 Okay being six o'clock on Monday January the 7th 2019 we'll call to order the Wienersky City Council meeting we'd ask that everybody please stand and join us for the closure of lesions led by Deputy Mayor Nicole Mace. 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. Okay next up is a gender review. This is an opportunity for Council to make any changes to the agenda. The only question I think I had is I assume the memo is just the extent we don't have anybody here to present for the philanthropic funding opportunities for school-aged children. Ray is here. That was just a requested information as part of the budget process. I just want to make sure we know that those organizations are hanging out. I don't see any potential organizations hanging out in the crowd to do presentations. Thank you. Any other questions concerns regarding the agenda from Council? Okay so seeing and hearing done we'll move forward with the agenda as presented. Next up is public comment. This is an opportunity for members of the public to address Council about any items that are not on tonight's agenda. You'll find tonight's agenda on the back podium. We also appreciate everybody taking the time to sign in from your attendance tonight. We appreciate that. We can spell your name correctly if you speak. But this is an opportunity to address the Council about anything that's not on tonight's agenda. How much you love the snow plowing? Whether or not it was you that wrecked into the great in the middle of the circulator. Okay so seeing and hearing done we'll move on to the consent agenda. We have four items on tonight's consent agenda. We have the Council minutes from the 17th of December 2018. The warrant ending in the 4th 2019. That's going to pay out for November. Also the payroll warrants from 12.218 to 12.1518 and 12.1618 to 12.2918. And also the budget adjustment wage plan implementation document that again was an item that was covered in Council meeting in depth. Any questions or concerns from Council in regards to the consent agenda? Any questions or concerns from the public? It's a seeing hearing done. I am changing motion to for the consent agenda as presented. Motion by Nicole, seconded by Christine for the discussion. Seeing hearing done all those in favor please say aye. Aye. And those opposed? Motion carried. Motion carries. City update. Great thank you. So I have a number of updates. I do want to tell you that the handouts on your table there there's four different sets of documents. One is a 15-year budget projection for the parking fund that we'll be talking about later. There are two sets of budget replacement pages for your budget books and then the renderings for the Abenaki garage that we'll be going over later. So just to orient you to what's in front of you. We have actually quite a few big updates. We are hitting the ground in 2019 run-in. So we got our preliminary audit findings back. I believe a clean audit. There are two recommendations. One of which we've already implemented a change to. We believe the auditors will be here next week on the 14th to present to you as well as the treasurer to give his first quarterly report. So we can expect those two items next time. Congratulations. And congrats and thanks to Angela who does a huge amount of work to one keep us fiscally solvent and to put together and coordinates that audit. The housing commission is going to meet this Friday instead of their regular. This Thursday. Thank you. January 10th. Save their regular first Monday of the month because the fourth Monday of the month is your final budget hearing. So we don't want those two meetings to conflict and we wanted to move the housing work quickly. So this Thursday the 10th. Additionally, the same night on Thursday, the planning commission will be meeting on their agenda that night is a final review of the master plan document and the vote to forward it to you. So if they choose to do that, that will be a big accomplishment for that group who's got a ton of work on the master plan in the last couple of months. And just a reminder that master plan is on schedule to be approved by the council in April, which is when our current master plan expires. We are working on standing up the East Allen scoping study advisory committee. This is the we apply it through the Jinden County Regional Planning Commission for funding this year to do a comprehensive look at East Allen Street and look at traffic calming measures given the development that's happening on East Allen, how to slow down traffic and make things more pedestrian friendly. So we have the steering committee stood up for that project, including some of the property owners, CCRPC representatives and staff. We will also be having some public hearings in February and then after 10 meeting day to get public feedback on that. The project review committee, which is the internal permitting group that meets in the gateway for the projects coming up in the gateway district is meeting at the end of the month to review a proposed development at 401 Main Street. That is the property right at the front of the school property. So it was it's been kind of a you haul storage facility for a couple of months and their redevelopment plans for that parcel, including commercial space and housing. The headworks project is going before the DRB later this month for a conditional use approval. And that project is fully engineered at this point and on track to be bid out. We have a downtown association meeting on Wednesday. That's not downtown Winooski. That's the downtown property owners within the TIF district to present to them similar a similar presentation that we're giving you tonight on the proposed Abadake Way garage and the global settlement in the TIF district. So more to come on that. Three more things. That's it. IXP, which is the consultant who is now in charge of hired by the Chinden County Public Safety Authority to build the implementation plan for regional dispatch will be in the city tomorrow meeting with myself and the chiefs about Winooski's dispatch service provision now and what we hope to get from a regional system in the future. They will also be presenting to all the Chinden County Public Safety officials and dispatchers on January 22nd. So we're trying to keep them very much in the loop as that work moves forward. Angela and I are meeting with Vepcy on Friday in anticipation of the state auditor's audit of our TIF district, which is a regular occurrence is worth three quarters of the way through our TIF district. So that will be kicking off with Vepcy in the next couple of weeks as well. And then finally, we had talked about this last time how I brought this up during city updates. And I think we may have some more conversations about this in the next month. I also sent an email around about it. I am recommending that we hold the equity training until after town meeting day, given all the changes going on. I think it's really would be a great opportunity for a new council to sit and have that experience together. Certainly one of the one of the values, sorry, Sue has brought to the table is inviting community partners, not just staff in the council. So you all will be included in that in that work, regardless of your elected status at that point. But right now we are not we are we are we are canceling the February 23 date we are holding and we'll be rescheduling that likely in late March, April ish and how and Nicole and I are scheduled in July are scheduled to meet with Sue on Thursday morning. Those are my net updates. Great. Last up is council reports. We started the other the table last time, so let's start down here. So since the last time we met, I made a public announcement that I will be running for mayor after Seth is leaving us. And so in accordance with our city charter, I will need to resign my seat after our January 14 meeting in order to be able to run. So that means that there's a one year term on council open to the public for running. You can get forms from Carol here from City Hall to collect signatures to run for that position. The signatures I do January 28, actually February 1, February 1. Okay, there's about a month of time there for someone to step in for just a one year term. Thank you. Thank you. Have a meeting with Jesse and Seth tomorrow to discuss transition issues with all the batons being passed. I want to make sure that we're prepared to do what needs to be done as of January 28. Nothing's transpired since the last time. Same thing, I think just trying to get prepped for things are going. I think the other thing that will come out of that conversation discussion is we'll bring back maybe some potential recommendations just to keep your minds open to how to hand off some of those large issues, things like policy around housing, make sure everybody's comfortable with the next steps on the master plan approval. And also just want to flag that it's highly likely that the next meeting, and we haven't all talked about this formally, but that I'll be bringing forward a proposal to do a temporary selection for council to consider appointing another counselor to serve for the month of February, so that there's a bit more of a bench because you'd be at the point of potentially having one sickness away from decision making paralysis and in an effort to curb that. I think that is a very likely recommendation, although not finalized yet. I'll try to bring in some more information, and that will be as a result of the action to Christine's decision. So similar to Christine, I've also announced that I'll be running for mayor. But as a reminder, in addition to that seat, there are both Nicole and I seats that are up for election this year as well. So if there are any fantastic folks in the audience who are interested in pulling petitions and running out strongly encourage you to do so. The public's my understanding, though, is that in our charter, I won't have to resign. I'll be serving out the term, so we'll still be able to have some continuity of operations here on the council. I look forward to seeing your proposal, Seth, but did just really want to thank you for your service. And I know serving under you on council has been an immense pleasure. And it'll certainly be a big gap to be