 Okay, good evening, and I will call the meeting to order at 6 32. Okay, we'll start by talking a little bit about meeting logistics. Anyone participating remotely, we would ask you to set your display on your screen to your first full first and last name so that we know who we're talking to. Anyone who wishes to. Did I, did I say screen? Oh, am I not turned up my camera not turned on? Oh, thanks, Bill. And yes, when you're talking to us, it would be good to have your, your camera turned on. We, anyone who wishes to speak must be recognized by the chair. We'll start by stating your name and where you live. We would ask you to keep your comments to 3 minutes and counselor. Bate will assist us in keeping track of the time. The yellow sign means you have 1 minute left and the red sign means your time has expired. And with that, I will, we have two members of the council who are participating remotely. I would ask them to introduce themselves. Whoever is a race to the unmute button. Donna bait district one. And so we'll be that any second. So I'll follow district two. Oh, you sound good so Thanks for being here even better than I feel. I'm struggling through. Okay. Like to go through the agenda is a is anyone have any proposed changes to the agenda. If not, we'll consider the agenda approved. Next item on the agenda is general business and appearances. This is an opportunity for any member of the public to address the council on any, any topic that is not on tonight's agenda. And again, as with the, with other. comment, we would ask you to keep your comments to 3 minutes. I'll start by looking at the room to see if there's anyone in the room who wants to be heard. Tina, looking to see if what I had to say was on the agenda. Tina Muncie, I live on Hebert road in Montpelier. And I came out of my nice warm house tonight to talk to you in person on two subjects. The first is that at the same time you're meeting the Montpelier Rocksbury school board is meeting to finish their budget and as you may have heard I assume. That due to the new state education funding law, their budget is probably going to come in 11% higher than it was before. So, given the fact that I assume you knew that because I knew that from the paper. I was kind of amazed that at your last meeting, some city council members added things to your budget. And from my point of view, it's just sort of disrespectful to the taxpayers to not be more thinking about the total taxes we have to pay. The second item has to do with the money you received from the failed housing project at the Elks Club. I listened to your discussion about that. And then I listened to the people who stood up and said their houses had been destroyed by the flood, and they had no place to live. And the fact, or even one second you might consider putting that money aside to use towards development of that property caused me to join the chorus of people that's growing in town to say, sell that property, sell it, pay off the bond, eliminate some of your debt and use that money to help the people who've lost their homes and to fix the water system which keeps bubbling up in the road every other month. I'm just saying, I don't think we're a city with enough money to go into property development at this time. So really consider that. Thank you for listening. Thank you for going. Anybody else here in the room. Okay, and I'm looking at the screen. I'm not seeing any hands raised, but I'll give it some time. Okay. We can move on to the consent agenda only three items tonight is there a motion to approve the consent agenda. And is there a second. Donna Bate. Thank you, Donna. I just want to make a note that the resolution to support the omnibus bill says by order of the Barry City Council on January 9. I know it's a joint but it doesn't say that on it. So I just want to make sure that that gets corrected. Yeah, at the header it says a joint resolution. But yeah, it's at the bottom. It says at the bottom it says the council. Yeah. We can fix that. This is just a technical corrections. Any other discussion. If not, Lauren, sorry. I just wanted to thank our legislative delegation for the work they're doing. And I'm glad we're expressing support. We're trying to get relief to our community and the others impacted as critical and, you know, ties into everything we'll be talking about tonight. So glad we're doing that and just grateful for the leadership our delegations showing trying to get funds to us that we desperately need. Bill, are you starting to say something? Okay. Okay. If we're ready to vote. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed. Okay, we have passed the consent agenda. Next up we have appointments to the housing committee. For the third time. Is that right? I think it's the third time. And Tim, you're on the housing committee, right? Barry and you both are. And it's the wish of the housing committee to appoint all of these people, even though it's more than no. No. The committee did interview or meet with as many of the candidates as possible. And their recommendations. Can I give the names? Well, it or do you want to wait? It might be a good thing to go into. Executive say, and if we're going to be talking about weighing particular candidates. If we go into executive session. In accordance with title 1 VSA 313. Appointments or employment of a public officer or employee. Second. Any discussion. I think the milk brother. Donna, I don't think I heard you. Was it Donna? Was it you? Was it you who was talking? Okay. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed. Okay. Let's go on back. All right. Are we. All connected. We have a motion to come out of the executive session. Is there a second? All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed. And is there a motion. That we appoint to the housing committee. Amanda, I be Dan Kappach and Suzanne Ford. And that we expand the size of the housing committee by one member. And is there a second. Second. Any discussion. All those in favor, please signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed. Okay. Thanks to all the applicants for. Stepping forward to help the city. Next up we have item seven housing trust fund request. I think we have some people here to talk about that. Hi, Rebecca. Good. How are you? Well, thanks. I'm Rebecca copans. I'm here on behalf of the housing. The housing committee. You might want to pull my closer. Josh Jerome community and economic development specialist. Should I start? So. Sorry, I should pull up my official. The pillar housing committee is recommending. I'll just read that. What we put forward with the motion we put forward. And then I'll explain it. The housing committee recommends that the housing trust fund grant. $9,000 to central Vermont refugee action network and down street. Towards the acquisition and rehabilitation of the property of 18. And there's. Kind of three lines of reasoning that I'm going to give. One is the head. One is the heart. And one is the pocketbook. The head is we were created the housing trust fund. The housing committee was created to create more affordable housing. Opportunities in Montpelier. This is solidly, this project is salt, solidly doing that. We, when we think about affordable housing and what is actually available for market rate housing that it is affordable. It's very slim. There's been a phenomenal project. That was brought forth by CV ran and in conjunction with down street that holds together. Public funding through the housing conservation board. And. CV ran has fundraised a significant amount. It's a total of the total project is, is estimated to be about $465,000. We believe that. The city should put their, their intention, their money, where their intentions are and put forth $9,000 to support this project. It's a tiny amount in the grand scheme of things. Considering this will house nine people. It's a, it's a, it's a house on Pearl street that is going to be made into a condo. That's a duplex that'll maybe be made into a condo. But that's the head, the heart is. We have this phenomenal opportunity to support more people. To live in Montpelier that bring this incredible cultural diversity. They are in our schools, they, the, the, the. Adults work in our, in our communities. They provide a great opportunity for employers to hire more people. And then the pocketbook is. We have. Given given the new. Education funding formula. We need more low income kids and especially low income. English is second language kids bring significantly more money to our, our school budget. As Miss Muncie just mentioned, it's coming in rather daunting. And so these kids will really help. Provide that spending formula. And so a $9,000 investment from the housing trust fund will come back to us. Many fold. Over the next 12 years as these kids move through the education system. So thank you. All right. Thanks. I think this is just great that you were. Doing this that the community has come forward to provide this, you know, open their arms for, for these people and to provide this opportunity. Thank you. Anyone have any questions? Yeah, thank you for your explanation, your presentation. I'm on the housing committee. So as part of this discussion, I do, I do want to note that Josh Jerome did an excellent job of creating a matrix and a whole table that. Justified the expenditure of this money to show that it was in line with the. The purposes of the housing trust fund. And so I think that's really important to know that we set up this housing trust fund. We set aside for certain purposes. This absolutely meets that. And then as Rebecca said, it's a tiny amount of money. $9,000 is a tiny amount of money. And in the short term. Yeah, we'll see all these benefits from this family that will move in there. But long term, it's going to be a permanently affordable unit. And so for $9,000, Montpelier gets. Another affordable unit. In perpetuity. And that seems. No question to me that it's worth the money. So thank you. Any, anyone else from the council have anything to, any questions or anything to add? All right. Is there a motion. I'll make a motion that we. Approve the $9,000 request. Again. Any discussion. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Next up, we have. Two different. Items related to the ballot today. The first one is the. Annual meeting public warning. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I can, if I can share my screen, I can put it up. Oh, I guess I. I do share screen. Yeah, we are. Now, how do I find what I'm looking for? You sent items maybe. It's on, it's on my. It's on my. I should have, shouldn't I? Is that what that's not working? Is it? No. Let me try again then. So this is a. This is a pretty much pro forma. This is the annual city warning, the ballot, the first of two public hearings. There's nothing particularly special on it. This is the normal items and we'll be finalized next week. Once we have all the final numbers, as Ms. Muncie mentioned, school board is. Finalizing their budget tonight. So we'll have their numbers to add. The first item is the normal election. We'll have the school board. We'll have the school board to select the school district. Officials, their directors. This number, article four, that's the number. Based on the budget as of the last meeting that obviously can change before we finalize the warning. We don't have the school number. So that will. Go into article five. Once we have that. This has been their request annually to put the capital reserve. And then the amount by petition for the color Hubbard library, the amount by petition for the central run home health and hospice. And then the only difference is we have a new petitioned article for our charter change. For which we'll be having the formal public hearing next week. And then we'll have a new petition for the school board members. Normal authorization for the school board to hold. Hold funds, which is again a requirement for them. The annual downtown designated downtown improvement district. And then we'll have a second public hearing. And then we'll have a second public hearing. And then we'll have a formal public hearing next week. And that's it. And then this, so you would hold a public hearing, take any comment, make any discussions. Exposed, you could make alterations if you want to, or change the order. And then next week, we'll have a second public hearing and then you'll vote to finalize that once. Actually, we'll put it on after the budget so that we can final numbers in. Yeah, when you're done. Okay. I will. Open the public hearing. And the floor is open for any. Comments that people may have on this. On the proposed warning. Mr. Wicker, you're, you're seeking to be recognized. I won't have time to read that ahead of time, but I think it's not too pertinent to what I want to say. First, I want to commend. That public works. Made openings in the snow bank so that people could get to the curb onto the sidewalk. Steve. This is not general business. No, I know this. This is about public works budget. I'm, I'm getting there. I'm recommending that we. Fully fund the public works budget so that they don't have any excuse for not doing their best and showing us what. They're capable of. And that way we will have a reference. Of communications. I think as far as the other ads that you've been discussing, I think they should be put on a separate. List. Prioritized on the public works budget. Public works. The, the snow removal, the hazards of walking. I took a serious fall. You know, over on. Court Street and Elm. I've pointed out again, with no response from anybody, I think they should be put on a separate list. Prioritized on a separate list that are going to be dependent upon funds we get from the state. Related to the flood. Damage. I think that. Public works, the, the snow removal, the hazards of walking. I took a serious fall. I took a serious fall. I took a serious fall. I took a serious fall. I took a serious fall. No response from anybody that you've blocked the, the fire egress from a place of business that does a busy, busy nightlife. And no one's done anything about it. So that's, that's a mismanagement issue more so than a public works. Public works would go fix it if they were told to, but they're not told to. And I think all the counselors got a copy of that. Photo and. Issue with the. Sidewalk being blocked the parking being eliminated. Public works even ahead of the extra. Filling that last the empty police and fire. Those can be funded. Depending on what state, what state funding comes through. As can improvements to the audio video in this room and. 40,000 for my ride. If we can't negotiate that against our lease. Or the fact that they haven't kept the bathrooms open for years. So my point is that. This council of mostly newbies, you know, was not able to get their head around how to cut this budget. There are. Ads and ads and ads. And I believe with the school. And the ads that you're proposing. We could potentially be 15 or 20% increase in taxes. Which all get passed down through to renters, et cetera. So I believe we need to scale it even further down from what we did. And like I said, pull everything, but the public works fully funding into a prioritized wish list, which will be funded if we get. This. Some relief from the stay. I think that's the best advice. I think that it's sad that. You know, the manager basically. You know, fold of his arms. If you want to cut it further, you find the cuts. But we're overstaffed in the top administration. If you read the comments from that survey. You know, we need to eliminate some positions, but we created a hundred. Time has expired. You really don't want to hear it, do you? Well, we still have a public hearing. So there'll be another chance. Any other hearing on the morning. Any other comments or questions about the. About the city meeting warning. Yeah, I have a question about. The last one article 14. And I'm just wondering if the, if the wording here is. What came in on the petition. Or, or a reward. Yeah. That's my question. Okay. I figured it would be. I mean, I would have the authority to create my own miniature version. Since the full petition is too long to include on the ballot. We'll have to post it all over the place. But I just went with theirs basically, I think, just to make it cleaner. I, the charter has been amended several times. So it technically makes sense. The further amend as amended. But it is a little, a little tricky. Okay. Anything else. All right. In that case, we will close the public hearing. We'll take this up again next week. I think members of the council just got it this afternoon. So this gives us an opportunity to go over every single word and punctuation mark to make sure that. It says what we want it to say. And we'll take it up next week. Thanks, Bill. Next up, we have the public hearing. On the fiscal 25 budget. Is that you again? Just trying to get myself back to where I need to be. Yeah, you may need to unshare and then share. Now that's what I'm trying to get back to my full screen here. I can't do that. Says I've got a new share, but yeah, there it is. Okay. All right. We'll open the public hearing on the 2025 budget. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I will do a quick overview of the budget and the changes that the council's made where we're at now. And remind the council on the public that there is a public hearing tonight and a public hearing next week. And the council makes a final vote next week about what goes on the ballot. Also reminder for people just in general that. That the number that the council puts on is a tax is the amount of dollars to be raised by tax. It's different. This, the school board puts on a budget, the total budget, the city council puts on the tax appropriations. So once I set the city can't add to it. Even if there's a drop in revenue or anything else that becomes a set number. I think sometimes, you know, people get concerned that this number is going to change after Tom meeting, but it doesn't. Okay, so this is, I said, the first public hearing. We wanted to the budget with budget goals, general budget goes to implement the strategic plan, continue investment in infrastructure, deliver responsible service and stay within the inflation rate. Key factors. So we had updated budget amounts. I think we've had a lot of conversation about that. We had some lines that we had been keeping down to trying to make it work. This year, put the sort of the full amount in to make sure they were properly accounted for that created stress in other places. We obviously have just like everybody else increased costs. And the cost of delays in the past that are catching up with infrastructure projects that need to happen. We in the current fiscal year that we have, we have a, we currently in a $1.5 million budget rescission due to revenue loss due to the flood. And the revenue that we are seeking just our proposed to the prior comment, public comment, the revenue that we are seeking from the state is actually offset the current year budget. Not next year's projected budget. And lastly was the reappraisal that had a couple of factors, one just the effect on residents because their, their tax bills changed drastically depending on on how they fared. But also there was the whole appeal process, which meant that the grand list was a moving target until very recently and actually there still could be litigation appeals. So all of that meant that we needed to do a hard budget reset and really get back to some of the key things that we do. So that led to some reductions in normal operations. And where we ended up. So, not going to go through all of this, but basically these are the key strategic plan items. I'll repeat them all because I've got the presentation is set up in that way. So under building sustain, build a maintain sustainable infrastructure. We're currently have $11 million in active FEMA projects. That obviously is rebuilding damage. And, but in some cases the opportunity to improve things. Our capital plan, which I'll talk about more later is fully funded at its target at 2.4 million. I don't think any, you know, I think that needs to be higher in the future, but that has been the budget goal and his first time in a couple of years that we've hit that. So that includes 650,000 and paving. We have $2 million of water line improvements for this year in allocated in different places. And we have plans for major projects in place moving forward as they should. We do have one reduction of a position in DPW. We're going to move on some restructuring that if ideally that will not result in necessarily reduction in people providing certain, you know, street services. Second groups create more housing. We kept $50,000 in the housing trust fund that had been is reduced from last year's amount of 110,000 and our request for 250,000. We helped our planning and development staff in order to move the country club road project forward as well as anything else. That may happen help keep housing projects moving. We have the lease revenue from country club road of which at least some can be used to fund some of the engineering work that needs to happen. Other that still could be used for other things. The zoning amendments are in process. They'll be coming to the council in February to talk about how we can make our zoning even more housing friendly. And then last year's direct funding for the CCR country club road project was eliminated under a good environmental stewardship. We've retained the sustainability and facilities coordinator. We reduced the request from me act from 12,000 to 2000, which had basically been their funds. The 10,000 was for a specific request at which we are seeking to see if there's alternate funds for. Our water resource recovery facility sewer treatment plant project is moving forward, which will be a huge environmental improvement. Our CSO projects are moving forward. We've