with what you just laid out and i think only because there's some key information that you might have missed but what you described could just as easily be done with that rec center so that rec center we could take that out that way we're committing the hundred k to the firefighters which and the ems which are overstretched and then that 75 k could either be rolled into a future bond on the rec center or the arpa funds if the city manager finds that they really need to find that money over the next year they could do exactly what you just described but that way we as a council i support keeping the hundred k in because of how taxed i did a ride along with the burlington police this past friday night and first responders have been phenomenal phenomenally working over time and long hours and i just think it's really important that that hundred k stays and we do what you just described to the 75 k in the rec center which i'm sensing that might make more sense to uh the council well i'm trying to figure it one percent which is 176 thousand dollars which lowers the house by about 20 what was the number 23 it will be it will get reduced to 123 in the condo about the same if you left so the 141 house goes to 123 right and condo would go to 82 and if we took on that reduce is yeah we have to find 176 thousand dollars to do that so you could do dc tv planning you could do climate action you could do indoor rec i take a bit from the uh capital recenter reserve sorry to interrupt you really i don't know if you're going there but you could take half from the city center capital reserve fund like i was just going to say that tom i was working my way down i mean that would be another option i chair really i would support that i do not support removing the fire ems staff support line item um and i don't i don't support removing paving producing paving but the rest the ones you suggested i'm happy to to help reduce the tax rate so well let me say that back to make sure we're understanding okay so planning commission claim action plan center indoor rec city center capital reserve well not all of it but enough to make some proportion that's right because that's a hundred and sixteen thousand and then you need um 60 so the city capital reserve would be cut by um 60 thousand dollars right yep yep go from 110 to 50 or would it be 60 60 i think we'd go down to 50,000 i think we'd go down to 50,000 we would only cut it by 50 so it'd be not eight 60 but it would be eight ten is that right andrew he's doing a lot of math i'm sorry no i got all right so that that would be exactly almost exactly 176,000 if we cut uh planning commission cut climate action reserve cut indoor rec and remove 60,000 from city center capital reserve which would reduce that to 810,000 dollars i believe that's true but i don't look at that i know it's 860 because that's what it has been for cover if we cut it by 50 it would be eight correct so i come back to the use of ARPA funds for decisions um how about for this 100,000 dollars unspecified adding 100,000 into revenue right the lower the tax rate and that's the percent you're saying well almost 100 percent would be like two quarters of a percent andrew is it possible for you to show the reductions in a spreadsheet on the screen because if we don't get this passed nobody's going to get anything and then we got to go back and then scratch our heads and it's going to be the same tough discussion all right so if you can see that can you can you get rid of your toolbar so so we eliminated 175,000 we cut 175,000 without touching ARPA money is that correct make sure again yes okay i'm good with that well i just suggested that we do add ARPA funds for the fire EMS and so we reduced it 276,000 which gets it down or you can split the difference you could leave 50 in for the fire EMS and take 50 from ARPA if needed for we're in the middle of the pandemic here folks we need the most flexibility possible for the managers that we hire to be able to bring emergency medical staff and firefighters on staff we're not cutting that math no that's that's in there this is funding it with ARPA dollars that it still would be in there would be a hundred they cut it to 50,000 and i did not know say cut it to 50 but take 50 from ARPA that's all i'm saying that's all the ARPA money's there don't say cut from fire say add 100 to decrease the tax rate by adding another 100,000 dollars to 275,000 that's a different conversation cutting the number but supplementing with the cut with the ARPA funding that's all i was saying yes how you get there that the hundred would stay for the fire EMS the funding for that would be 50,000 dollars from general fund and 50,000 dollars from ARPA so that would reduce our 176 plus 50 so 220 226 which is what a penny and a half 226 a percent and a half a percent and a half less than that little less yeah one point over six percent 1.3 what would be the annual increase on the house in the condo so we'd be down closer to a ballpark 6.2 percent increase overall so i would have to calculate if i just need to clarify pardon me very clarify so to councillor coda's point just now i want to make clear that we this moving forward seems to make sense seems like we're getting the right number we're keeping 100,000 for that fire EMS but then we're also taking another 50 from our available ARPA monies to further reduce the tax burden or the tax increase on our taxpayers this session but the 100k is staying in the budget is that correct correct yes thank you it's just budgeted from general funds and ARPA 100,000 so i can back on appropriations so that probably brings down to about a hundred and ten dollars for a house a bit and about 6.2 percent increase which is still a big increase but it is but we're getting it's we're trying we're trying yep okay yeah yep so i i have us down around a hundred and eighteen dollar increase for average residential so we only gained five dollars right because it was 123 so the 50,000 ARPA just gave us 118 lock it in it's 118 on average house so it's less than 10 dollars per month yeah three cents a day three cents a day i don't know if we don't have a grand up to date grand list what are we using as a basis for the average well it's always an estimate every year we do this because you don't know what the grand list is until the day the fiscal year begins correct so it's roughly 26 percent above the previous one okay so we're using the current grand list number post reappraisal and then assuming a 1.4 percent increase on that total grand list for FY 23 which is based on the permits currently pulled for construction that's happening now what the estimated value may be on April 1st and then for the average home and the average condo we actually looked Martha did that analysis looking through the current grand list to find out what that average assessed value you say current this FY 22 grand list the updated one I re-appraised a re-appraised one but nobody else can see it it's on it's posted on our website that's not i can show you where it is after the meeting let me go look okay fine it's just the numbers just don't seem to make any sense at least if i take my own single family at home as an example and and increase i'll come back to it when i have a chance to ask some questions sorry to interrupt so is the council amenable to reducing the increase to 6.2 percent yes i'll make a motion as we go back to your motion as you know i'll can i just withdraw my motion or is it just do we amend it this can be a friendly amendment to make this a friendly amendment yes the friendly amendment to my second okay so is it clear to everyone so i'll screen share again just to make sure okay thank you Andrew and what i would ask is that you don't actually approve this as the budget right now you approve this as direction to us and then table this agenda item for the end of the meeting let andrew go back not in the stress of this moment really make sure this the math is correct and bring that back to you at the end of the meeting for final approval but here is the um let me make it just a tad bigger i think i need new glasses no the screens okay the other room is much nicer okay so the friendly amendment to the the the amendment to the visual motion is to do exactly what jesse says which is to is to direct andrew to incorporate this and then for another motion is that right jesse or are you saying take a vote on this now for later consideration table it now and vote on it later i think yeah i'm saying direct andrew all right that doesn't need a motion then yeah so then the whole agenda item to the end of the meeting and take a final vote at the end of the meeting here so you have to take a series of final votes because you're also not going to do the warring and so what this doesn't reflect though is the $50,000 from arpa funds yes can you in column e can you just add $50,000 arpa just as a comment so we know that it's still the full hundred yeah it's a hundred thousand bucks for the staff support thank you yeah because that's that's our intent and i i think you understood it that way but just wasn't on this piece of paper yeah good okay thank you we'll table this till the end of the meeting great any other comments or questions about the budget