filled in in the future. The Public Safety Commission is meeting tomorrow night. So if folks are interested, they can come down here, assuming that the body is able to pull together a quorum. So the only thing I can say is that I'm remanding on council. So you have me. One of you can turn the lights on. Awesome. So yeah, change is a good thing. With that regular items, we'll move forward with a regular agenda. Okay, first up tonight is discussion approval of the event permit for working Windows 2019. I've had a little join me to answer any questions, but we've been through this process quite a few times now. So we've received an event permit application for the annual Waking Windows event in May 2019. This is a three day arts and music festival that's been held for the last eight years and draws thousands of visitors to downtown Manuski annually. The event will take place in many downtown business venues, as well as on outdoor stages on the Muskie Falls way and in Rotary Park. And the event sponsor requests the closure of Manuski Falls way for Friday through Sunday, May 3rd through 5th use of Rotary Park, use of city property along Manuski Falls way, use of the terrace park in front of BSA and use of Landry Park at the skate park. Staff discuss requirements and event needs with the event sponsors at our monthly event review meeting on December 19th, a list of conditions and requirements included in your packet and staff recommends the approval of the permit. And please feel free to ask Kelly any questions about how the event will go this year. Welcome for Science 2019. You know, first off, we don't ever do like a debriefing meeting, but just want to reiterate the appreciation over the last several years at the cooperation and especially in light of last year's weather event, the great spirit and nature of the relationship between the event and the city. I think I hope I know the city's tried very hard to help it grow sustainably. You guys have been really responsible, amazing partners and ensuring that that happened and pulled off an amazing event. So thanks for last year. And I think everybody's nothing but excited for this year. I just want to know, I know, I think we recapped this in the mini afterwards, but last year was the first time I got not one single phone call or complaint or email. Yeah, that's crazy. That's amazing. I just want to, I think that's a great reflection of the relationship you've established with the community, and also the way that you all have worked together to make sure that there's lots of information available for people and expectations. So thank you for that too. Anything you want to share in terms of changes or updates? Um, not really. It's going to be pretty much the same footprint as last year as of tonight. I don't know if anything may change, you know, right now as those things happen, but we're pretty much just doing the same as last year. Nothing big and crazy, but just adding probably a couple of the businesses that have recently opened or trying to include them in some way. Nice. Do you want to announce Dr. Dogs that have lied in an office? No news. Yes. People are going to get upset. I hear that. And then it's not going to happen. One of the operational changes that Ali suggested this year that we're continuing on from last year is because of the weather event last year, we had a morning of kickoff with all of the people, all of our staff and all of her staff and volunteers so people could put names to faces and worked out really well when we had to cancel the main stage the first night. So we're going to continue that every year now. So the people who are just here for the weekend, of course, we all know Ali, but along the stage managers knowing John and knowing Rick and myself and John Rauscher will be, I think, good improvement. And thank you for taking the time to do it on the first day. I think it's great. It worked out really well. Best scenario in a not great situation. So questions, concerns from Council. This is one of a number of us have seen a number of times and seem pulled off successfully a number of times, but any questions, concerns? Any questions, concerns, comments from the public? Awesome. So with that, we have this on as a discussion approval item given the lack of discussion and assume that we could move towards a motion towards the approval of the Wiccan Windows 2019 format. So motion by House, second by Eric. Can you fill the discussion? So you can hear your knowledge in favor, please say aye. Aye. No as opposed, motion carries. Thank you. Thanks for all your work, Ali. All right, next up is the downtime of the EEC funding request. While Kelsey is coming up to join us, as we discussed at the last Council meeting down to Winooski is requesting City Council's approval of funding in the amount of $54,497.12 from the general fund balance for the hiring, onboarding and salary of a new 32 hour per week executive director. We had discussed it previously and there were a couple of things that you wanted Kelsey to come back with. And so she has brought we have a few things in your packet that you haven't seen last yet. Thank you. So what the major change to the budget that I presented to you was to remove that thank you so much other was to remove that 2020 additional fund balance ask and instead to look at the potential of raising sidewalk fees. They're currently at $2 a square foot, regardless of business. For comparison, Burlington's as of 2015, I'm not sure what their current ones are, are for alcohol service are $8 and 56 cents a square foot for a deli they're $5 and 56 cents a square foot and for a coffee or tea business, they're 28 a square foot. So I'm not sure that that price is the best answer, but I just wanted to show you what the number would be if there was a additional 500 square feet of sidewalk usage. So assuming that more businesses would have that sidewalk usage in 2020, and that there would be a raise in the sidewalk fee. And so that's where the that number came from. And it's still not quite the 20,000 gap that we think that we're guessing that we'll have in 2020, but just wanted to show you those numbers. Do we differentiate it all between those types of businesses? So it's a plan. I think it's a conversation. I just want to say too, I'm comfortable. I would be comfortable moving this forward without having to take up the specific action of that number. To be really blunt, I think, quite frankly, that should be the next Council's prerogative. I think that there's actually time potentially for them to consider making this decision should they so choose prior to the sidewalk season setting in. And I wouldn't feel comfortable recommending this without talking to businesses about getting their feedback. I just wanted to give you what that number would be. No, we appreciate that. We have no feedback on that. Yeah. Some other things that were added to the MOU relate to the footprint of the downtown designation lines and expanding that to the corridors. Thank you. And so that is item A2H on page two. Any other items of note? No, we just we also included the latest downtown funding survey that was from 2015. And I believe we referred to it last time. So we included that it does need to be updated because the Winooski contribution doesn't include sidewalk fees. So this doesn't accurately reflect what we've been doing for the last few years. And then just a reminder, there's also a variety of that's this is a tough if you drill down into some questions, it gets messy because some of these are like interdepartmental transfers. Some of them, this is a branch of the city. Some of them, the city is employing a staff member who is then also the executive director. And that's why when sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off, why I pulled up Waterbury and Berry as two comparisons because they more closely reflect our structure. Great. One thing that I did just kind of wonder about is if and forgive me if we discuss this somewhat last time that has the board put together a given that a lot of the centers around the desire to hire an executive director, has the board approved a sort of hiring plan or process? Process as in the job description and how we're going to we don't have it spelled out, but we did have a very successful process with the farmers market manager because page Feezer has a lot of HR experience through Planned Parenthood. So she did the spreading of the job description on various recruitment sites and then also made sure that everyone was fairly that initial interview, you know, to all who submitted qualified resumes. And so she was the first step and then we had three people interview myself and actually, yeah, myself and interviewed the final candidates. And then we came to the board with how we wanted to hire. And so it was definitely a process as opposed to one person making a decision. I think I just want to get so you're separately chartered, you guys get to make your own decisions, you have to govern yourselves, you have to make your own decisions about your employees and your staff. Having sat in this seat through hiring an executive in the city manager position, just really wanted to champion the concept of building a broad coalition of participation in that process that helps not only in the selection process, but also in the developing your metrics for analyzing worthy candidates, because it feels like this is going to be a position quite frankly similar city manager position that was a pretty desired coveted thing. You know, and that's why we did it up with the best. No, but in seriousness, what we did reflect very positively upon was reaching out to a broad coalition of partners. And that in turn also created buy in on those entities for our success. And for this individual success as organizations. So just wanted to share that reflection because I don't think we really talked about that process. And I think we did. That's a really good suggestion on the asking Heather for suggestions. More people who have input and stake tend to be more people vested in the success of the organization and the position. So I think those were the big items that we asked for last time. Are there any other concerns? Comments or new items? Questions, concerns, comments