eliminated the $40,000 for my ride for the city share. We cut the conservation commission 3500. So that's to zero tree board was cut from 4,000 to zero parks. AmeriCorps was cut from 25,000 to zero and the popular use conservation core cut from 40,000 to zero. Go to advance the economy. We have 17,500 for the homelessness task force. That's a reduction from 45,000 134,000 for the community fund. That is the fund that funds various nonprofits. That is the same amount as the current budget, but it's reduced from their request. For 166,875, we kept full funding from out pillar alive at 32,600, but reduced economic development fully by 100,000, 10,000 for the public arts and 10,000 for social equity and justice consultant. To improve public health and safety, we've maintained the crisis intervention team program that is not really a specific appropriation, but it's an important team to improve our response to people in crisis mental health issues. We've maintained our embedded social worker in the, in the police department. We are proceeding with shelter planning for permanent shelter. And we've funded the senior center to continue operating as it has. We delayed a staff increase in the police. We've kept, they were scheduled to go back to 17. We've kept them at 16. We did eliminate the police canine, which saved 20,000. We've cut one position in rec and eliminated the childcare. We're agreeing under this isn't really a strategic plan and goal, but it's something that we've always talked about as responsible and engage government. The budget was initially pretty proposed at 3.2 after the grand list tax appeals that went up to 3.93 and then with the addition of a firefighter went to 4.7% the city's budget itself as far as spending is only up 3.17%. That's certainly with all that we do still within the cost of inflation. We maintain the communications coordinator position and our Zen City platform, which does our surveying and that kind of thing. We have $65,000 and admin staff reductions. We've eliminated the bridge page, eliminated our community survey eliminated committee stipends and the outside lobbyist funding. So, since, as I mentioned, since the original proposal. Grand list appeals added 0.73% to the tax rate. And then the, at the last meeting of preliminary vote was made to add the firefighter position to the tax rate. So that brought it from 3.93 to 4.7% for the city's budget. So, just taking a quick look. I know many people have seen these before so I won't spend a lot of time, but this is how we're funded. You can see 2 thirds of our funding comes from the property tax. And actually more if you count the ballot property tax or really 70%. And our other fees are 17% grants and fund transfers pretty small amount. Looking at how we spend versus by department. You can see the various funding and services that we have and how we spend that money again. No big surprise police fire public works and capital are the biggest items along with our general services. And as we look at how we spend money cross tab again, we are a personnel heavy operation, about 55% for personnel. How does that work out? If you take a look at the staffing by department, you can see this is really where all of these will be in the annual report to and everything. And this presentation will be online tomorrow, but you can see the departments where they are. And then if you look at them by function. This takes a little studying, you're not going to just grab it quickly, but because I wouldn't like public works if you break them up, you've got some in highway some of the water and sewer some of the water plants. Some of the sewer plants some do equipment maintenance. So I'm enjoying storm water. So even though one department might have a lot of people when you actually break them down to their specialized functions. It's a little bit different. So when we talked about our capital fund. If you look at this is a history since FY 11 and proposed up to FY 30. You can see that starting in FY 11 at that point our total was about 1.4 million. Our goal is 2.4 million which was reached in 2019. It dropped into in FY 20 was back up there in FY 21. That was of course the budget that was approved in March of 2020. Right after COVID. So FY 22 saw reduction FY 23 we increased from the prior year, but did not make it to the. The full amount last year we held at the same amount. So this year we're back to the 2.4 million. So that's good. The bad news is that it's probably not enough. So we are most chart shows a proposed 4% increase each year, which adds approximately $100,000 each year. We could even do even more than that. And then you can see the chart, which is showing that the history over time. If you look at this on the left, you have our scheduled blood payments. So as we are now, we will have to peak now and those are dropping off. So we will have a total sum of money. That means that the annual project funds can rise as you if you're at, let's say 2.4 million and your debts dropping that gives you more annual money to work with and still be within the same budget topic. So if you're increasing the budget and your debts dropping, we can have more annual money to work with. This is taking a retail record the city's city only tax rate. And this is just showing the calculations and everything else shows the city budget. And remember the municipal taxes consists of the county, the city budget itself, the county tax, which has been relatively stable and then outside ballot items and then the total is what's considered the municipal tax rates. This is just showing that all together that 4.8% with everything in not count the cities at 4.7. The total is about 4.8. It's about $160. So if you look at your municipal tax dollars, what we do here is we take the departments we back out any specific revenue that's assigned to them. So for example, the fire department gets ambulance revenue. So we take that out for fire. The building department gets building fees. We back that up. So this shows the net tax dollars that that the average person is spending. Or different parts of the, the services that they're getting. And then looking at so we have the projected school tax rate. It's not final. They're voting on it tonight. So we took it from their last budget meeting. So they just estimated, but if it were to go as they're discussing, this is how the tax bill as a whole would show as you can see where the bulk of that goes. And finally, if you take a look at the overall picture, you can see that we here. So you see the city rate or sewer CSO rates, the school estimated school rates, the county tax. The ballot and total and then so that's the total tax impact. You can see would be on whole be about 12.3% pretty hefty. Again, 19% for the school. And then looking at other impacts, so we have not yet set water and sewer rates, but assuming that they followed our normal inflation plus 1%, this would be the impact of those. And then we don't, this is also a projected new number we're talking about. We have not yet approved a new storm water utility to take effect in July. Again, nothing's final, but the last estimates in there was that it would be an additional $142. So, if that went, this is kind of all in everything that's sort of on the table. This is what it would look like. And this is based on the average home value of 370,000 and the average residential usage of 43,686 gallons of both water and sewer. So that's kind of an overall picture with the things the city controls and things the city doesn't control. So, the process from now, you could see we budget was presented in December 13 we've held council workshops December 20 January 3rd and January 10 last week. This is the first of two public hearings we'll have at one next week. This presentation will be given again updated with any changes that are made tonight. And that is when the council needs to make a final vote on the budget and warning. And then the voters vote on it on March 5 early voting usually starts sometime in mid February. Right. Okay, I'm assured early February. So that's my presentation. Okay, thank you, Bill. So I'll just say this is the public hearing this is the form the first formal opportunity for the council to hear from members of the public about what questions you might have what comments you might have about the proposed budget. And so the way I propose to go forward is that I'll take probably a considerable amount of time taking comments from the public both here in person and on on zoom. Well, then, when all of those comments questions are exhausted, I will close the public hearing and then we'll move to council discussion. Before I do that, I see counselor bait had your hand up. I just thought there was one bit of information would be good for us all to hear. Bill's presentation. Could you give us the final number of total amount cut from the budget? Well, I mean, was it. So we started with. I think, how would you discuss budget cut, you know, so the budget is higher this year than last year. So arguably the budget was increased to not cut. However, when we started. When we ripped it, everything we do now and doing it next year. It was, we had to take about a 1.5 million dollars out to get to 3.2%. Thank you. I was new as 1. something. Thank you. It's just helpful for people to know the the actual money number, not just the individuals. Thanks, Donna. All right, I will start with the with people in the room who might wish to be heard. Why don't you come on up. Yes. Thank you very much. My name is mark is a ounce, and I know many of you. And some of you might know me. I am the current serving AmeriCorps member for the city of Montpelier parks and trees department. I've come to speak with you today. Not representing AmeriCorps or the parks department. I come as a resident affected by the proposals. There's many aspects of this budget that I know intimately from my role and in my second year as the AmeriCorps member. And because of that, I would like to ask an appeal to the mayor for a little potential extension of time to give credence and the just time to these topics. Well, I should say, yeah, this is, these are big issues. I'll I'm not going to hold strictly to three minutes. I'd like to have people try to stick to three minutes, but I'll give people some leeway, not just you. Thank you. Thank you very much. As the AmeriCorps member of the city. I wish to just state clearly that I do not speak for AmeriCorps at this meeting. I do not speak for the parks department. Nobody asked me to speak it come today. I came on my own accord as a resident. But I wanted to tell you a little bit about my service over the past two years in what I do. In my service, I build and maintain city infrastructure. I clean our city paths. I install culverts critical to flood response relief. I rebuild stone retaining walls in our city. I plow our parking lots. I clean our public outhouses daily. The Dogway Dogway spends weekly in our city. As the AmeriCorps