okay moving on to was that questions or questions we can do questions from the public you have one i had i had one or two all right would you come to the table so everyone can see you michael yeah thank you yeah i'm looking at option three spreadsheet that is produced and i before you made the reductions now the general fund increased by six and a half percent was six point five five percent and the pennies for paths and open space funds went up by 30 percent now when the public sees that they get a bit of a shock but the numbers are different it's 1.7 million on the general fund and it's 109 thousand is six tenths of one percent of the general fund budget of 28 and a half million so people like me who read it first get a bit of a bit of a shock yeah but it's i think most residents aren't going to dig into this budget they don't have the time or the inclination or the understanding to do so um so i think that i've asked the council in the future to have some sort of public outreach or public meetings in which the proposed budget is explained in layman's terms that everybody can understand and not just talk about percentages oh we went from going up 30 percent so it gives the wrong impression i think and andrew can correct me if i'm wrong but the actual tax rates in 2020 and 2021 were higher than what we're proposing now the the value of homes is higher too so the dollars go up in the old prior grand list about two-thirds of residences condos was residential were 300 thousand dollars or less so i'm i've made an assumption that since i was told the grand new grand list is about 26 percent up i took a 300 000 dollar home added the 26 percent it's 380 000 now and um the additional tax came out something like 16 dollars higher than before but obviously that's not the right correction the right calculation because you said it's originally 141 now it's 123 for a single family residence um what's the basis on which that 143 or 126 was based on what's the value of the the average value that you're using so the the average value uh we got from um our city assessor um and currently average residential we have at 432,720 average condo 289,865 that's higher than i expected but that's the way it is um so be it um but you know really what i think it needs to be pointed out to people that 190,000 additional funding for open space and annual paths is a really quite a small uh percentage of the general fund budget six tenths of one percent so it's getting this across to the public that's important not really getting them into a huge panic that they're going to go broke one last thing i had um i was told that to put something on the the deadline for getting something on the march ballot was january the 13th is that correct according to the according to the city clerks office i believe that is correct from a petition standpoint but donna would have to not from a council standpoint correct okay that makes it clear thank you helen just had a step out so i am just going to be sitting in here probably you you have one other member of the public oh yes i'm sorry it's above yes bob please go ahead yeah i just want to uh support what was just said i i think the presentation um was a little bit too uh skimpy it was it it ended up kind of biasing the reader because you see boom 30 increase on the two pennies and uh when you if you were to put in a line in the presentation to show that it's 0.0023 cents or on the on the tax rate and say that it you know basically show that it's each one adds the 54 percent point yeah 54 percent or 0.54 percent excuse me to the budget then you would have a better feel that most of the increase is coming from operation the operating budget and even though the percentage increase in the pennies is high the impact on taxes is fairly low so it just be better to show what that impact is say on both you know the operations budget goes up this much and the and each of the pennies go is impacting the house uh the uh average homes taxes by so much um i just so concern that this if you just send the format of the six choices that were or five excuse me scenarios that were sent out without having all that extra those extra lines you just you just think that the pennies create such a big impact when they really do not thank you so would that how would that appear in the budget book andrew so there's a few different ways we can we can highlight this in the budget book my intention was you know to the format we have and how this has previously been approved budgets have previously been approved with this built into the general fund i think that we need to maintain that from uh from kind of what our formal obligations are under the charter but as far as what we do to illustrate that this particular point of this is what the actual difference in operations is from one year to the next my intention was to include that as well as highlighted in sort of the manager's section of the budget book so i think we can have that um and illustrated as clearly as possible because it is uh you know it's not we want to make sure we're comparing apples to apples because it is a confusing point this year on this budget and hopefully you won't have to deal with this ever again now that we're removing it well now for 10 year right yeah that's the next three of them yeah yeah right so so that that is my intention to illustrate this as clearly as possible and i think showing that apples to apples comparison okay any other comments from the public all right so we can we table this and we'll be back you will be back later um we deal with this let's see you know and we are just about on schedule let's do okay item nine is considering a request to place an adult cannabis retail sale ballot item on the 2022 town meeting date ballot um so at your last meeting you received public comment from shainlyn who is here again tonight to place this item on the ballot for town meeting day this is specifically under state statute in order to locate a commercial uh retail cannabis location in a community a community has to have permanently vote on such a thing um so he has made that request is now before you as an official uh agenda item um the night after your last council meeting uh the economic development committee meet met it was also not on their official agenda um as it had already been warned but shane did have a conversation with the economic development committee um since it wasn't a warned item they couldn't take a formal vote but just an informal straw polling um where they arrived at was that ultimately this is a community values decision and the only way to figure out what the community wants is to put it on the ballot um so they voted or they straw poll voted three two to give the voters the option of what they want to do um and now it's before you tonight this is your last chance to consider it if you decide to move it forward we've given you some proposed language that the city attorney has vetted um it will be you which you should vote on that tonight and then also vote on the the warning that includes that language so i i guess i would start and just um express certainly some disappointment with the economic development committee we cast them with looking at the economic impact not the value statement about cannabis sales in the city but i thought they were going to look at so what what is the tax implication what is the economic um effect on our community and be able to report that to us um and they didn't do that this was probably a year ago and i understand why they put it off for a while because the um state cannabis board hadn't set up the rules yet so it was a little hard i think for anyone to determine exactly how this could take place and even what the economic benefits if any would be to a community but it seems as if um i guess one of my concerns i don't think it's just a values issue i think we i see this as potentially being a positive economic boon if you will to the community but maybe not maybe if that's really overblown and i'd like to know that as a piece of the information going forward before i would make a decision but that's you know i'm open to other comments um i'm just disappointed i thought that they would do some of the legwork able to give us some of the pros and cons and then the council could um move forward in a kind of thoughtful and informed way versus um here it is and it's it's a values judgment of some sort and i and i i think there's more to it than that um matt i i i agree with you i'll post your points uh helen um it is more than just a values judgment i don't i think there'll be a time where we have this vote i think it's an important vote to have it's important discussion to have with the community not only with business interests but with law enforcement um in with our with our friends and neighbors um i i look forward to a time where we have this vote i'm not prepared to vote for in this ballot and i won't be voting for to be put on the march ballot okay well i i agree with you i i think it's a little quick tim do we have to do we have to decide this tonight i mean apart from a future ballot possibilities do we have to decide whether or not the the ballot language has to is has to be voted on tonight to get on the ballot in time