from the public. So really appreciate you guys doing that work to follow up with that and address those issues. Thank you very much. So with that, this is on as an approval item, I entertain a motion for the approval of the funding request for downtown news as presented. Motion by Eric second by Christine. Any further discussion? So you can hear me now. I was in favor to say aye. Aye. And those opposed. Motion carries. Thank you. Thanks for all your work. Thank you. Thanks for all your work, guys. Appreciate it. All right. Next up is the public works in capital improvement plan for FY 20. So as John gets set up here for a minute, there are a couple of things I want to say is an introduction to this budget presentation because it's there is a lot here tonight. So as you know, John started as public works director after the creation of the FY 19 budget that we're currently in and after I did this presentation to you all last year. So as he and Angela have built this budget this year, he has rebuilt the entire general fund and enterprise fund budgets line item by line item. So as you'll see in the presentation, a number of the line items have changed and we can talk about that through the presentation, but just wanted to acknowledge the work they've done to really rebuild it from the bottom up. He's also built a comprehensive capital improvement plan, which is the city's always had a CIP, but this is a pretty advanced model that John has used in other communities. It's complicated. There's a lot here. So we're going to present it all tonight, but but certainly feel like you can ask questions, come in and meet with John. There's hundreds of spreadsheets behind this, what you're going to see tonight. So lots of information here to share. I think it's also important to note that capital improvement plans, the front is closed, so it's not going to start. Capital improvement plans are meant to be plans and living documents. So as projects, we have done our best to model out what we think is going to happen in the next five years. But as projects come to fruition, construction cost change, etc. numbers change and projects shift around. So you will see that over the next five years as we use this document more. He's also built it to integrate in our debt service plans. So those are now reflected in our CIP that allow us to track our debt capacity. So as debt falls off for one thing, how do we use that capacity to reinvest in our municipal infrastructure? So that's the table setting I want to do before we dive in. I'm also going to recommend that we actually skip well into this presentation because we have some guests here and focus first on the proposal for the Abonacci garage and the parking fund and then go back to the and once we've gone through that, I think that will take about 10 or 15 minutes and once we've gone through that, then go back to the beginning of the public works presentation and systematically work through it. Are people comfortable with that? So just to introduce our guests, we have tonight Greg Rabadou from Rabadou Architects. Architects was the architect we've been working. And of course, Adam V. Rob, who many of you have met before, is the hotel developer who's been trying to bring a hotel to Luski now for a number of years. So we are going to flip into this presentation to slide, I don't know, far in. Very and I'm going to talk through these slides quickly. And then Greg and John and Adam can answer any other questions you have. So this is the site plan we are talking about just as orientation. You see Abonacci way there at the bottom of the screen. To the left of this site plan is CCV. And to the right is River Run, River House River Run. Behind it, the green space is Casavante. So what you see here as a plan is a 300 space in municipal garage. And I think it's still 104 room hotel. Is that true? So what this plan that's very much in development and may change before you decide to take a final vote on this. What this site plan achieves is a resolution of the lawsuits within the TIF district by building new parking infrastructure. It enables the full build out of the TIF district. It maintains one of the goals the city has had from beginning is maintaining that public access to Casavante. So you see that road there on the right side of the rendering. It meets CCV's parking needs in an adjacent parking structure. And we believe we can build this with zero tax rate impact. So build it solely based on the fees the users will pay. And you have more recent renderings that Greg passed out to you in front of me. So this next slide captures the TIF duration of the parking fund. In front of you also is a 15 year budget projection of the entire parking fund. So what this envisions is a $9.2 million parking garage. That's the current cost estimate for that facility. It does include the plan to do some debt down payment. So we're not borrowing that full amount but borrowing a number less than that. We are hopeful to get CDBG funds for this project. Sales tax reallocation. We will be coming to you with a fund balance request for the CDC funds. This we think is an appropriate use of those funds to spur on development. And then other user contributions. What you see here in this first five years is interest only for the first five years on this debt. This project taking into consideration this new debt in the parking fund. Cash flows at the completion of the TIF debt. Then there's a period of time where it does not cash flow positive but then picks back up in FY29 cash flowing positive. And that's when the principal payment kicks in. The model we have built, Angela has blessed, does have us always having a reserve balance. So we'll never actually be in the red for the whole time. Why it's important to note these first five years is that during the life of the TIF district, what we're calling the Abenaki garage, which will be the garage on Abenaki Way and the Cascades garage, which will be the current garage, is that the revenue from the Cascade garage goes to pay the TIF increment. So we can't count on the use of any surplus in that garage towards debt service. That ends after the end of the TIF district, assuming that we positively pay off the TIF debt, which this scenario allows us to do. And then starting in FY25 the parking fund is looked at in total all that 15 year projection in front of you. So we have a very experienced and eager development partner. So we have a fast timeline. Right now, assuming all goes well. And this and with your approval, we take a bonbon in March, and continue on quickly from there. The architect and developer anticipate being under construction this fall, which is aggressive in past, but we think it is possible. So at a high level, that's what we wanted to present tonight. Greg or Adam or John, if there are other things you want to add? Well, I would like to again, I'm pretty glad we go from where we are at this, just to display these images again, drop out of your mind. First of all, I'm asking students to figure out where we're going to do things and how they fit together. This is not a proposal for what it needs to look like. I think we can all recognize the hard work of making it viewable as you have to be done. But anyway, what we did was we modeled up the structures, the hotel and the garage TV sense of the size and shape of the location of them and how they fit in the landscape. So these are actual Google street images of Abonacci way of looking down towards the house. And what you see here is the garage, which would have four stories above grade and two stories below grade, one view from the street side. And then I don't know if you do flip to the next one. These are better. It's a couple of ways to have a relationship here. So on the left of the screen, you can see CCV, the center of the screen is the garage. This is just a precast country frame and show any architecture you have. And then you can see the hotel and then just beyond that you can see the cascades. And a couple of things to note. The extension of Waduzki Falls way that kind of cuts down between the hotel and the cascades and preserve access to to the part for service vehicles, all sorts of things. The hotel itself may end up looking different than that. I will say that we have we've had a very productive relationship with Hilton and we're anticipating a product called True, which is more youth oriented kind of it's exciting new brand. And so my ability to develop and start to see some of that personality come through, which you can see between the hotel and garage and we're talking about coming into the hotel on the uphill side, that would provide a secondary access for hotel guests to go directly to the garage after checking in. And then you can see there that there's a curve cut going directly in the garage for the general public. This is called a split level garage, which means that the adjacent adjacent bays of parking are staggered by five foot occurrence. So your six hanging up through the building and driving from level deck to level back. And that's really well for the topography area. That way is pretty steep. But it also means, you know, the services are flat or somewhere. For other uses, maybe some name, you never know. But yeah, so the big take home message, you know, we flip through the other images real quick. Is that different side of the old CCV and how this relates to the street. The hotel's cancer at that funny angle because there are great many utilities running underground here that we have to work around. And also, because the access to Casablan sort of requires that we sort of member around the corner. So we keep building off an angle like that. And actually kind of like the spaces that increase, you know, some triangular spaces between the buildings instead of everything being square. It also gives the hotel, you know, the folks on the south side of the hotel better views towards the park and the falls. But when it's largely done because of cyclical streams, you can't see underground pipes and easements. So remember, we want this to be the most beautiful garage in Lewesky. Just now getting started, but as a sort of solution to the problems that this allows for the Lewesky Hotel Group to be air-drained, we're bringing out a nice