member, I keep our community safe from public hazards. I remove the limbs that are at risk of falling on all of us. In our neighborhoods downtown. And in our forests. I remove the impending environmental crisis that's coming from the Emerald ash borer. That is already here now in our city. I support the entire community services department. Beyond our parks team. I enjoy helping the recreation team with the safety and setup of their events. And their programming. I plant the seeds, grow, harvest, and sometimes even cook the food for our seniors. I'm a senior senior activity center. And that food goes to the meals on wheels program as well. I chop the wood. That goes into our heating homes and affordability program. I teach and lead our youth. Of all ages that are learning and living out their own public service. In addition to all of these. I represent 20% of the labor hours in the parks department. With my other AmeriCorps member, we represent 40%. In my service has continued. In what I believe is correct over 20 consecutive years of AmeriCorps service. For the city. Now, many of you may not have known that, but you might know me from the flood. For 60 straight days. My life began with raising the tents at five main street. At our community hub under those tents. I coordinated and spoke to all of our volunteers who came to us. I set up our online sign up system. I coded and developed the Montpelier hub website in the evenings. I hand wrote the signs that went up through our community because there was no printer or electricity to print them. I set up the flood relief phone line system. And answered its calls. And today, even to this day, it still rings my personal phone number. In real time every day, I maintained and gathered the constant messages for help. I organized them and collected those from people in desperate need all over the city. In addition to that happening. I listened to the grief, the pain, the anguish, the hurt. The anger that the community members had and not having answers. I spent 14 to 18 hours a day. I organized the water pumping queue. For your basements. I lent out the tools. And the essential protection for our volunteer workers. I filled the sandbags that help protect our buildings. And when the tents collapsed at the end of the day, I went home. Add in all that was needed for the start of the next day so it could run smoothly. Many more hours work at the end of the day. I'm here at about five minutes now, so thank you. Thank you very much. I wanted to share that with you because all of these essential services could not have been possible without the partnership between the AmeriCorps program and the city of Montpelier. I could quickly speak to the NYCC Montpelier Youth and Conservation Corps program that I helped run. The city could not have recovered without the impact of the Montpelier Youth and Conservation Corps. It simply could not have happened. They were my eyes and ears of the recovery every day. I would send them out on reconnaissance crews to let me know in real time what was needed. They were also my skilled workers that I could go to and trust because we had a relationship with the most difficult challenges. The future of their program is in your hands. You have the opportunity to show that you honor their work. To show you that you value them as a community member and public service. That you care about your values in this budget and that you want to send a message to them that they are essential public servants. You have the power to show. That might be a good place to stop it. If I have one more statement. One more sentence. Yes, thank you very much. And you have the decision to show. That these civil servants in my CC. That we do not live in a city who only applaud for them at every single flood resilience community meeting. And then we'll eliminate their funding in another. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else in the room would like to be recognized. Shake. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. Counselors. I appreciate it. I'm here with the Montpelier cemetery commission. I'm the chair. And do you introduce yourself or a Jake Brown from 115 college street? And the other commissioners are here as well. All by one, I believe online. So they may chime in. the administrative budget. We know it's a tough budget year, seemingly a tough budget year. This is money that we need and it's money that we'll have to go back to the drawing boards effectively to consider if you in fact do cut this money. Last meeting you all asked about some options. What would happen if this money didn't come through? And, you know, I went back to the commission and we talked about it. We would be trimming potentially trimming salaries, although that's difficult because we have one union employee, very difficult. We might have to cut the work crew, which is our corrections crew that gives us an incredible value on mowing and other services at the cemetery. We would have to maybe delay along the way to chapel repair, which has been a long, long time coming. We've been working toward that restoration for a long time. And if you've ever been in that chapel, you'll know that it's in really poor shape and will be more and more expensive to repair as time goes on. We'd have to raise prices for lots and grave openings and other services, which we have just done. We just last meeting approved an increase on those services. So we'd have to probably do that again. We'd have to delay the purchase of a truck. All of these would be on the table. And we would have to struggle with which of these we would have to contend with. And I know everybody's struggling with those sorts of questions, but those are the answers to your questions from the last time as to what we would have to contend with. We also could go to the voters. We could get our signatures and go on the warning. That's really something we'd rather not do. And I don't know if the city would like that as well, but I can't say. I guess it's really a question of for us, we've got an essential service here and the budget survey that was done in the fall, I think the result of that is very strongly a theme of fundamental services. We've got to stick with our fundamental services, our core services in the city. And I can't think of many that are as core as this. So I guess I would leave it at that. And if you have any questions, I would be very happy to take them. I know Patrick's here as well. And we also have some folks online. So maybe when you get to that, if they want to make a comment as well. Thanks, Steve. Does anyone have any questions for him? And I would also note that if you were amenable to some portion of this restoration, we would be amenable to that as well. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Steve. I'm just for not understanding Steve Whitaker for not understanding that the prior comments were supposed to be only on the warning, which I didn't have time to read before the lights went out. Well, you don't have to go over anything you said before. Well, I think that a, I probably touched on a little bit of it. The moving remarks by the first speaker about the role, the prioritizing the role of the importance of the work that people do. If City Hall staff were asked to account for themselves to that degree, you'd find a lot more willingness to cut some of those positions. The demonstrated on the ground service with results is something that we don't have a good accountability system here. I asked for records of what are new $100 and plus $1,000 sustainability position accomplishes on a weekly or a monthly basis. There are no records, you know? And I don't see, I thought we created and voted that position to make the heat plant pay for itself, to bring the district heat into the black and apparently that has gotten shifted off into everything else. But, and so we've still got the new position plus the deficit of $200,000 on the heat plant and we're backwards from where we were. So my point is you've heard the comments. I'm concerned that from the slide show I just saw that we've cut the amount for the survey, which I think is the survey that would, it's not a survey, okay. Okay, my lack of understanding there. But we need to honor the folks that bother to speak up. Many people look at the turnout. And I've said this before, it feels like a done deal. You go through the motions of having these hearings, but you've already voted your budget and you're unlikely to tinker with it. And that's really a disservice based on the way you built the budget because you need to engage with the people as you build the budget and not basically hand them a fate of comply. And that's in effect what we've done year after year after year. So I think we need to take seriously that the people saying we need to cut administrative staff. We need to preserve public works. I'm suggesting, and I think it's a valid suggestion. I think it's a suggestion with real merit that we anticipate we're gonna get some funds from the legislature and that we trim even further from what we have done so far and that we create a prioritized list of what we will restore if and when those funds come in in July or it may take effect on passage. But my point is that to give failing frequently, not failing, but a frequently short on performance public works, an excuse to leave everything in the condition it's in is going in the wrong direction from what the people, the police and fire restorations are hypotheticals if we end up in an emergency or if we can't afford the overtime. Whereas the public works is stuff everybody suffers with every day. It rips up our cars, you know? And by restoring public works and holding them to account, we will honor the voters and we can put police and fire restorations high on the list of restorals, as well as potentially my ride, but certainly the folks that do our daily maintenance work. And again, I commend the thorough and obvious value that he laid out for you. Thank you. Is there anyone else in the room? Dan? Good evening all Dan Jones, Northfield Street. I want to actually sort of step back here and take a slightly broader view if I can for a moment. I feel like we've got to start with a suggestion that we can't adequately discuss our budget without some idea of what our long-term goals and priorities are. I believe we've been going on too long with a year-to-year thing where you get December like a, oh, here's your budget, you got three weeks, get it passed. And in a lot of the areas, it seems to me that we are missing the larger challenges that we're facing these days. As many of you know, I'm really concerned about the issue of a resilient future for Montpelier. Where our children, our residents, and our business can be able to thrive in the future. And we've got to have a city that's adaptable and responsible to shifting environments and that. Okay, hold on a sec, Dan. Yep. We're getting that, we're working on it. We can't hear Dan. Not technology. He's