is that true i think it has to be the so four town meeting day in march this is the last night you can vote to put it on the ballot you can certainly vote at a future meeting to put it on a future of a ballot yeah but tonight is for march first thanks for march first yeah okay i i tend to agree with matt i mean there are i have a lot of questions about this i don't want to spend three hours tonight talking about it um i think we should talk about it in the future and um i i see i see a lot of i see some some income revenue for the city probably with the one percent i also see some potential um traffic problems that could ensue uh you know i i visited boston several times after they uh allowed retail sales and i saw what happened on on brookline avenue you know in brookline at the at the number one store that opened up and it was it wasn't it was controlled chaos but i mean they had like 500 people in a snaking line outside underneath you know tents waiting to get in one person at a time that that was how they set it up but i'm just saying that you know they're they're definitely was a lot of security involved a lot of crowd control involved and a lot of business on this one corner in a very busy area that had never had that kind of business because it used to be a bank so i think we should put this off and spend more time talking about the pros and cons the future thank you well i was in denver quite a while after they passed that and had a number of of little businesses so i think you can get past that line snaking around the neighborhood and the traffic control but i think it does take time because in downtown denver there were a lot of little stores so it wasn't just one place you could go um but i think that's a real important um aspect to understand for the community and i totally agree that we need to get input from law enforcement um around this and and i'd just like to have some kind of hard numbers or about what the benefits might be economically and otherwise um matt no come you have your hand up yeah i agree with council coder and council bearer but i'll go one step further and say that i as one council would be ready for like the august ballot or even at the latest the general ballot i think there's enough people that would want to weigh in on this i think we should put it before the voters but i think doing it right now would not give law enforcement enough time tonight to be to hear from them before we make this decision and also the sdba as much as economic development be great for them to warn it and take an official position as our committee i think this is a commercial aspect i would love to have the sdba have ample amount of time leading up to either the august primary ballot or the general election to us take a stand on this and weigh in in the conversation okay i may add my voice and sorry i did not get to return your call uh it was a long working for me but um i too think that this community needs more time before we put it on the ballot on march 1st which is right around the corner um i appreciate that you've given a lot of time thinking about this already we just haven't and and i think that this community uh needs some more time in addition to law enforcement i i think that there should also be health professionals included in our discussion um we've had one recommended to us um and i think that uh it just would would benefit the public to have more time and we have those people have said two more elections coming up this year i can respond to that very quickly i do want to just acknowledge the constituent uh question and and council interest as well i did reach out to uvm mc to provide um dr runyanion uh or another professional to testify in given their staffing at the hospital right now with kovat they're not sending any they're not using doctor's times for this right now but they would be willing to do that in the future okay my phone i understand that cannabis is still a controlled substance as far as the federal government is concerned right that would mean that banks can't do business with a retail outfit um so i think that needs to be something we need to solve as well as uh accounts with a bank you can do it yes we can i think initially they couldn't that was one of the issues that we've got a bank account for no not you initially i meant colorado like i said to do it was gentle but banks were afraid of doing it because of federal law but so i i think those are things that would be good to find out and know and have those questions answered and not just let's you know put it out there and i don't know what the vote would be i'd rather have an informed vote yeah would you like me to come in another uh meeting then and answer questions and two more questions that you have i think we should have um a public hearing and have the different um groups or organizations present so and you certainly would be one of them so yes this isn't the end of the conversation i think that just of the of the council some thinking is that it this is just too fast we needed more time we didn't have the economic development committee wasn't able to um take testimony or they didn't and inform us so what kind of left here was i don't know you know we had a meeting a couple years ago with the school board the joint meeting and what was it 2016 2015 and you know it was a long time ago so when was it 2015 December 8th 2015 right so so yeah i think there's a lot of legwork to do would you like to make a comment yes i i just was going to reference that meeting so on December 8th 2015 uh at a steering committee meeting um with your school partners um Colorado officials were Skyped in and it was a public hearing um and a lot of different perspectives were shared from school folks and um city you know municipalities and i think um that it's really important you know that we're it's six years later you know what's changed um you know an opportunity for the community to weigh in to hear a number of perspectives on the potential implications on city and school operations health and well-being economic development just a number of things you know this was presented to the council um last week so it's you know it was just basically a week's notice that i just think um as as counselor coda said a conversation with the community about this is in order um and and you know and i think i would recommend a public hearing with as many perspectives on the pros and cons thank you well that seems to be the consensus i don't know if we need to have a vote so we will take this up again i'm sure you won't let us forget so as we get you know busy things um if they're not right on the front of my head i can forget so um but we will i i think um august or or november would be a um a good time frame to think about in terms of getting us educated in the public and the community thinking about and just for clarity though we can go towards the petition potentially if i get roughly 700 signatures of registered voters that can get yes you have that option absolutely oh donna did you want to weigh in on that um well i was just suggest it's by closer to 800 um signatures i just did the calculations um we've got about 16 000 people on our checklist at five percent it's just short about 800 people um and if you are thinking about timing and you really want to get a true perspective from the citizens i would move away from the august ballot and consider the november ballot that is the highest turnout we we have an election anytime so that would be my recommendation okay thanks all right good enough thank you very much thank you um let's see we are to 10 approve the town meeting day warning so solid we have to we need to table that until you have the number skip over number 10 we'll go to 11 a we added an executive session between 11 and 12 we have a new 11 a receiver request from summit properties to apply for cdbg funds and potentially set a public hearing for 7 p.m on february 22nd 2022 so um i can just table set this for a minute and tom gets from summit properties just here with us thank you thank you chief sorry see everybody tonight um so as you probably know summit um is the development partner for the affordable housing at um a brian farms um we have received a request from them to apply to jointly apply for a community development block grant uh opportunity that the state offers to support that very similar um to um what we've done in the past for the federal square and cht um so to do to submit that application the city would submit it we have to set a public hearing um so in advance of doing that um tom requests the opportunity to come and present the project to you all right thank you jesse thank you thank you very much thanks for having me tonight um yeah so i really wanted to come on tonight our goal would be that um on february 22nd we have a public hearing um where we can actually uh hope to come away from that with the city council's approval for the city manager to apply for these funds um so tonight i just wanted to give a brief overview of the project and answer any questions to hope hopefully help facilitate uh on february 22nd being able to get that approval um so just a little bit of background um this project actually came before city council about