hotel downtown, a city that to realize they're here with a garage. We looked at other ways of doing this, but this one's really good because it keeps the two structures separate and in the end proved to be the most cost effective approach for all the city. Any questions about either of those structures that we have in the answer? This is the view from Lewesky Falls way of having accurate intersection of those two streets. Obviously, we haven't got the full windows of how it's going to be. It will be. But to give you a sense of the size of the neighborhood and how it looks like from the street, you can see having that care around Lewesky Falls way of sort of extending backwards the towers. So we have work to do, but very, very bullish on this solution and very, very happy that the garage works so readily in this location. So I think usually if I'm deciding something and fighting it, I wonder if something's wrong. This is one where it really fits together well in effect, so we're happy to present it to you. But I'll afford to continue to talk to you as we make it better and better looking. One other aspect if I can just add, can you go back? This is the one before that, like, no, back one more? So it's one of the things that you'll see come before you in the next couple of weeks as well is that the lot, so we will be subdividing 7D into two different parcels. So one owned by the city and one owned by the hotel, which when we had previously looked at this, the idea was the hotel was going to sit on top of the garage, which was challenging from this utility perspective, from the access to Casavent, et cetera. Also very complicated from a cost share, long-term potential position. So this allows us to each kind of own our own parcel and be a little cleaner about those lines. The caveat is that the back, kind of the upper left-hand corner of the garage is sitting on a parcel that's actually part of the CCV parcel right now. I've had very good meetings with the director of administration at CCV who is willing to do a lot line adjustment to square off that section. Of course, this solution is far preferable for them because their staff and students are parking immediately adjacent to their property rather than a block away. So they've been great partners in seeing this into, to seeing this to fruition. Yeah, there's a lot of people that's here who allow CCV students to access directly out to a floor of the garage. They may be coming in on four or three or more. The potential for a more improved direct connection from CCV is probably to the garage as they are going to store that. Um, so, uh, and Adam, welcome. Let's see. Could you talk a little bit about what's going on inside the hotel building, too? We had 106 rooms. Any other planned uses for the space? Well, there won't be any, uh, outside restaurants or anything like that. The hotel is kind of an interesting concept, so you come into a large public space where there's a sort of desk in the middle of everything, and there are places to play pool and foosball and this sit and work on the computer. It's all about hanging out if you want, you know. So, the main volume of the lobby has taken over this big multi-activity space, which will certainly be available, you know, will be available to all the people in the neighborhood as far as coming in. You have a little convenience store that you can buy a beer or, you know, and sit down and drink it. But this is not going to be, uh, there won't be like a separate restaurant, a separate restaurant, right? True Hotel doesn't have a fitness center, but it won't have a fitness center. And the rooms are simpler and cleaner and more modern. I think the True Hotel is a budget item. It's a price point for two falls. And, um, so you addressed, I think it sounds to me the most lenient reason is why it's a side-by-side in two separate rooms is because of the simplicity of the lot ownership. Is that generally correct? We met with, uh, the city manager and your legal counsel and a bunch of other folks and they started, started teasing apart the kinds of agreements and things that would have to be in place for the hotel to sit over the city's garage. Um, so certainly, certainly this plan, my wife has two lots. It, it, it, sort of side bars all of that. We don't, you know, necessarily have to, you know, ease with our plumbing and come down through your garage. Um, but it was really also that, you know, when we started fighting out the legal incomparances on the Luzki Falls Way portion of the extra parking adjacent to the gas caves, the whole block got on shorter and so, so we had to look at it. So it was, it was a necessity, uh, actual site conditions and, but also the simplicity of the deal. And a wrapper was also considered at some juncture? Uh, wrapper style, similar to what we have on, uh-huh. The lot dimensions really didn't accommodate, and I looked at possibly some sort of intertwined like, uh, I was coming up to the third or fourth floor of a hotel where I wouldn't be able to have rooms on both sides of the corridor. It's very inefficient from, from... And from the space perspective, um, is, uh, pitch or grade a central element in terms of designing a garage? Well, it is in this case because when Luzki Falls, uh, way drops three stories over the length of the project site. It's roughly 192, 193 up at the corner by CCB, the opposite corner down by the dome stirrer in the gas caves at 171. So that, that dramatic drop in the rail on the street definitely constrains which solutions will work. Your, uh, earlier garages had one entry point too, I did. With this one, a control entry point, you can at least consider the use of game control, and having that same with other ventures makes parking the other options. Uh-huh. I want to give, um, design feedback that was, uh, sort of very much a present, um, stylistic comment, um, but also just synergistic comment in regards to its addition to the vibrancy of the downtown is that, um, a brick facade like that's pretty cold from the street, um, and that we've actually designed zoning throughout the rest of the city to not allow something like that to happen. Um, and I'm more progressive, I'm almost saying more progressive, but our newer zoning districts and updated zoning districts, um, and that I could see that being a design, uh, characteristic that could be challenged in the future, um, from a public perspective, public perception perspective, um, and also just from a future council perspective. Is that something that, you know, Adam, I think if you think back to some of those early meetings on design, the way it interacted with the street was a pretty key portion. We're in a totally different ballgame here, a totally different property, totally different area, um, and understood the foot traffic and visibilities a little different, but still something to consider was that at all a topic during the design phases. Trust on what you see there for the hotel is, is really just sort of took our footprint and strutted it up through some cars. Yeah, Jeff. Well, no, I expected, I expected the final burden of the hotel a little bit dramatically different to the design. Great. So that's why I started my comments but I say don't, you know, don't feel like I'm in love with this seven agencies. It's how we get started. Great, thanks. I just want to encourage staff in those negotiations and frankly future council members who are of course going to come back and watch this meeting, hear that to consider street interaction and what it looks like for the people moving there. The other comment that I also had on there is that I think you're hopefully aware that there's been a lot of consideration, contemplation and thought about how cast the space in the back can be used and that again we probably won't be sitting here when the agreement signed, but certainly think that maintaining as much flexibility for the community for the city as humanly possible is looks like you've been really thoughtful and great partners in looking at the access points, which is tremendous, but also just flag things like sound penetration or light invasion to rooms. It would be a real bummer to have something built there that then elicits complaints because we decided to have a softball turner back there at our concert. Well, you know, I lived at Mansion Street. I had the big C-5s from Fliesburg, but we'll be there for you. I think this hotel is going to have to have excellent sound proofing for the lots of reasons to pop up, but I appreciate the hands-on moment. I think having that active space out there is a great opportunity for the hotel and the city to work together to make that stuff great because I feel the rose that you know, how hard do we have? That's the demonstration of the conversation we just had where we can have five or six thousand people go out to a concert festival and solicit no complaints because of everybody understanding that's what it looks like in the buildings being built for that. We love not stepping in the middle of the conversation about airplanes. No, we won't feel those complaints. I love my time at Mansion Street. I always knew when they were there. No, I understood. And then I guess the other question was how much thought has been the screening. That's another thing that we spent a lot of time on in the approval of the designs for both River Run and River House was the way, again, somebody from the street saw the building and hence why you have the type of screenings you have there that sort of hides the vehicles to the best of that screenings capacity. Again, understood that this is more for massing, but there's been some thought I'm guessing on that. Well, certainly as far as the side of the south facing the hotel, we know that that's going to take something special just to make it balance out the hotel. We want them to look out and see something. But in general, yeah, I think it's a little different with a pure parking garage. I mean, that is to use. But the architecture that faces the street on the continuation of the sort of mentality that's going on in the streets game and city lights. I think the cascade there's a lot of nice architecture spring. I think as tastefully as possibly integrates in the parking portions of it too. While trying to