like frozen place. It's video and sound. It's not just sound. Can you hear now out there in television land? Getting a thumbs up, thumbs down. I can hear you. I can hear you, is Dan talking? I can't hear him. Nobody's. Can you hear me now? Nobody's started to talk yet. Okay, I think we're back in business. All right, like I said, my worry is that we need an adaptable and responsive way of responding to the shifting economic and environmental forces. And that's going to require maintaining a set of measurable operational goals to guide our municipal management and our financial priorities. To build such a future, we're going to need to organize and reorganize some painful growing realities that must be included in any budgets and municipal plans. Lacking an adequate addressing of our future needs, your job is actually going to be a lot harder. What we see is that we need connections to the coming year's expenditures that not only take a single year but a five-year and a 10-year horizon so we can see what we're investing in for the future and not just what we're managing for the coming year. What is why citizens know that we're actually working toward? You need some direction in order to make sure that our city keeps working on what it promises because these are going to be difficult times. I fear we're rapidly moving out of the 70-year era of prosperity in the post-war period and we're no longer going to be seeing income growth and we're going into a period of contraction. This means that expensive plans for new public spaces and dreamed-up developments are going to be curtailed by the economic and climate realities. Instead, I believe we're entering a time where we're going to need to continually manage our local resources and expenditures with a lot tighter budgets and fewer desirable projects. As we've seen from the floods last summer and then again in December, our city risks more flooding and climate disruptions and that has risen exponentially. There will disrupt our commercial center, our core economy and our sense of possible future. We have to start including such realities in our municipal plans and expenditures and this is hard and complex work. So I'm going to suggest something that will not make me popular but I will at least throw it out there. To have time to digest the implications that the environmental and economic forces are going to create for us, I suggest we might consider following the same course that Barry did and putting off our town meeting for a couple of months to have a deeper dive into the budget rather than having this kind of foreshortened period. I have a longer period of time to see what our priorities are and this would also allow the council to identify longer-term goals and priorities needed to move forward in a more challenging future. Having identified these goals will allow to direct the city administration to provide the budget proposals consistent with those goals based on reasonable assumptions and actual costs and revenues. Now, here's a set of policy questions that I think we need to address fairly soon. What is our commitment to a robust emergency response planning given the climate crisis and what code and infrastructure metrics do we need for future resilience? Okay, I believe this commitment might include creation and support of neighborhood connection groups such as the old CanProp. I strongly urge the creation of an emergency shelter at the Main Street Middle School because what we learned from the last flood is when the roads to Barry get flooded, the so-called Red Cross shelter is no longer useful. So that's just a side thing. What is our long-term strategy for maintaining our water sewer and stormwater system? Long-term and to ensure that the future is functioning. Such plans need to show the reasonable projected costs or a place infrastructure and an adequate schedule of how it will occur, not a year-to-year basis. The city has so far failed to aggressively reach out for external funding support even when help was offered last summer by the State Agency of Natural Resources. We need a robust pathway and staff commitment toward identifying and reaching out for potential funding sources. And I think that's got to become a priority for the city is instead of the administrative functions we now have, maybe we have to have people finding the state and federal monies that are available. Lord knows we have the Washington people who should be able to help us with that. We've already discussed the district heat system. We at the Energy Committee had offered a proposal to study utility. I understand the city manager has actually constituted an internal group to discuss what to do with the system. So it seems to have cut out the Energy Committee. I'm sorry to hear that. That's not what I said. I said I'm trying to find grant funds to do exactly what you wanted to do. You do? Okay, I'm sorry. That was last night from the meeting, hearing from Chris at the Energy Committee. In tonight's opening session, I said, we took the funds out, we've directed our folks to look for grant money to fund the 10,000 to do what was asked. I apologize, I misunderstood. We can go into housing, we can go into a number of other areas, but where I have to find my other sheet here. We've got to also look at, I think something that not everybody will agree with this. I think we have to start looking at the pilot funding. Okay, I know we believe we're within a structure that the state has said for this type of thing, but we are the only city in the state with a huge portion over half of our downtown taken up with state facilities. I would love to see us do a, shall we see an assessment of what's all the property and the states of actually worth if it were a commercial building, just so we have some picture of how much we're expected to support for the state, which is somewhat minimal, but that's just I think a area of negotiation we have to start looking at. But again, we're at seven minutes now. I hope you get one paragraph, John and I will be done. And I believe the budget process in these fraught times is too rushed and not conducive for good decision-making. That's why I suggested before that you consider a delay, but thank you for your attention. Thanks, Dan. And while we're waiting for the next speaker, I'd like to remind everybody in the room that one of the, in the rules of conduct at public meetings that we've adopted, one of the rules or one of the expectations is for members of the public to sit in the seats when they're not speaking. And I would ask that that be observed because in prior years, we've heard people feel, state they feel intimidated by people moving about the chamber during meetings. I'd just like to make a point, a quick point, legal point, just one of Dan's suggestions. I did take a look, just thinking this question might come up, City of Berry Charter allows the city council to move their meeting to whatever date our charter, our date is set by our charter would require a vote of the citizens. So we would have, we have to hold it at this march. Our citizens would then vote to change it for future meetings. So that is not an option that the city council can do. On their own. All right. Is there anybody else in the room who would like to be recognized? Okay. Well, let's go to people on participating by zoom. The easiest way for us to capture you is if you use the electronic raise hand function. You could also raise your physical hand. But as I said, it's easier for those of us managing the meeting to see if you've raised your hand electronically. All right, Phil Dodd, I see you first. You'll take a second for you. Here we go. Good. Yep. Okay. Hello, I'm Phil Dodd. I'm currently co-president with Greg Gradel of the bridge newspaper board and have also been president of our fundraising arm, Friends of the Bridge. The paper is a 501-C3 powered by a tiny staff and a board that is full of active volunteers. I'm here tonight to request that the monthly city column and the bridge be restored to the budget. I'm told that the column has appeared in the paper since 1999 or 2000. And I think it provides a useful and cost effective way to communicate with all Montpelier residents. The paper is mailed for free to every household and business in Montpelier, which no other publication can say. And it is also available for free on news racks throughout the city. In contrast, we have 13 houses on my street. And this morning I saw the Times-Argus delivered to just three of them. Front porch form is free and widely read, but not everyone is signed up. And it can be hard to read all 20 or so postings a week among the flood of other email we all get. The bridge is delivered once every two weeks and can be read immediately or left on the coffee table for later perusal. I think most residents want detailed information and communication from city government about the issues of the day, especially during these challenging times. Hilda's a great job with a column that is full of details that we may or may not cover in our news stories. And it is presented from the city's perspective. In light of the city budget pressures this year, we have cut the price we've offered to the city for 12 months of columns from $14,400 to $9,600. Adding $9,600 to the budget will increase the tax bill on a home assessed at $370,000 by just $2.59. The city is our biggest advertiser, making up about 10% of our ad budget. So this revenue is important to the continuing operation of the paper. Running a newspaper these days is a challenging enterprise. Our advertising has been declining over time as advertisers have turned to the internet. And in fact, our ad revenue for the first issue of this year was the lowest since we started keeping records in 2016. The pandemic almost did us in as did the flood. Fortunately, readers stepped up with donations and we're in good shape at the moment. But there's no guarantee this will remain the case without reliable ad revenue. I believe adding this column to the budget will benefit the citizens of Montpelier as well as the city itself. Therefore, I hope there'll be a motion to add this back to the budget. Thank you for your time. Thanks, Phil. I'll just also mention that we've received a large number of emails from people supporting this. So even if you're one of those people out there who's submitted an email, we've heard your message, you don't need to feel obligated to also address the council, although certainly you're welcome to. Next up, we have Therese Mejo. Thank you, Jack. My name is Therese Mejo. I live at Six Mountain View. I am a commissioner for the cemetery and I just wanted to follow up on some of Jake's comments in talking about sort of what would be the unintended consequences for us losing this portion of our budget. And I will say that we operate on a shoestring budget as it is. Our director is only three-quarter time. We have only one full-time year-round employee. We rely on prison labor to do a lot of the