six months ago when we came and it presented um in uh requesting city council support for our application for low income housing tax credits and other affordable housing resources uh since that point in time we've started that process we've applied for multiple affordable housing um resources the the project is uh pretty much the same in terms of the overall um use as as when we came in previously but there's been some some design changes which we can talk about briefly uh big picture it's 94 units of mixed income housing uh located at the hillside at o'brien farm it's two buildings 47 units each a total of 71 affordable and 23 market rate apartments the 71 affordable units are permanently uh permanently affordable under the low income tax credit program and serve a full spectrum of affordability um between 60 percent of area median income all the way down to 30 percent of AMI um and then 20 of those will be set aside for the homeless and at risk so it's a a full mixed income community um you know it exceeds the minimum inclusionary requirement pretty significantly the hillside at o'brien farm community has uh a minimum of 51 units had to be inclusionary so that would be affordable to folks uh making no more than 80 percent of married area median income so we're really targeting uh much much deeper affordability levels with with more affordable units than than that minimum um so in your packets tonight I did include just a few photograph or renderings of sort of the plans and um I don't think I can pull those up but if you want to take a look I could sort of show you the you know the overview this is it's lots 10 and 11 at the hillside of o'brien farm um and the two renderings uh okay let's see if I can share I don't know that my screen share and that's gonna work very well because I my packet showed about a quarter of that uh okay I can do it can you do it okay thanks Jesse I'll just give a little verbal description while Jesse pulls that up so it's lots 10 and 11 these are the next phases at the hillside at o'brien farm and what we've been doing over the we've had two public hearings with the drb um where they've incorporated some uh aesthetic design comments since a few revisions and the rendering you have now um was the one that was presented most recently and did a got a verbal approval during that the last drb hearing that the board was happy with the design here here it is this is the the updated after a couple revisions with the drb that that were hoping to have approved at the next uh and then hopefully final drb hearing on the the second of february so this is this is lot 10 and the mirror image of this building will be on the the neighboring lot lot 11 um so there's community space a gym in in the corner nice mix of studios one bedrooms and two bedrooms um on-site office underground parking um so it's a hopefully hopefully everybody thinks it's a nice looking building um our goal is that we would get all of our financing resources in place by june and be ready to construct by august or september on on both uh both 47 unit buildings um and the reason we're here tonight is because uh you know this is overall about a 26 million dollar project when you combine both phases add in all construction and development costs and i mean jeez we just built uh 45 unit building pretty similar and when new ski and finished that in august and already's costs have increased 15 to 20 percent uh even since that time so um you know that 26 million dollars um you know it's it's a big chunk low income housing tax credits and permanent debt but there's these soft sources that are really essential to make this work and and that is um what this vcdp that the community development block grant application is for we're going to be requesting a million dollars of um vcdp funds to to help fund that that sort of final final gap to get us all the the resources we need to make this happen um that's that's the big picture we've also presented this to the affordable housing committee who had a chance to visit some of our recent projects and we got a good letter of support from them um so we've been sort of full steam ahead trying to get these resources lined up and tonight really no action other than hoping to get on the hearing for um everybody 22nd but happy to answer any questions and talk through the project if there are anything i can clarify well reading through i was i was very impressed with um the affordability and the different um levels and the fact that it's perpetual and it's a lot and you also have some market rate so it's a real nice um mix um i'm curious with it seems like if you have underground parking how many underground parking spots do you have because it looks like you have a lot of parking above ground unless i'm reading this wrong is the yeah there's 47 units in each building and there are right around that number i have to pull up the exact number but combined between the combined underground and above ground parking there's a right around that number about a space per unit um that's not exactly but it's in that ballpark it's not not more than that by much all right did you have a question i was curious about the building materials are you using brick is that what we see this is true to yeah there's a mix of brick and um cementious panels and it's sort of a yeah you see a few different siding materials but there is brick um on all sides and that'll match the brick that o'brien is using actually in their other building so it'll be sort of a theme that ties together some of the other buildings in the community i was also curious about have you already done a price point for the rents yep so the rents uh are all i mean they they adjust annually a bit based on the um you know each year uh that publish the the maximum tax credit rents or get published by v h f a but those rents will be set at the um limits that are affordable to folks making 60 and 30 percent of am i so i can actually pull up that real quick and tell you just as an example um you know if if somebody's in a studio uh 60 percent unit that'd be nine hundred and sixty dollars if they're in a one bedroom it'd be a thousand and thirty and a two bedroom would be 1200 um we're also going to have um project based vouchers through um with the burlington housing authority on uh well either burlington housing authority or vermont state housing authority we've been working with both of them so um the units that are affordable to folks making 30 percent of am i will also have project based vouchers to help support those units is that including heat yes yeah all utilities yeah and are the stoves and ovens electric all electric you have all electric appliances as well as all electric heating so the whole building is heated by energy efficient mini splits um so it is a fully fully electric uh building and how many it goes up to just two bedrooms that's the biggest size correct yeah two bedroom studios and one bedrooms uh met so i just have a comment and then a process question for jesse first of all tom fantastic i in previous life i was the chair of the development review board when the cht came with this project i don't care i don't know what happened but you took it over it looks just as amazing maybe even more than the one we approved um a year and a half ago so thank you for for stepping in um but my question is to jesse what you're one of our support or someone wants our support for a community developer block grant which is great it'll have mine but but we have we have to have a hearing first before is that is that the process is that is that my understanding jesse that is correct so for the city technically is the applicant for this community development block grant um and one of their grant requirements is that we hold a public hearing in advance of the application um so if the council wants to support this tonight the vote would be to set a public hearing for february 22nd at 7 p.m uh to consider a cdbg application for some of properties right well i certainly would make that motion that we hold the hearing on february 22nd second yeah everyone will second it thank you um matt tom did you have a comment or just one to second it so sounds good okay i have one one question um do you have any plans i i know i've read and heard that somewhere on this property um the brine brothers that are considering dog parks and i wondered how if there were any that were close to these two buildings yeah there is a dog and i actually i don't have that overall site plan that i could pull up but there is a dog park um in the future phase that is planned and i can talk to a brine about um exactly when the date they think that will be built but yeah there there are and they're they're coming in on master plan approval for their their next stage multifamily as well so the rest of the infrastructure is is planned to be built out um with things like like the dog parks and and other aspects of the community so i think with that many people that would be important i mean i'm assuming you're going to allow dogs or pets uh yes we usually do allow we have some buildings that are that are pet free but ones we've recently built to allow pets and yep that's the plan on this ones great any other questions by any council