find some organic continuation of the building structure on facade, be it from a neighboring building or its own a continuation of its own, but just want to flag that too, because that certainly was something a lot of time on everyone. And then just sorry, last question from me. Is the thought to have an it looks like stairway, stairwell is an elevator being considered or is it? We have to have an elevator. You have to for accessibility. That central mass you see there facing the street will be another on top of the back door. We have to have two for each one. How many stories is the hotel? I can't really gauge here what it is. The first floor of the lobby, which is at the Aberdecky way elevation there will be a full basement, which is I think quite a bit exposed to the outside from realistically six stories plus basement. We didn't put it into the model as close to scale as we can in most of L. So you can sort of see how that relates to cascades and so Jesse went through the timeline for the garage. What's the timeline for the hotel construction? We'd like to start the garage foundations and then immediately move to the hotel foundations. The hotel will probably take about 11 to 12 months to build. The garage will probably take about 7 or 8 months. They'll probably go concurrent and start building the foundation. And has there been a commitment with the Hilton property? Or is that still the exploration? We've been trying to franchise in place since all the previous rooms. So we have to go through a process with Elton to shift from our location over there. So it's a location change but not a agreement change? You know, from a guest perspective we have to work on the whole arrival experience. Being actually garages not what we had before but they're willing to work through it as long as we can make the arrival work well for people. And to Seth's point, you know, they have some signature items on the front of the building. I'm looking at the budget document in the charges for service for this new garage. What's the breakdown of assumptions for contracts we have for spaces as opposed to public usage? So that's a great question. The majority would be contracted usage. The majority envisioned in this garage is all of CCB's parking needs met. All of the hotel's parking needs met which would be it's borderline public considered. Half of Spinner's needs. And then we're holding about another 45 spaces for future users, public users. Yes. I'm guessing that's been considered Yeah. Okay. So we got some feedback or we've learned from the contractual arrangements that have been made in the Cascades garage and I'm assuming the structure of the agreements moving forward is going to reflect the lessons learned. Yes. All the spaces in this garage will be allocated, not dedicated. All of the negotiations we've had thus far with all of the contracted users are assuming a comfort level of oversubscription. So for example you know CCB's users are primarily faculty or about a third are faculty and then about two thirds are students who are there between four and ten hours a week. Faculty is primarily there during the work day. The peak demand for the hotel will be overnight. So thinking about how we kind of double book some of those spaces and have a comfort level with the contracted users to enable us to do that. We've also as part of this process but also just your priorities for years we have a draft RFP that we will be talking with the downtown association about on Wednesday looking at an access control system that is shared between the two facilities so to the extent that this garage for whatever reason you know on that waking windows weekend when the hotel is at capacity and CCB is in finals we'll be able to tell the users about to the other garage. So we're trying to look at it as an entire parking system and not just these 10 spaces in this garage the shifting of allocations result in more public spaces in the Cascades that sort of has the public fare in terms of access to parking under this. So there will be more space per the negotiations currently under with folks so the big shift in the Cascades garage is that currently CCB contracts for 200 spaces in the current garage so those are all transitioning here and there's no new users going into the Cascades garage some of those will be for a long-term parking contract for spinner but the balance at this point is likely to be for public parking we also know that in that garage with improved access control we'll know this with data the highest the vast majority of those contracts are for office space use so those are really peaking between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. and then the public's peak use is really between 4, 5 p.m. and midnight so we believe we still have a lot of capacity for public space in the Cascades garage. I don't think there will be any agreements or whatever will allow for use of those spaces I don't think some of them you can use them after hours some of them you can use them after hours some of them are 24-7 this being extremely useful to articulate to the taxpayer what the benefit is in terms of public access to downtown parking and I think the notion that this facility relieves some of the pressure on that facility which is centrally located and challenging to navigate in terms of where can I park where can I park that would be useful when we're talking to community members about why they should support this even if it is revenue neutral Other thoughts, concerns, questions great to see you If I can interrupt before we get off this I would like Eric to say a few sentences about the permitting process that happens next in your involvement in that tonight this is really about budget and what you can expect in advance of town meeting day but there will be a whole other process for you to consider as this moves forward into permitting so if you're ready for that I'll do that so thank you this project is because it's in the downtown the entire downtown core is under an act 250 permit so any development requires an amendment to that permit as such council has a more active role in the process the primary step being council has to approve the design of any project that goes forward so you will see whatever you want this to look like you have to approve that prior to the act 250 amendment application being submitted so it'll be an approval by council to design and also approval of council to sign on as a co-applicant to that act 250 amendment so that will be for down the road at some point but then that really gives you a lot more input in this process going forward so you will see this again you'll have to approve this process going forward I would just add in the past in some of these other buildings we did it through joint meetings with the council and DRB and it turned into in some cases the type of process that we are trying to avoid from happening with form base code and would strongly encourage next generation of council not to bring their inner Bob Ross to those meetings where they're trying to say I would like a tree exactly right here and keep in mind that staff's job is to work with them to get something that's within the envelope of what's required by zoning and then try to approve something that's somewhat contiguous to the downtown it's a little trickier, it's a tough seat to sit in being a design review body too because it's not under form base code so it's not a specified it's not as specific and it's more of an open environment so for the next council to try to put as many guardrails on that as possible future mayors, potentially off the table the master plan, the original act 250 permit would really include a master plan with design guidelines for all of downtown so there are some parameters to work within but there's still definitely some leeway from council to and what's the time frame for the permitting process wait until after the vote I presume so for the local permitting process or from that the 250 perspective, are we waiting until after town meeting day to see if the voters approve the plan I don't think that's a fair question for Eric that's a question for me so quite frankly that is a strategy question and I don't know yet what how we will proceed I think there is an argument to be made to wait and do that permitting after town meeting day both from a new elected official and a public vote perspective I think there's a strategy to do it in advance of town meeting day to get to the design the community wants to see before they're asked to vote on something I think from the developer's perspective as fast as possible is great but also willing, you know, want to enter the community in a way that the community is wanting them to enter so some flexibility on that side as well and that really quite frankly is a strategy conversation we should probably have tomorrow but also that there's also other times where there might need to be support solicited for example VCRD applications and submission of other tax credit allocations that could have VCRD, what do you mean VCRD, yeah ACCD, CDBG so those other types of tax credit allocations just mentioned before those would require city pursuit of those funds or at least support of so you could end up with that conversation as well and those are CDBG is an April deadline and sales tax reallocation is a July deadline those are deadlines or hearings and awards I can't remember those are deadlines for submissions those are deadlines to get to the next hearing and be all done by then okay I would just say I don't think we should wait to move forward with better designs for the garage before town meeting day whatever happens with the permitting process and I think we can continue to have discussions about that but that's a tougher sell than its current form than something that looks a little bit more along the lines of what Seth was talking about should we start the full public works presentation just a pause while I mean I think we want to make it clear that we can release them probably right so any last questions comments from Avenue or for Adam I'm just curious how did Marriott come to decide that the true hotel model was the most appropriate it's a Hilton product it's a sort of complicated stew you know most of the major