maintenance in the summer months. We don't have a lot of fat to cut. And my concern is, is that if we lose this money and we lose, for example, the prison labor or if we lose our summer worker that we hire sometimes, what's gonna end up happening is it's gonna be in overtime and the two employees that we do have. And I don't know, and that is ultimately not gonna save the city any money. That $40,000 could get eaten up very easily that way. I also want to point out another unintended consequence, which is that if we have to raise prices again on graves and services, this is gonna disproportionately affect the elderly who are the people who, speaking as an elderly person, tend to die. And many elderly in our community live on minimum or fixed income. And this is not going to be a welcome additional expense to them. And I think Jake mentioned this, but the Chapel Vault, which is an historic building in our community that needs to be preserved. The longer that we put off doing work on it, the more expensive it's going to become and it's going to cost us more in the long run. So I think that there are, in addition to sort of the civic reasons why we want to support the cemetery. It is one of our most important public parks. It is one of the most important places where one can learn about Montpelier history. And in addition to all those reasons, I think we also have to look at the unintended consequences of cutting an already extremely lean budget and having it come back and cost us more in the end. Thank you. Thanks, Theresa. And sorry for pronouncing your name wrong after. No, you didn't. You pronounced it beautifully, Jack. Thank you. Thank you. Linda. Me? Linda Berger? I'm sorry. I'm Linda Berger. I'm from District One. I'm also on the Cemetery Commission. This discussion is painful tonight. And I know you've had to make some painful choices as somebody who was following the budget discussion. I'm not sure what's been cut from City Hall. Knowing some of the cuts that City Hall has taken would help kind of ease the pain of hearing that AmeriCorps is gone or that despite the fact that the cemetery has 35 acres of property, the Elm Street Cemetery and Gateway Park that we care for with one in three quarters staff person and we're facing a $40,000 cut. That would help us maybe understand why all of these important services are facing a lot of pain. Thanks, Linda. Want to answer that? We have $65,000 in admin cuts from City Hall and we are still evaluating where that will come from but it is from admin staff here at City Hall. Thanks, Bill. Is there anyone else who's in attendance by Zoom who would like to be recognized? Okay. Well, thank you for all your comments and with that we will close the public hearing and start to discuss it along the council. Council members, where are we at this point? We have a proposed budget with one change from the administration budget which was to add a firefighter and so the floor is open to discuss additions, subtractions or to leave things as they are. And I'll recognize anyone. Lauren. Just one initial piece of information about the MyRide conversation that we had last week. So again, that is, so again, that is zeroed out the city contribution in this proposed budget. I was really trying to understand what the implications would be, what this mean all of a sudden were, certainly cutting transportation services which many residents rely on. So I talked to a number of people including Senator Perchlich who's on the Senate Transportation Committee and my understanding at this point is the state and I know Bill's been talking to lots of people and trying to get those all lined up for us but I was just hoping to hear from many sources. So it sounds like probably this year they can, they're gonna do everything they can to try to get us the service. A number of communities are doing similar things because a number of communities are facing similarly challenging budgets. And so it is gonna be a big problem. It's not clear yet. Like this is where the money will come from or anything like that. But there does seem to be a good commitment to try to fill it and meet the services. I think there is the potential if the service gets cut or reduced in some way. So I think we have to just eyes wide open that that's a choice we're making as we might reduce transportation options for people who really rely on it. One thing that was conveyed to me loud and clear was this is not something we could continue doing and continue to get the service. Because of the flood and this one time thing, there's a sense of, we'll try to fill it this year but they would want us to be clear that our plan would be to continue having a local investment in the system to continue operating it. So to me at a minimum, I would like to, I mean, I would hope there would be support on the council for that that would be our intention. Like, obviously we can't predict the future and where we'll be, but I would hope we had that commitment that we would continue investing in this transportation option for folks in the community. So if we do continue with zeroing it out, I just wanted to provide that context and that would be my sentiment. And I don't know if other people share it, but that's right out there. Thanks, Lauren. I have recognized other people too. My feeling is that there aren't that many items of our budget that are really directed primarily to people who are low income, don't have the money to have a car. Obviously not every, some, there are people who choose to live without a car, but there are plenty of people who can't have a car. And so that's a troubling cut for me getting some backup from the state, at least for a year is encouraging, but it does seem like something that's important to the people who use it. Don, are you unmuting yourself to be heard? I can't even find myself right now. Okay, my hotel room was really dark. Sorry. I mean, I guess I know transit. I know that they've already cut hours. They have trouble keeping drivers. Their funding is being incredibly squashed. And I just feel if we are, what we say we are about social justice and moving forward and evaluating our spending, the group of people who are non-drivers, non-car owners out of choice, or because that's their particular situation in life, don't get much out of our budget. All the money we spend on roads support drivers. And I feel like it's $40,000. We have $685,000 on paving. So I feel it's not thoughtful to cut it. It's just not considered of our constituents who are probably the least likely to call or show up at a meeting. And I still don't support the extra, the additional firefighter position. I really take the chief as word that one position, they've lived out before and I think they can manage this year. It just makes it more balanced to me. I voted on it last week just to move it along. Our conversation was sort of getting circular. And maybe, I know Carrie has some comments and maybe others and maybe they can convince me, but right now I really feel a pinch for not having the $40,000 for my ride and having that additional firefighter in there. Thank you. I like all of us. I think I've spent too much time thinking about this, but just trying to get my head around this budget and this process and really, we're just doing a general fund budget at the moment and not doing the capital plan, water funds, sewer funds, district heat, parking. I mean, a few areas that I got concern about that we haven't discussed. You know, if we're doing a 4.7% increase, we really haven't talked about fire trucks and how we replace them, but we know we need to. We have an ambulance that's aging and needs to be replaced or restored or whatever the hybrid version is. I'm still really concerned about City Hall, the police station, the fire station with flood damage, you know, walking by tonight, looking in the fire department, seeing the walls still cut up four feet. I know we're relying on FEMA funding, but it seems like just seeing a memo from Mike about the buyouts and some of the homeowners. And one of them in Barry just got the buyout from Irene that was 11 years ago. I'm really feeling like just waiting around for that money is not gonna be the solution for our operations. And we haven't talked about that if there's magic money coming or not, but and we still have the assessment adjustments from the tax process and the abatements which we start tomorrow night. So there's a lot of big unknowns and they shake me. I mean, just the one that's contested now that's being going to court, if we do not prevail on that, that will roughly double this tax increase we're talking about with one item. I think we need to find some way to build something into this to allow us to know that we know we have these factors and they're not gonna all go our way. Bill, is that accurate that that's going to, I think we need to address that because once we set the tax rate, we've set the tax rate. Okay, so it's an equivalent amount of money then. So it's, we can get that exact number for you that probably get it before the night's over. Yeah. Sarah's already working on it. She could probably provide you an update on where we are with FEMA too. We're actually doing pretty well on submitting our funds at least for the projects we've already had. As you know, we can't do, we gotta do the assessment before they'll approve the funds for these buildings. And we've approved the contract for the assessment to be done, I assume that's ongoing because that's not coming out of, that's coming out of this year's budget. So that's already, they're already working on that. And we need that. That's FEMA eligible as well. Yeah. I mean, what's the realistic expectation for this thing? Sarah, do you want to? Finance director, could you just repeat the question? I'm sorry, I was working on the grand list option. I'm just trying to gauge. When FEMA funds are likely to be available for like city hall restoration fire department and police department following flood. Yeah. So relying on FEMA funds from a cash flow perspective to do these projects isn't prudent. They take time, estimates and actual invoices to be submitted to FEMA to get funds obligated. There's a significant amount of hoops to jump in documentation that's required. And so we're tracking all of our expenses. I just submitted a packet for the Main Street sewer main repair collapse. So once they have it and they have gone through all of that, they would obligate funds. And it takes, I would say at least 90 days from then for that to work through the state process and then to get back to us. And so that's why we've taken on some short-term line of credits in order to cover those funds, but it will take time to get them in. It's not that we're not doing the things. There just are a significant number of hoops to jump to get the federal funds from FEMA and make sure we're covered for that. Does that help? So you're feeling like it's a reasonably short-term 90 day to six month kind of window to get