members i think the great plan was really nice amenities yeah yeah any discussion of a tmt about a bus line coming into the community at this point no um although that is sort of a continuing one that we've been pushing with oh brine is that uh as soon as the there's enough people there we want to advocate then and show that need they they haven't approved any in advance of these properties being built but that we were going to continue to advocate that once there's enough folks in here and these that the bus should be coming in thank you great paul connor we can't hear you paul you're not you you're not unmuted paul connor director of planning and zoning i was just going to add to um uh to councillor emory's question part of the design of this neighborhood is to have a direct uh roadway and pedestrian connection right from these lots 10 and 11 right down to kennedy drive where there is transit service and that's a very intentional design to make sure that the entire neighborhood is served knowing that it's challenging for green mountain transit to add parallel routes and knowing that kennedy drive is already a significant route and of course uh about two and a half blocks away is also williston road where there's another route so um we're pretty excited by that access yeah i could just go ahead i know that there was some discussion about that route 11 that's my bus um and it only does a circle so i the question was also would it you know have potentially a different route uh for route 11 the bus route to go also like west um kennedy drive so that yeah it's it's still very attractive i don't mind i don't mind the circle myself but i was just curious what the discussions have been and that would mean crossing kennedy drive which in itself is well there's going to be a new signal at this roadway to allow for pedestrians to cross to both sides of kennedy drive as well good and there is one on timble avenue too because i i race across kennedy drive a lot in my walks right right okay so we have a motion that's been made in seconded um i believe to um hold a public hearing for 7 p.m on February 22nd 2022 um to consider a request from summit properties to apply for cdb g funds or for the city to apply for them on their behalf so you're ready for that vote yeah um all in favor signify by saying aye aye and note none opposed so thank you very much tom um we look forward to that hearing thank you appreciate your time you are most welcome have a good night oh michael i'm sorry not on this subject oh okay i'm moving on i'm wondering that since the budget now has not changed the funding for the open space and pennies for parts funds correct is the proposal to have a ballot item that would be moved i mean we wouldn't need it that's off the table yeah will there be any other in uh discussion of this subject of funding these two important funds uh tonight's in which case i will stay otherwise i'd like to go to the home yeah and relieve my wife from the puppy duty yeah how is that puppy doing i don't think that that will be um um discussed further does anyone on the council intend to bring up uh yeah no i i don't see any so i think you can go home and what did you name your dog okay we'll enjoy him's all right thank you thank you so we'll move on to 11 p which is so oh this comment uh tim had them so the agenda item is uh a request to consider updates to the land development regulation draft that you will hear on february 7th um we recommend the first part of this session be held in executive session and then return to the public if you choose or return to the public and you may choose to take the track would you like a motion yes please i move that the council make a specific finding that premature general public knowledge of the confidential attorney client communications made for the purpose of providing professional legal services to the council would clearly place the city at a substantial disadvantage second um all in favor hi hi i see an animal so i now move go ahead okay i now move that the board enter into executive session with the city attorney for the purpose of discussing confidential attorney client communications made for the purpose of providing professional legal services to the council inviting and jessie baker andrew bullduck collin mcneil and paul connor into session with the city council second any discussion all in favor signify by saying hi hi hi okay so and we have a separate zoom that's probably he'll be here all right so i don't need to move to come out of executive session we do have um what a motion to approve that language yeah it probably makes sense for them to be to be read um just into the record as there was no prior all right let me see if i can find there we go make sure i have the latest iteration latest iterations in the email yeah the last email at 9 18 p.m right oh okay so i guess i'll i'll move that we amend the draft ldr's which section does it say i don't know exactly where we amended you know calling are you back councilor cota said he was sure which section was section three do you know what the language is councilor cota to make the motion i have it in front of me i have a language yeah i i do too but i didn't know what exactly section of the ldr's were amending and i think that needs to be point it's section 3.04 h and uh we're agreeing to add this to the habitat block and habitat overlay district map okay habitat block don't mean to make the motion i move that we um further amend i guess the draft ldr's in section 3.04 sub h the fall and as well as in the habitat block in the map the habitat connector overlay district map with the language that's i'll read it on the says these regulations apply to all proposed land development except as limited by the provisions of 24 vsa sub chapter 4413 for example habitat block and habitat connector designations are subject to the limitations in 24 vsa sub 4413 a for uses enumerated therein and proposed by entities such as the state of vermont the city of south burlington the champlain water district for the university of vermont this subsection is intended to provide notice of existing limitations on these regulations and is not intended to impose any limitations beyond those already imposed by 24 vsa sub 4413 this language is repeated on the habitat block and habitat connector overlay district so is there a second and chair really i'll just add one thing in that on the version that will appear on the habitat block and habitat connector overlay district map uh the the last section the last sentence of that language will be amended um the language that will appear on that map will will say the language is repeated uh in section 3.4 h of the regulations oh right so it's referencing back so you have the whole circle okay right thank you all right so that seconded did matt did matt you seconded in yes that slight correction hey our is everyone ready for the vote i'll call the roll uh matt coda yes tell us shouldn't it hi tim barrett nay megan emery yay and chair vote yay so this um amendment passes four to one okay moving on to 12 um received the december 2021 financials including prior months martin mcchar will lead us with this martin do you want me to make you a presenter oh there's more andrew or you can just pull it out okay hi matt mcchar finance officer uh attached to the to the agenda of what the december financials we only coded december and uh because they are cumulative of december october and november that we haven't sent you is a lot of data so we decided that maybe just sending you where we are at the end of the second quarter uh december 31st 2021 would make sense because that's include all the expenditures that expenditures and revenues that we receive and spent in the prior fiscal years so in the agenda given how uh it's a lot of data so we've only included uh the roll up by department and the digital reports were included in the council box if you if you needed uh me to send them to you if you haven't had time or access to the digital report i'm happy to share them with you also included in the agenda were narratives from the department at detailing where each of the department is currently uh in the expenses and also in the revenues that were budgeted for f y 22 but overall in aggregate we are consistent with uh prior years spending and revenues received as well right now we are at 37.3 uh in expenditures which is consistent with our prior years and the revenues are also uh consistent with where we have been uh this time in the years which is at 60 percent uh i'm sure you probably had time to review the narratives and also look at the expenses but uh if you looked at what is currently included i think i will just share the excel so i just wanted to point out that in the revenues in aggregate we are good but some of the department might show that we are a really small small percentage one of the department is the city manager and if you looked at the city manager digital reports a lot of the revenues that are showing as not received are internal transfers within uh within the city a lot of them are for uh through enterprise funds uh storm water water and wastewater internal transfers that we haven't been met yet but we will make them as we go through the year