branded hotels and I think it could be successful with downtown Woodescue or a branded hotel they have striations of franchises you know they have their basic economy model all the way up to their super luxury model but a lot of those franchises are spoken for right so you have to sort of take from available franchises in the area we can't bring something to compete with somebody next door and so that starts to sort of peel away some potential options but I also think that you know we've got sort of between two colleges sort of a very dynamic downtown offices they kind of do things that they're doing in the summers so so this seems like it's like a sort of urban brand more youthful orientation and then he's successful plus the verb itself like I said is it's a lot of rude race and we're quite agely I mean I don't think Mnuzki wants a $350 and I don't tell but you know so it's all of us factors to here until we did talk to Barry and we talked to we talked to Hill both excellent organizations and this is a good brand there's a lot of fun it's a very fun brand to do the fastest growing brand in the hotel industry right now and the other kind of positioning is you look at the value and where the brand fits compared to what's going on in the area so for instance downtown all the properties downtown pay for breakfast this hotel breakfast is included so if you're in a hospital with families or whatever they want to be close to the hospital and we'll have another private property thanks other questions, comments, concerns so here's the deal there's a parking lot it's a parking garage we're never going to sit and do flips and some results and excitement over that but want to make it really clear we're incredibly appreciative of all of your work and investment and the partnership with the city and the way you've approached this and we know that that's required a lot of flexibility on your behalf and a lot of ingenuity and thank you for that and we appreciate it and thanks to staff for working with a with a hard situation tough thing and you know when they come and look at our pictures on the wall they'll say well what the heck did they approve a garage somewhere and it's this is also a critical piece to the entire sustainability of the downtown and that's a story that the public can expect for us to continue to be telling as we move forward because you know I think to a person you talked to anybody about this hotel and the concept of a hotel in downtown and people here are very very very excited and supportive of that if we can get all the other pieces which is what you all have worked so hard to try to do here with this so thank you thanks for all your work to get there I appreciate it and thank you to Jesse and John and the entire team and Ryan and the back row there and then you have a lot to do with it too so thanks Ryan's really the mastermind me thanks a lot we appreciate it any other questions any questions or comments from the public before we go back into the public works presentation okay thank you thanks for your time today thank you thank you so here's the general we started off the general funds just kind of looking at the overview and operations and then getting into the full general funds capital improvement plans that's all the divisions public safety community service not just public works and then the second part would be the enterprise funds where we get into water and remaining parking so overview of public works this is just our general staffing outlined so for FY20 we are fully staffed we're not we're not requesting any changes for FY20 so what we're showing here we've kind of outlined the boxes in green those are enterprise funded staff so on the left hand side is our general fund funded staffs with a caveat one of our EO our EO1 is parking garage so there's one enterprise fund in there and then to take you through some of our I was not here for FY20 but staff was kind of setting the groundwork for some of the capital projects that we're talking about now but staff started to put together the treatment plant projects, headworks projects that we're currently out to bid on setting up the main street projects getting the preliminary engineering rolling and we did have some pretty robust reconstruction projects like Orchard Terrace where that was a complete rebuild of the street that was around 600 bigger feet, new roadway new storm sewer new water infrastructure that Ryan was part of so we want to keep going with those kind of reconstruction projects in the future we also installed the rapid flash begins on Route 15 wherever we want to continue those pedestrian safety projects and then FY19 so accomplishments to date we're starting to work on the transportation impact fee studies we're working with CCRPC and a consultant to get that rolling we've done some streamlining of our permit process we're trying to simplify our permits to make it easier for the customer who wants to come in and do construction in the city we've also updated the capital plan which you'll see shortly that Jesse mentioned we're also starting to really use the asset management tools that we have so staff is tracking main activities that they're doing out in the street and that feeds into our operations and our capital planning so if we're seeing we're constantly fixing a pothole we're seeing that we're trying to do sewer work on a line we start to look at implementing that and putting it into our capital plan and then of course getting into some projects mainstream the bond approval which we're all part of the USDA grant funding that was a huge win for the city and then some other projects where we've come to completion the Burlington Bridge rail repair obviously that was a maintenance activity and we're looking to future replacement of that bridge and plans are starting to move concept level plans are moving and then we had a bunch of work at the Truman plant this year so we had some mechanical work with the boiler a new garage was installed that is complete to house some of our sewer fleet and provide some better efficiencies for our street crews so they can get plows out and they're not having to move sewer factors and be more expeditious and have some plowing activities and then of course Hyborgs like I mentioned we're out to bid with that project now so we're still shooting for the spring to start construction with that and then some smaller items we're starting to look at now that we have a capital plan you know where do we have some additional needs to fill in some things so doing some capital needs assessment starting after some facilities like OCC looking at big ticket items like HVAC systems and then of course Liars Pool which we're we are in design document level which you guys have seen we're not scheduled for that project as well FY20 this is obviously a preview that has to be discussed with Council but these are things that we've kind of put nastrics on and they're looking at moving forward but so refining that capital improvement plan now that we have a framework really build it up with some GIS data and how do we get it out to the public how do we distill it down and show them kind of what we're thinking and get some feedback from the public on capital improvement plans and then you know this is probably something you are very familiar with the mainstream concrete joints or I guess our traffic calming device that we have here for answer the rotary not on purpose traffic calming but you know what's we've solicited proposals to look at alternatives for repair for that the reason where we have to look really in depth into this project is because it impacts a lot of traffic there's a major traffic control component and we do not want it to fail so if we stick with concrete how do we replace those joints cost effectively if we do an asphalt pavement for example how do we build that asphalt pavement so it doesn't push so you have that running effect because of the large trucks and then other projects we're looking at you know fixing some downtown paver work specifically in East Allen to start where we have some accessibility issues putting together a sidewalk program that's going to be part of that capital planning and East Allen Street we're looking at a quarter of a study which you'll be hearing more about so how do we make it more pedestrian like friendly how do we fit it within the gateway framework and then general like pet improvements what are some low impact like pet improvements now that we're seeing we've got the bike share we've got potentially a bigger roll out of bike share how do we serve the public better for those multi use kind of transportation options and then sorry this continues on for I think three pages so maybe we can shrink this when we meet with you all there we go yep so again kind of going through the categories grounds and facilities how do we repair that that one that's in River Park we've got a couple ideas but we even vetted out continuing to move forward with city space needs distribution kind of continue our our maintenance program again make our CFP more robust when it comes to water distribution and then we do have quite a few action items on the wastewater stormwater side a lot of this is driven by regulations so we have some phosphorus control regulations coming up on stormwater side and the point source wastewater treatment plant side so we are working on looking at ways to address those now but those will be items that we'll have to execute in the next couple years and then specifically for wastewater we are looking at industrial wastewater ordinance updates so we've got a couple industrial users how do we how do we make it fair for those folks and then as the gateway gets built out if we do have a micro group come in how do we set up our ordinance to a lot of that and then capital projects we've got a couple of these but basically we're starting to get into construction with these projects in FY20 starting to break ground so that gets us into operations so operations wise the I'd say the two major changes that you see is we've added $30,000 for contract for facilities we've been doing this in previous years to support our staff this allows our street crews to get out and focus on the roadways and make those safe first and then on