these funds? Or we've also seen on some other FEMA programs really long, long timelines. Yeah. So once FEMA has obligated, it gets moved to the state. FEMA considers large projects, a million dollars are greater, but the state considers large projects, 250,000 are greater. So you have to work through the whole grant application process once it hits the state, which would add time. So it wouldn't be 90 days for every project, but as we've collected the documentation and submitted it, that starts the clock on funding coming in. And sorry, Sarah, for these projects, like we had this list, it's a big, big list of $11 million, but that involves a lot of separate lines within that. Some of those are probably under $250,000, but is each one of those considered a separate project from through FEMA? That's correct. Each one is considered a separate project. So the one I submitted on last week was around $75,000. That included contract labor and force account labor, so internal staff time. And that documentation required all of the bids, making sure we followed all of our procurement policies, invoices, photo documentation, labor documentation. So it is intensive what they require. And then the state will ask for all of those things again once it gets to them. So each one takes a chunk of time, but we're working through that, but it is not an immediate source of funds. And then the big stuff that we ordered the assessment for, that's gonna take a little longer. Correct. And the funding on some of the larger projects works a little different. So once we've come up with a plan and have an estimate, FEMA will obligate and advance some of that money. So some of that money will come in advance. It just depends on the project type, but we need to submit the full package for them to review and approve before they would pass any funding along. Thanks. Sal. While we've got Sarah at the table, I wonder if this latest budget tool that you sent out includes the, I mean, what does it include? Does it take into account an estimate of the assessment? Numbers or not? So the latest budget tool that I sent out to you includes the BCA adjustments in the reduction in the grand list and that it includes the addition of the firefighter, as discussed last time. Okay, and it does not include any abatements that are done. We're starting those, I think, tomorrow night. Correct, because those are going to impact fiscal year 2024 at this point and not the 25 budget. There is an unknown around abatements, but unknowns are difficult to budget for. Great, thank you. So this schedule that Sarah sent just today or maybe it was yesterday shows that the additional taxes on a house of $370,000 with the school and the city combined is $955. That's on top of an average, what 46% increase in assessed value? That includes, that's the new values. So the average value was $370,000, prior to that it was $225,000 or something like that. So we've adjusted the average value to reflect the reappraisal. Hmm, okay, great. Good to know. Boy, it's an awfully big increase and it's mostly in the school. That's what we, while you're pondering that Sal, I don't want to interrupt you, but just to reiterate the point that you just asked and Sarah just said, but for people that are watching, the abatement process and the impact of the tax appeals and the impact of the abatement processes are different. So the tax appeal changes our grant west, which changes what we will base the tax rate on for next year because it'll be, it's lower. So we started the budget with what the initial grant list was filed this year, now that's been reduced. So next year that will affect it. The abatements are for taxes in this current fiscal year. So when we had you, because that's when the flood was. So people asking for abatements from July to October, that's in this current year. And that was part of the $1.5 million budget rescission we had to approve was the anticipation of those abatements coming this year. So there would be some budget loss during this, I mean, obviously we didn't know how it was gonna be, but it was a guesstimate. And I can also tell people that we're not gonna have that information in time to do anything with the budget. As Bill said, it's fiscal year 2024 money, but also we will be hearing abatement requests pretty much the next four weeks. And since the majority of those requests are based on flood damage, the board of abatement has decided to hear the evidence on all those abatements week by week starting tomorrow night, but not make decisions on those requests until we get to the end, because we wanna make sure that we're being fair and consistent in how we apply our standards. And so people coming tomorrow night won't be going home with the decision, same thing with the following week and the week after that, but we will be working through those and hope to have that all done in a month or so. Also to that point, you know, the legislature, the on and must build that we talked about that we supported earlier, the Clones funding for loss revenues to municipalities. And we've submitted in our request to the state, again, for FY24, the abatement exposure plus the loss revenues, plus our share of FEMA and plus the potential education tax loss for abatements, although I think the state has a separate bill that they're gonna address that. So we should put it up to 3.5 million, but about one and a half was our general loss revenues, another one and a half was the school and then 800,000 for our share for FEMA. So we have a request that all of that month is from the state. Call. What? Canada just called. She wants you to get ready to go out to dinner with her. Hey, Linda Berger, please. Could you mute you? Thank you. So, again, if those funds were to come in, it would be to offset this current year. It's not, what's that? I'm saying that, as I've said a couple of times, if the funds, those funds are to reimburse, I don't know. She's having trouble hearing you. Does anyone, can anybody else hear me out there? Sal's saying no too. Can you hear me, Diana? No, they've lost some. When they shut off Linda, they shut off everybody, I think. How's that? Is that better? Okay. So anyway, I won't belabor it, just that the funds that we are seeking are, again, to refill that one and a half million or a little more hole in this current fiscal year, it's not to balance the future budget. Thanks, Bill. Any other members of the council have any thoughts about the budget that we're facing right now? Hey, Pailin. It's myself. I think I mentioned all my ideas last week. I think next year we should start discussing these things earlier. I checked a couple other towns, some of them start mid-August. Again, I don't know if it is feasible or not just an idea for us to brainstorm about it. And I wanna add all the things, like my rights, I know that it is very important. I, again, repeated it a couple times. Bridge page that City has, for me it is important for communication with our residents. Firefighter position is important. But again, adding all these things and not finding any other places to keep the balance makes me a little bit concerned and I couldn't find any solution for that. So yeah, that's why, again, I don't wanna repeat my ideas, but we are having really very difficult period, right, time. And I don't wanna take about everything. Everybody's saying they are so important. Yeah, but having the tax being a little bit lower, so everybody, including me, can afford. It's one thing and just like, yeah, we need all the services. Let's do not take them away, it's another, it's a huge dilemma. So yeah, that's all, thank you. Thanks, Bella. Bill, do we need a motion to go forward or are we just set with, for now, are we just set with what we, if you don't change your budget, then it would be the same budget projection for the next meeting. If you make a motion to change that, then that's what will be presented for the next public hearing. Okay, thanks. Sarah, do you have some news for us? So if the National Life Appeal went in their, most in their favor, it would be a reduction of 18.7 million on the grand list. What that would do was it would drive the tax rate up 6.2%, not in addition, but in total. So. So. From the 4.7 to the 6.2, another. That's that 1.5%. Yep. Yep. I'd like to make a motion, Mayor. Yes, certainly. I'm willing for it to fail, but I like to make the motion. And if I understand the percentage that in Bill's slides, it would be the 3.93 that would not include the 88,000 for the firefighter. I'd be taking out the firefighter and it'd be that percentage. Was that the 3.93? That's correct. That's what my motion is proposing. And we take out the firefighter, the 88,000, and make it the 3.93 increase. Is there a second? Seconded by Sal. Is there any discussion? Or are we ready to vote? All right. I'll just call the roll. Because I think that's where we are. Uh, bait. Yes. Brown. Alfano. Yes. Innie. Cone. No. Pearl. I didn't hear all the no's. So how many are there? Three so far. Okay. So it's three to three. And I'm not voting on this one. Folks, do we have any other proposals? Lauren. One lens I've been using, um, thinking of things like the AmeriCorps position. I've talked to a few people about the potential ability to fundraise separately from the city budget. And I think there's some opportunity and interest there. So, you know, one thing, I think there's a lot of cuts like that one. And thank you so much for coming tonight. And that was really compelling. And I think important for us all to hear and appreciate that. And so, I mean, I'm hopeful that we can keep looking for ways to fund some, some of this work. And I think there's some interest. And I know the commission for flood recovery and stuff was like, maybe they could be helpful with some fundraising and things. So there's, I'm looking for some opportunities too, to see, you know, what does this budget cut? And how can we backfill some of the services that are going to be short-shifted under it? And are there ways to kind of bring in partners or something to help buffer that? And I guess one question I have for Bill. So if we, if we are able to bring in state funds, I understand that it's looking at kind of lost revenue for this fiscal year, knowing that part of what we've done, for example, is a hiring freeze. It was not like we're going to go back and pay people that didn't work. So there's, there would still be some discretionary money to figure out how to prioritize spending. And I know there's, there's no discretion in that. That doesn't make sense. Yes, I know. So finance, if I, if I'm not alive tomorrow, Eric, you know where the suspect is. So you're correct that we can't unring the bell for things that we've saved. We're repeating that it's not a good practice to take the one-time money to balance our operating budget. So I think if we were going to use it, it would be to restore, to put back projects, capital, equipment, those kinds of things, one-time expenses. So