but that is the only department right now that is showing eight percent uh receive revenues i just wanted to point that out but overall we are pretty consistent it's a lot of data to go through that's why we've given you only the roll-up numbers but if you have questions happy to answer are there any questions i thought the report was really complete it was good reading the the narrative and then going to line items and it's like oh that one's i i know why though any questions okay any other comments you want to make or i mean the report okay thank you all right thank you very much mark thank you mark it was really complete quick question are there any questions tim do you have one just just just a quick one i mean i can't remember the local sales option tax usually appears in august right and what's the other time six months later or uh the other time would be i don't know i'll just stop sharing Andrew should be the this is all new is there any new news on the local sales option tax so the look we get the local options tax receipts in august november march and okay so we are tracking those at quarter to quarter our last receipts were actually if i'm remembering off the top of my head higher than right yeah higher than budgeted so okay so no new news okay thank you and the august one has some of the year before though does it look sort of funny yeah we have to separate it out yeah so in terms of our receipts we are well ahead of where uh we budgeted forecasted for this year okay okay thank you very much we'll move on to consider a draft of a charter or one of our very few guests today has been hanging up for a while thank you so quite an exemplary public starter you are so this is a um no action is requested on this tonight it is the priority on our FY 23 policy priorities and strategies so we wanted to move it forward um at that uh as part of that priority list the council identified convening the charter commission to look at government structures and some language modernization so that is what how i have drafted that this you'll also see in that that we are recommending expanding the charter commission by two members to include two members appointed by the school board they wouldn't necessarily have to be sitting school board members but appointed by the school board and the chair and i did discuss this with the superintendent and the board chair on friday we're also charging the chart or you would be charging the charter commission with looking as i said at governance models and language updates and coming back to the council um in about 15 months so july 2023 with the intention of giving yourselves a long runway to set something up for the 2024 town meeting day balance um and also have charged the committee with um running a comprehensive public process so i wanted to bring this to you tonight just for your feedback since you haven't seen this before um um the what bridget and david suggested is that the school board would talk about this generally in february we would then bring it back to you for your action if you so chose but the actual expansion of the charter commission wouldn't happen until a new school board is seated in march um so the earliest this work would really kick off as likely april um so again not for any action tonight but just to start the conversation as it is a priority that you indicated so peter would you like to make some comments um no i was just looking for a sense of direction i might want to go but that helps one question are we a charter commission or a charter committee yeah i was struck by the commission word too sorry that would be a charter committee but maybe there's something oh i didn't even touch that i was just reading it charter committee because it's clmm i'm gonna keep moving on i think that's a hangover for my winooski days i'm happy to update it was a charter commission and when you see yeah i don't think it's not different you know you say tomato we say commission we say committee okay any other comments um all right yes i'll just say this is great i'm looking forward to seeing this again i think it's a long overdue and i'm really glad peter taylor's here to uh to express interest being a key member of the charter committee commission whatever it is committee committee yeah yeah i i just agree with that and i'm glad to know that peter's retirement from dc i did last very long he's back in it and he's all over on this yes are the language changes the same language changes we did back in 2007 the gender neutral and yeah that's just the state and then didn't put them through back then i i have to go back and work but um we need to miss the couple or the state missed them when they did it i think the state missed them when i think so too yeah i think we're all right no it's been done yeah okay that's right we have a term committee uh pardon me i'm meeting jesse and talk to her about scheduling and timing and how we go forward with the committee sure yeah and if you need some other members we can kind of dig some up okay great thank you uh item 14 receive the f y 22 policy priorities and strategies report number one so again no action is needed on this tonight but this is part of the adopted as we discussed with the adopted policies and strategies i think part of the successes of this kind of process is regularly reporting to you all so you have a sense of progress being made or not in the various areas staff i thought didn't really it were it the intent is to make it very um succinct and to the point and not overly burdensome to read and hopefully over time uh folks will get used to kind of skimming through those bullet points so there's nothing specific i wanted to highlight tonight a lot of this work you have heard a lot about in the last couple of meetings but wanted to give you an opportunity to ask questions to recommend changes for future reports you'll get these every two months um just respond to anything you needed otherwise it's just for your information and we'll revisit it every two months and then with the update in the spring i thought it was really helpful and it also lets me know who on staff is kind of responsible for everything i mean you can sort of guess but here it's all written out and i think um i it you know just a response i think this the sooner we get um a new director of public works the better because there's a lot of work here that um is they're part of in terms of working getting things done and some hasn't been done just because of the change yeah something i would just like to highlight um the rezoning of the land around the airport and then for the fourth category here um which sections that is that's the first page of it so affordable and community strong yeah and uh examine how to increase participation city discussions increased ways to foster invitations to diverse populations to help our city the chamber of the neighborhood is the diverse population so i i just i know you're researching ways to to engage with with a more diverse population but i see this as something that should be moved up in the priorities if we're looking at an april may end date for making recommendations to the planning commission um we have a very diverse neighborhood we're still in a pandemic um children are are um trying to stay in school and yet daily we have notices of someone coming down with covet i mean it's it's a stressful time for folks so i think having your neighborhood rezoned might fall in terms of what meetings they would attend regularly right so i think it's going to be really important that there's be a very carefully thought out process for when in february and march we're looking to engage um through public hearings um i think just putting it on uh you know making our warning known is not going to be sufficient so i just wanted that to be stated okay thank you okay thank you um the city manager evaluation process received this amended and approved the process so i i gave you in your packet a memo for me recommending a process in this section of my contract that talks about my annual evaluation um and laid out a recommended process that includes um an evaluation form the council would use a questionnaire evaluation form for the leadership team um and then a timeline that would have and of course i would do a self-evaluation too which i actually did not put in here but i would um and then a timeline that has us uh approving a process tonight um by next week we would send around these tools to everybody by february 4th the feedback would be due back to an identified counselor to collect and aggregate that information um that would be shared on february 14th to be discussed in executive session with me on february 22nd and then reported publicly on march 7th um this is a process i have used before many times with tools i've used the tools are um national league of city the council tool is a specific national league of cities manager evaluation tools adapted with some adaptations um it's been useful for me in the past um and really sets i think a good tone and shared learning between myself and the council so happy to amend it as you all see fit but wanted to propose something in this first year we use something like this in the past and what some of the feedback that