the facilities side we are looking to add approximately $8,000 typically we'd budget about $2,000 for street crews so we have some needs coming up in the coming years we're preparing for that potentially and looking to become a certified trees in USA that allows us to be eligible with the NCLES budget so I'll go through the different categories in this public works budget but engineering we kind of see the breakdown for mostly salaries that's Ryan we have some professional service which is basically just software but that's kind of general breakdown of the engineering service budget that budget is a little bit reduced this year mainly because a lot of those professional service monies are going towards capital projects so that was able to reduce that which is the kind of line by line breakdown so again you'll see kind of major decreases in that professional service line that $5,000 I think we have all on the leadership team felt the addition of Ryan and John both being PEs as we move these big projects forward are a huge advantage to the city so whereas to buy a lot more professional engineering services we now have that on staff and they can really move these projects along much more quickly just to reiterate from the outside role having interacted with some of your funding partners that's their reflection is that we have one of the best most knowledgeable groups of people albeit small in the state to work with so huge huge massive kudos yeah so public work streets this is our larger budget piece of public work so this covers basically all our street maintenance work everything from the ground below on the general fund side so this budget is reduced by roughly $39,338 for FY20 that is mainly due to the removal of mowing contracts so we weren't fully staffed last year we had to contract out some of the mowing for facilities work and that was this budget line and you can see here the majority of this budget is salaries, benefits and of course road salt which is around 13% so road salt we use about 1,000 tons per season it continually creeps up it's like $78 bucks in time right now so we're looking at ways how do we use new technology to potentially reduce the amount of road salt using like brine, anti-saming type systems and this is the line by line breakdown grounds and facilities this is the other kind of big budget piece of public works operations so we're down 13,000 on this budget and but we are also including the $8,000 additional for the street trees in this line this is basically for all our city owned facilities it does include some of our right away sort of above grade features like traffic signals and again those street trees and there's the line by line breakdown for these there's a lot of lines because each facility is broken out by contracts which is typically janitorial contracts and utilities wastewater, electric, natural gas so I'll pause there but that's the general operations budget for public works questions concerns, social campaign changes flag well I have one for the alternatives for the that connecting section between main street and the circulator is that really arbitrary right now you have to go into that alternatives review or do you have in your mind a timeline for when we might move towards replacement so ideally we would like to do well let's take a step back there's probably two options we can look at we can do sort of interim option where we do sort of a temporary fix and then we wait until main street construction and then do it all kind of during that main street construction time period but ideally we would have some sort of fix FY20 sorry to be old and droney on this but you know when we redid when we did the engineering to revamp the circulator and do the safety improvements which included removal of the crosswalks the decision was made not to touch that corner at that point in time because there was a plan as part of the development agreement conversation to reconfigure the whole to reconfigure the triangulation of that crosswalk I just put that out there for that's one of the reasons it wasn't touched that's one of the justifications where we were kind of like putting money there because there's a good chance it could all get ripped up with the redevelopment of that property of course given that and the traffic lanes were going to change too so just again to flag for future people you know hopefully that intersection gets revisited sort of holistically to when that time comes for a major a discussion about our major revamp or investment because it is known as the most polite intersection in the state and it is but you always wonder if there needs to be a formalization someday in the future of the alternating traffic piece in case people from Colchester suddenly stop deciding to be the most polite people in the state okay so general funds capital improvement plan so just an overview again what is capital improvement plan so basically a different tool it's for our city assets that have a useful life to use more those kind of finance thresholds that are set up so that's what guides us on how do we inventory these capital assets and plan for their replacement so for general fund we broke it down finance category so do we go out do we get a bond does it have interest payments so is it a debt service or is it something that can be just a capital expense where we're using our own city funds typically this is I don't like a truck there's less expensive say a vehicle that you don't need to take out 20 to 30 year bond on and then for the general fund we broken it into different asset categories just for to track it so we have transportation fleet facilities parks planning other miscellaneous category debt service include leases too capital leases so behind this too what we've done is so the hard part is we have to do full inventory of all our assets get kind of an idea of what their commission rating is and then put together a plan to replacement and sort of balance that so so what we're trying to really do is distill that into something that the general public can see and understand besides giving them this humorous spreadsheet that shows every single thing we own and then break out different finance pieces of it so this is the sort of general very broad overview of the CIP so I'll start at the bottom but our revenue for the capital fund is a total of $501,340 for FY20 that's made up of the $431,005 that I actually had to confirm with Angel on this was it so as voter approved in 2007 and then it's a 5% increase every year and then $8,335 is that was 2011 yeah, 2011 that was approved by council so that makes up sort of that general fund CIP revenue but you notice up top $224,604 that is existing debt so the remainder is basically what we have to sort of allocate to projects and so this gives a kind of general overview of how those allocations are broken up between debt service new debt service and capital expenses and then just a note on the bottom so we've also identified what the undesignated reserve balance is so that is in addition to that $501,000 and then just the caveat is this doesn't include the pool and maitre because those are there's other revenue offsets for those that we'll get into as an update so this is sort of the more detailed overview of the debt and expenses so what we've identified for F1.20 there's no new debt coming online besides a fleet piece which is that bold face command vehicle for the fire department the $106,746 is existing debt for the west canal street reconstruction project that was sent to expire in 2032 and in your packet there's the full breakdown of all the existing debt versus the proposed new debt and then below you'll see the expense review so that city funds and the bold face items are proposed FY20 projects or assets and I'll give a detailed overview of each of those so the differentiation between the FY20 number then on the balance side of thumb is the purchase of that vehicle just to am I missing that? and I will meet with anyone if anyone wants to dig into this in further detail too so this is just an outline of the FY20 projects that we have identified and basically what we're doing is we're just creating a nomenclature forum so we can track them better so you'll see we've categorized it by fire department, facilities, public works public safety and then of course some ongoing projects Main Street, Myers pool and so what I'll do is I'll go through each of those project categories just give a detailed overview so fire department fire chief is here so you can jump in and save me if need be but we are looking at a replacement of this 2008 command vehicle $40,000 self-retained breathing apparatus replacements we probably need to revisit this and look at what that looks like for full debt service but right now we're looking at $50,000 I'm just giving an update so the self-retained breathing apparatus that we currently have is circa 2005 to current typically replaced two or three year but it's getting to the point where new replacements don't work with existing equipment so what we're looking to do is potentially lease 15 year lease equipment and then be on a 15 year or anything and then for the fire department and facility side we've got some older overhead doors that need to be replaced improve operation improves energy efficiency the doors to be able to open when they need to I hope you're not speaking from experience on the facility side for FY20 as we we did the facade repair in the senior center we got an eye on the roof those asphalt shingles they're starting to buckle pretty badly so they are definitely in need of replacements we've got some quotes that project will be about 30 grand public works so annual street resurfacing we're targeting the east side of main street some neighborhood streets we have about you know once we we kind of tell you everything up we've got about 153,000 to do some mill and replace network so we've you know targeted those streets based on their traffic counts and PCI index pavement condition index the streets getting paver resetting those east allen street pavers that we discussed earlier and then we do have a fleet replacement with a 2010 mower one more and then of course the main street joint repair work that we're looking at right now did not add a