if they were specific, because it would be one-time money and, you know, we are, our general fund balance did drop. So to, to restore that and possibly put some in reserve for a potential settlement with like a national life, that kind of thing. So I mean, yes, there'll be opportunity to use it. I think, I think I might be getting myself back to life support that as long as we don't use it to take it as a revenue source to sort of balance it. Because that just beats next year when we come in, we're short that revenue. Now, but I mean, again, you can plug, you know, yes. Yeah, I mean, I'm just thinking of even some of the things we've heard tonight, like the chapel at the cemetery is a one-time, you know, so I think, you know, I can assure you to hope that there is some opportunity for some of the frustration that many departments have. To the capital fund and then have a process where we really allocate where that all goes to additional projects, additional paving, additional, whatever, water line, you know, whatever, those kind of things. Sal. What's the, what's the history of the chapel? It's a historical building. Is there, is there no money available for restoration of historical buildings? Question for the cemetery. Patrick. Patrick Healy, Greenmail Cemetery. We have applied for grants, but we're competing against the city of Montpelier when there's historic grants available. So we have not been able to get any. We now have out of our fund balance, the commissioners set aside $80,000 for match for grants to match the grant or matches for the, for grants that we get. So we have that designated. So we're talking probably a project of between one and $2 million to redo the chapel vault building. It's a marble building. The marble needs some work. The toilet went to the river, the pipe was cut off years ago. And so there's no, there's no sewage capabilities at the chapel at this point. And just an FYI, the sewer line does not run by the cemetery. It goes under the river before the cemetery on both sides. Thanks. Jim. Find somebody. Yeah. Well, okay. Well, it's almost 830. This is the time we would ordinarily take our break. Let's take a 10 minute break. And maybe in that 10 minutes, Tim will find his money. To resume, I see Councilor Bate. I see Sal. You don't have your camera on yet, but you're here. Yep. And I will mention to the members of the public that Councilor Cohn had to leave. So we're down to five. And gentlemen, I would ask you to continue that conversation outside. Yeah. Thanks. Just to refresh everyone's memory before we start the meeting with, just because it gets confusing sometimes with Council Member Cohn gone. It requires four affirmative votes to pass anything by the Council. So a three, two vote is not sufficient for a motion to pass. So even though there's only six of you here counting the mayor, you need four affirmative votes and rules of procedure say the mayor can vote to break a tie or make a fourth vote if they choose. So if it were three, two, the mayor could choose to make it four or two or not. They're a discretion. But just a three, three vote would not pass. As it was anyway. Thanks, Bill. One other thing that it was brought to my attention that someone was trying to be recognized and couldn't figure out how to raise his hand. I'm not seeing him on the, oh, there we go. So we did close the public hearing, but since Jerry Diamond, I think you were trying to be recognized and didn't know how to manipulate the technology to do that. I'm gonna call on you right now if you're, if you can try to try to speak. And Evelyn, that's Candy Diamond if you can unmute that connection. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. But I've said what I wanted to say in an email to you and the other counselors. And I don't have anything to add, but I did raise the issue that if I had wanted to, I had no idea how to put that little hand up on the screen so that you could recognize me. And you don't need to take up the council's time to teach me how to do that. But for the public hearing next week, I would at least like to know how to do that. Okay, thanks, Jerry. And I will make a note of that for next time. I'm not seeing your email yet, but I- It's a job for grandchildren, Jerry, to teach you how to do that. Yeah. Okay. Since we're losing members, I don't feel that we're ready to take any action on any further items of the budget tonight. I'm going to suggest we close out this topic and just proceed with the agenda. And- We don't have to go to take it to the second hearing even? No, okay, cool. So you've set a preliminary budget. You didn't change it tonight. So that's still in the council's budget. You've already scheduled the second hearing. It's not like an avoidance where you're passing the first and second reading. And so basically the presentation next week will be the same as the presentation this week. And then we'll take it from there. So do we vote on it again ever? Unless we change it? Yes, you still need to vote. Ultimately, you vote a final budget next week. And I guess officially the way you do that is you pass a motion of the dollar amount that goes on the warning. So that becomes, once you do that, there's no going back. Okay, thanks, Bill. City Council reports. We'll start on Lauren's end of the table tonight. Tim? Sal? Passing. Kerry? Yeah, I just had something that I want to bring up and I don't want to get into a whole discussion about it now and it's something that I'll connect with Bill about. But I just, as I've been hearing people's stories about losing their houses in the flood and dealing with FEMA or not dealing with FEMA and all that and being in a position myself of someone who has flood insurance and then had my house flooded and had to respond to that. So my understanding is that we are overall flood insurance rates in Montpelier are lower because we participate in this something or other program with national flood insurance program. I can't remember the name of it, but so we've got these certain regulations in place such as having to move our utilities up out of the basement after we flood. So we had to do that. Or the houses that are substantially damaged are needing to either be raised or try to get a buy out and be demolished. And so the problem is that we have this flood insurance but it doesn't cover the costs of these extra regulations that have been put in place to save us money on our flood insurance. And so I'm just interested in maybe it all works out, maybe it all comes out of the wash but the amount of money being saved by individual flood insurance holders compared to the millions and millions of dollars that we're looking at potentially to be raising buildings to be buying out buildings to be and then all of the other additional expenses that people have had to do to move the utilities and to come into compliance with these regulations. If we're looking at it from a financial perspective, I would be interested to see that analysis done a little bit more carefully. And it does feel like there's just something really off with the system that is supposed to give us a benefit of lower insurance rates but it doesn't give us an additional insurance benefit which is actually what people need when their properties flood. So it's just something I wanted to, I don't need an answer or anything right now but it's just something I wanted to raise and have on the table for discussion at some point. Yeah, so I think that's a great idea. When we're ready to discuss, we'll have our experts. So you don't have to say anything tonight, Mike. And that's all you've got, Donna. I'll pass, thank you. Okay, Mayor's report, I will just say, boy, what a rough storm last night. The city manager and I were both wondering if we're gonna make it home with the roads. So good job to the Department of Public Works and thank you. City Clerk's report. Just reminders about the election and reminder, well, I've reminded folks about the deadlines. If you're interested in any deadlines, information or need forms to file a petition or file for a candidacy, please check at the clerk's page online. Stuff should be pretty easy to find. If not, give me a call directly. We have had a couple candidates already filed, so the voter guide that I have set up is starting to populate. I encourage folks to engage with it. It's gonna be found through the clerk's page or at Montpeliervoterguide.org. And then that, yeah, everybody's mentioned it, but tomorrow is the abatement hearing beginnings and the quorum is different for the Board of Abatement than it is for the Board of Civil Authority. So unfortunately, a lot of that burden comes down to you all again, that it becomes very, very important to have a majority of the council there. Otherwise, the quorum may not be attainable. Oh, well, anyways, that's enough guilt. That's all I've got. This guilt and more guilt, that's all I've got. City Manager. Yeah, I don't have any particular announcements. I just say, you know, staff and I recognize how difficult this is for everybody, us and all of you, the public, going through this. And it doesn't make our job any easier, but if you've been paying attention, if you saw the news this morning about kind of Berlin, select board dealing with a 14% budget increase, trying to figure out what to do to get it down on the municipal side, not counting the school. City of Berry has a million-dollar budget flow. They're trying to get the state to fix for next year, that they just don't have the money for, and they don't know what they'll do if they don't get state money. So, you know, it's not just us. It's hard. The places around the flood took its toll, and people around the state, I talked to my colleagues, and people are struggling this year. I don't know whether it's a combination of what the factors are, but it's hard. So, you know, if it feels hard, it is hard, and your elected colleagues around are feeling it too. Oh, and I should correct myself. I do have something else to say. This morning as I was going through my daily scan of Twitter and what's on there, yes, I still do Twitter. One of the things I saw was a speech on the floor of the House of Representatives from our representative, Beckett Ballant, speaking very eloquently about the need for a post office in downtown Montpelier, and I know that our congressional delegation is continuing to push for it, and hopefully that will bear fruit. And, Sal, sorry. Just a note for John on the abatement. John, I was planning on participating, but I'm gonna have to do it remotely. Is that gonna be set up for tomorrow? Yes, we should send out a link. If you didn't get it, well, I'll just resend it out. Yeah, but there's a week we're gonna be doing the Zoom thing. It'll be hybrid from here on out. Yeah, it'll be good to have the link go out kind of close to the time of the meeting because that's when people are looking for it in my experience. All right, well, we are done at 8.53 p.m., we are adjourned. Thank you all.