i'm recalling is in the portion that the council does when the questions regarding staffing and supervision i read through those and some of them are really hard for me to assess because i do not see you with you know the leadership team very often and certainly i don't believe i would be comfortable whether you develop and maintain a friendly and informal relationship with staff and workforce in general in general i mean i'm assuming you do because you're a friendly person and uh and that you would maintain your professional dignity i'm sure you do that but for me to assess that one to five i just so i think and we ran into this the last time with kevin when we did that um and and some of the staffing questions so i guess i would suggest not rewriting it necessarily but um when you get to where you have to do the score if you feel that you really can't answer four of them then you don't divide it by five it would you know and if that's an acceptable i don't know how if how anyone else feels about this but um we wouldn't have to amend it if we had the opportunity to put a not applicable or you know i can't answer that and then change the device or whatever you call that the one you did you divide it by what is that called so we're for denominator denominator yeah does that sound more workable to everyone yeah sure is that okay with you that's fine with me in my experience those questions you know how to answer when things are going really badly but otherwise to your point you may not so so i think that's a that's a pretty elegant solution to just change the denominator or put any okay otherwise yeah no i use we've used this tool and i think it provides a lot of good information and is this something that is january to february in terms of preparing our responses is that kind of the annual calendar that you so so that's that's what i've seen work before because it allows you know this year is a little different because you've only had me for seven months but in a normal year it allows the council that i've worked with for the last year to evaluate before the council could potentially change um so to me that timing feels right um again up to a shared agreement and i'm willing to collate this stuff if you want to send it to me unless there's someone else on the council that really wants to do that but i sort of feel like it's a chair's responsibility so i'm willing to do that and i know all of them okay well i thought i'd offer before i get nominated okay so helen yes so the last time we went through this with with kevin right it was in the summertime right and so um i like this format my only concern is that i don't see a reason to do it before march 1st i would want to do it in the summertime to get a full year's worth of employment before the evaluation is done it's just does it really matter whether it's done in the summer or by march 1st is it because i want to make sure if you and i aren't here right there will be two new counselors who will not really have a basis to respond yeah three months of but there will be three other counselors there will be three others so i just um it wasn't an issue with kevin's was i mean was that really a problem or we didn't do a lot we didn't do as um evaluations as often as we probably should have we no we didn't we didn't but we did we did do them in june july ish i dragged on a little bit too long i probably my fault but um so i was 2017 sorry come on so tom i'm a similar comment to tim summertime is much better time if i was to be heavily involved in this type of process uh but uh if this was work well for you jesse and this is a vlct best practice with the timing as well then i'm open to this but i think tim's original point is it really useful to do that now when we seven months in i leave that to the chair and maybe it's this is more of a moderate or a modified smaller shorter process that next year would be more thorough and involved around this time i guess two responses to both your comments one you know i i'm all for feedback so seven month in feedback it's good by me i feel like you all have worked would be enough to be able to give me some constructive criticism or um uh information um two i just for this year it doesn't matter at all but i would i guess my concern with doing it in the summer in july or august is that my contract runs um july one to june 30th so in years where we are doing contract negotiation i will want to have that done far before the summer um so this timing to me is a is a little better for that in future years but this year that doesn't matter my contracts my contract for the next two and a half years well i feel pretty strongly that it's better to have the um council that was largely in place for the longest period of time to evaluate and so i think it really needs to be done before there's a change in in um council or potentially a change in council i mean i would think personally if i came on the council in march and then two months later i'm asking to fill out a an evaluation it would be um pretty superficial and that isn't particularly helpful so and i also think it is important for um the negotiations and the salary so i think if you get into a system where you just do it in february and march or whatever it is or february it gets done and you just know that that's that work piece i know it doesn't work well with the legislature but yeah so would city counselors who are running for election be just be barred from participating in this process oh no not at all the point is to the current council because those are the five people who've been working with our city manager um the longest so i would i mean i don't think this is going to take any one hours to fill out i'm doing the heavy lifting is collating and even that isn't very hard except maybe with your narrative so are you going to send us an electronic version so we can type in our narrative i'm probably not going to send you anything but i think the city manager is going to send you this and will it be the kind you can type in PDF that we can fill in yeah i will do my best i don't know how to do that but maybe yeah i don't know how to do it either but i'm sure someone on your staff does and that would be helpful then i could read everybody's writing and it's each faster to type for most people unless you're a hunting pecker so okay so helen the last time we did this with kevin right we sat down with the leadership team and listened to them one by one right and interviewed them well that was we were doing uh i mean there's a lot of different ways to do evaluations i mean that's more of a 360 perhaps where you have different community players that who weigh in as well right so they're gonna um it looks like um share their input or evaluation separately and so there would be no one-on-one contact with the leadership team no no not as as this is laid out we didn't we did it two different ways with kevin and went one time we did meet with leadership and the another time we did not it was okay just this kind of form okay i i didn't know about the second one sorry who who is collating the leadership i'll do that too okay all right so you'll see all of it new you know with names i won't see it with names okay you'll put it all together and then there'll be two reports council and leadership okay well again because otherwise the numbers don't work i mean potentially okay how many decimal points do we get to evaluate the uh averages to whatever i do easy math kiddo okay four point nine nine seven four three point one four one five nine all right so are we pretty much approved with that methodology at least for this year if we want to really dig in in a different way or in the future i mean i think sometimes bigger evaluations are needed but not the first year so okay um moving on to 16 you're very welcome thank you for pulling that together that's something i probably should have done um reports from counselors on committee assignments and i think matt you have some info on green mountain france yeah yeah i know it's late there are three really important things to know um fresh off the meeting this morning at 7am or 7 30 whenever we hold these meetings but uh the first is change in service which is going to affect all of our constituents and constituents across chitin county uh and in beyond wherever gmt service areas are um we all know you're married to a public school teacher like i am everyone's being asked to do a lot more with less because people get sick and they're out for five days or they're they're just have to quarantine and that's the same thing with all of our drivers and there's not enough drivers with cdls to hire in fact president biden just made a emergency order to allow more bus drivers to get on the the lesson the the the skills that they need in order to pass kind of the matter is we're going to cut services we haven't made the final decision yet but we made a preliminary decision to go ahead with the process of reducing services not because of money but because lack of drivers to cover all the routes so a driver is sick there's not a backup to cover it there's already too much overtime the result is we have service cancellations and people can't make their appointments can't get to their jobs and those that want to park their car and take the public transit and and and help the environment then they get discouraged and they stop doing it reducing ridership so we made the very difficult decision to go ahead with the process hasn't happened yet but go ahead with the process you have to negotiate with the union in order to reduce proactively reduce um so we're talking um um well the one that i've used uh the Montpelier link with four trips to Montpelier canceled um starting march uh hopefully to return in june but not yet um uh the shelburn road service the trip to St. Albans which i know people use the medical center or people that work at the medical center um use a lot so this is going to have an impact on our community but there's just no way around it um so it's probably going to start happening in march people might say why why isn't the bus arriving there's going to be some outreach already to those affected businesses and communities but it's it's it's going to be a it's not going to be great um the other is is how to fund we're we're beginning the process with ccrpc and how to fund public transit for the next 50 years and amongst those which is great because rather than it's going to be a professional study done by stedman hill consulting with ccrpc trying to figure out how much we should pay in assessments each individual towns um in cities how much uh how much should we rely on fares should we rely on fairs should they be free and the fact of the matter is is as people drive electric cars we have less money in the transportation fund that comes from the gasoline tax some of that gasoline tax that goes to transportation fund goes to subsidize our public transit so there's less of that money which senator chitin and knows all too well being on the transportation committee so those aren't great but at least we're looking at in a comprehensive way and I feel good about that one thing we do have is money from the feds for low emission and zero emission buses and so some of those interesting decisions will be coming up whether to buy electric buses whether they should be the cutaways or the or the longer services the plus and the pros and cons of that and whether or not to investigate other low emission zero emission vehicles diesel hybrids biodiesel buses propane buses hydrogen buses all part of the conversation so that's an exciting project and it's a lot more uplifting than the the first two that's it but from gmt thank you man i just have a question in terms of the conversations about cutting back on some of the routes is that what you were saying um burlington uses the buses as a school bus so are those routes kind of held sacrosanct and then it's all the ones into south burlington or wanowski or other places are is there some of that in the conversations yeah so south burlington won't be affected uh essics will be and we've already begun the outreach to essics but there are contracts that happen with the different school districts beyond the regular getting the student spec for instance taking the kids to basketball or other sporting events sometimes those are contracted out and and i've personally witnessed it in my house when my daughter comes home disappointed that she can't go to a game because there's no bus driver to drive them to the game not canceled because of covid canceled because there's just not enough people with a cdl in their wallet a commercial driver's operator's license that qualifies them to drive a bus and that is it because of illness or is it because of vaccine mandate that's a great question tim so yes illness just like in our schools we have less teachers to cover to other teachers who are certified teachers um the vaccine mandate interesting enough because the supreme court decision is not enforced now we were preparing to enforce it on all of the bus drivers but the supreme court said okay because we were part of that 100 large employers 100 employees or less large employers would have to ensure it there was concerned that we didn't lose bus drivers who refused to vaccinate but the supreme court decision lifted that it's it's drivers legitimately being sick or having having a quarantine a lack of drivers i mean it's so close uh truck drivers everywhere it's not it's not just the bus drivers if you have a cdl in your wallet contact me i can get you a job driving the bus at gmt well mark gable loves it but good benefits okay any other committee reports all righty um we have now have to go back to item each hand the budget eight oh eight we have to pass the budget and then we have to approve the town meeting day warning and valid so i can show you the okay all right so as discussed here's the kind of final number you can you can all see it well not yet i will you need to extra zoom in gonna bring my opera glasses yeah not that i have any but i could go get some so numbers to pay attention to the total amount to be raised by taxation has been adjusted based on the numbers that were removed that includes the the cctv planning commission fire ems app support 50 000 50 000 of which was added into the revenue side climate action plan reserve was removed indoor rec was removed city center catholic reserve was reduced 60 000 so it now sits at 800 000 the total reduction being the 225 000 900 of which we've also added the offer revenue the total amount to be raised by taxation is now 17 960 2812 57 cents that equates to a total tax rate of 0.4 or estimated tax rate of 0.4623 uh which is 6.27 increase uh overall increase including the pennies to the taxpayer in terms of what that means to the average residential and average condo if i get there we brought it down from the 140 number to 118 13 and 79 13 for the average condo thank you that's a lot better and can you scroll back up and over what's the increase for just the operations cost 1.6 yeah all right so so there are two two resolutions uh huh one's the cip and the second is approving this budget okay all move approving this budget as amended or changed second do we need discussion oh sorry if you can't see them any discussion no all ready i just want i just want to say thank you i thought it was a very good discussion and thank you for running the numbers again and i know that these decisions are hard but i feel more comfortable going to the voters with this number so none of it was decided lightly on my behalf okay so all in favor please signify by saying aye aye that's and any opposed seeing none so we approve that five oh great and then or the second amendment or the second um if you devoted on the cpi cip or cip because that you had to change something to correct it right and you adopt it annually right will you send us that spreadsheet so yes yeah thank you yeah what we did is we moved up the spear street um bike path to 25 25 to 27 okay any uh discussion on that i mean that's what we have some so yeah so a motion to approve so move and second second all in favor signify by saying aye aye so that's approved um five zero so now we can go down to um item what would be skip 10 10 i'm sorry page or item 10 and we need need to approve the town meeting day warning and ballot so we go back to we have a few less than that was on this thankfully so we're down to down to two items and the annual city budget the blanks have been filled in the proposed budget totals 52,525,176 and 75 cents that's including our special funds as well as our enterprise funds as well as the pennies are included in there as well of which excluding previously voter approved levies it is estimated estimated 17,962,812 and 57 cents will be raised by local property taxes you'll send that to us as well Andrew yes thank you so do you need a motion to approve that yes so moved the second second okay any discussion all right all in favor signify by saying aye aye any opposed so we've passed that five zero great is there any other business Kim you always have some other business but not tonight just a reminder about the chamberland neighborhood the airport rezoning task force is meeting this thursday at seven so i know there might be some people online yet who might be interested in that okay well yes i don't really have a business but i'm still catching up here so for the resolutions for those of you who are on um go to meeting um it would be ideal if you all could stop by city hall sometime this week to sign the hard copy of those rather than doing the signature thing because they will be what is printed up and advertised places but what's the deadline there jesse didn't get to get there to do that for you what do you wouldn't you need me by there there by end of the week end of the week yeah i can do that okay we'll follow yeah we can't sign them tonight you can sign them to the week okay okay um if there's no other business then motion to adjourn so moved will the sheets to be signed be at the town clerk's office at eight o'clock in the morning tomorrow uh sure yes we can do that or eight fifteen yes don't be late or i could just run up the stairs real quick too i could i don't think either andrew or i are going to be here on eight fifteen tomorrow morning yes what why not by nine we're set evaluation form okay well the meeting is adjourned thank you thank you thank you good night everybody