pic take that note off before I get to main street I guess I'll stop there if there's any questions on proposed FY20 projects so we did include a whole packet again for main street motors pool because we know we've been bombarding you guys with it so we didn't want to give it to you again but just to give you a status update we did receive the final engineering service agreement from VHB so that is going to be going to USDA hopefully they're shut down and FED for some comments and then we should have it to you all so that will in effect kick off sort of a final design work for main street and then and then Myers pool we recently updated everyone but we're still targeting you know public safety these are FY20 projects so one marked for an explorer replacement and then we're also working we just put out an RFP actually for the security camera upgrades for the downtown the police department and we are looking at a phase two which would probably include the OCC in a parking garage so these are the exterior cameras that capture street views yeah they're talking to these chiefs they're on their last leg so we're soliciting quotes now by phase two including OCC do you mean in FY20 or after FY21 we've got to do some leg work because it wouldn't be a directorate placement we'd have to actually lay out the cameras and give some more data on what we need stop there for general funds I know there were some previous discussions around security in general with the replacement for cameras they've been also talking about whether it's panic buttons or whatever it might be is that work going to be ongoing and maybe included alongside this so for OCC yes we've had some discussion specifically with OCC I know the library has some concerns and then if we potentially move some staff to the OCC we would want some more security whether it be push buttons but that would be actually part of the project thank you just thank you that was very clear as to what the money was going towards thank you so enterprise funds water sewer parking water funds so in general we maintain approximately 21.7 miles of water we buy wholesale from champagne water district so in effect we basically this covers the maintenance of our distribution system we don't have a plan for storage facilities so for FY19 projected revenues 832,103 FY20 with assuming a 2.5% rate increase and that is mainly to cover the cost of these upcoming capital projects we're looking at 852,150 revenue side and then expenses projected 755 549 we have reduced the expenses for FY20 which allows us to kind of push more money to the capital project side so that will give us 93,365 towards those main street project and potentially Hickok water main replacement work so in general overview again as you can see the big item here is the bulk wholesale water bridges from CWB and then what's included as I mentioned we're looking as discussed during the main street project potentially 2.5% rate increase and then we've also included the Hickok Street water main replacement as part of this FY20 project so general overview of the revenues as you can see mainly from water charges meter of water charges so we are looking at potentially $20,000 increase from meter of water sales with that rate increase difficult to see but these are the line by line items the only, the two highlights I'll say is that you'll see one big ticket item for professional services some of that money has been moved to capital because a lot of that professional service is for capital projects and then what line I can kind of cover in-house for some of these water projects as well and then the other item is there's a minus $23,904 the CWD water purchase their price hasn't gone down it's just we've looked at historically what our usage and purchase has been based on their most current water rates $376,100 appears to be adequate for our usage so getting into the water fund CIP similar general fund we broke it down the same the asset types are supply so we do pay debt on an allocation for Champlain water district owned tanks they're up at Water Tower Hill in Coolchester and then of course our distribution system our vehicles that we use meters and then any planning for capital projects so for FY20 we do have Hickok Street water meter replacement and hydrants and valves replacements so hydrants and valves we typically do some annual replacements but we push them to capital because they rise to the threshold of the capital requirements and allows us to track a little bit better and then of course we have the Main Street project coming up in design so this again is just kind of general overview so this includes the potential rate increase you'll see on the revenue side so what we've done is we've shown a projection of if we increase rates by two and a half percent three and a half percent towards the later part of the five-year cycle where does that get us with our proposed and existing debt because ultimately what we're trying to do is eliminate the pull from the reserve fund allocations which is on the bottom line of that second kind of block so FY20 we're looking at pulling $30,000 on reserve funds to meet our capital requirements but as that starts to pile on because of Hickok Main Street we're going to have to potentially pull from that reserve fund to meet our debt obligations so what's the appropriate rate to kind of wean us off that reserve fund pull and in this scenario we're looking at potentially FY 27 we would stop pulling from reserve funds with that three and a half percent rate increase so with that the rate increase would it be each year through FY27 and projecting out three and a half percent and obviously that's up to you all what level of rate increase would you like to see what we looked at and thinking about this rate increase and Doug can talk more about where this leaves us in comparison to other communities is from a philosophical perspective the city's really been using reserves to fund capital and not increasing rates to build in that capacity to fund capital so we're trying to get away from that but when you look at the rate history since the late 90's what you see is several spikes and dips so you so for example we haven't seen a rate increase since 2012 in Winooski but I believe the rate increase at that the year prior was 17 percent so the city would hold the rates stable for several years and then have a massive jump rather than kind of consistent steps up Has anyone been here long enough to know how that went over like I'd be curious my personal preference would be to actually I'm not sure I'd be curious what the response would be to having an annual increase versus re-leveling you know when it's been several years like with the public perceptions of that I wasn't around when that occurred and can't speak to the tenor around it there was some residual frustration afterwards that claimed that well there was a calculation that went around from a particular individual that ran for a senate seat in town who had decided we were the most expensive based off of the way that she had come up derived to calculation that wasn't accurate so there's some public misinformation that took place on the hot button issue I think generally a gradual increase is easier for people to handle versus big spikes I mean that's certainly been a philosophy we've tried to apply when possible especially on the business side that's a huge deal to suddenly have you know a 17% jump without any warning or a 12% jump that's a pretty big jolt from those big users from a household perspective you're literally talking about three to four dollars per billing cycle so that's a little different but and so this ends in 27 based on the current capital needs and we've tried to project out our capital needs so for example like water mains you know the majority of our water mains are pre-1920 unlike cast iron they all need to be replaced I mean you could throw a rock and any one of them could use replacement but how do you balance that with sort of road reconstruction replacement doing it at the right time so we have kind of a schedule we have a rough schedule of water main replacements to get us in a more sustainable place so we did factor kind of that into the F-27 does this factor any growth in the usage so that's one thing it is pretty conservative and that we don't factor in growth I think that's like a key part of communicating this change so making sure people understand that the rate is not increasing just this year but that having it increase in steadily over several years avoids eventually having to do another unexpected large jump yeah well what we have the capacity to say is that's our recommendation and that's the path that we're trying to set people down versus trying to up front the entire debt capacity off of a 20.5% increase wait no 15.5 you know what I'm gonna try to do math right now something significant significant but the flip side of that also is the affordability conversation we've been having in general there are a couple of ways to keep communities affordable one of those is to look at strategic growth and as you have more users on the system there's a possibility that we could mitigate some of those out near increases just based on the water equivalent of grantless growth and that's where the nuanced piece will come in future budget presentations is to really compare the revenue as to what the plan here is versus what actually happens because if revenue spikes due to a couple of big projects come out of a brewery for example um you know also capacity reserve I just want to flag that issue where councils before this one spend a lot of time and energy on and it set our community up for success in the long term and I think it's gonna have to be another conversation from what I saw relatively soon about what our future water capacity looks like because we made a pretty big investment six years ago in the water tower hill tower but that that piece too from a saving standpoint is something to flag for people yeah I will say that is one thing a community I used to work in coming in they were bumping up against their capacity threshold and it's really difficult because you're trying to you're trying to break development in and then you're saying we don't have enough water sorry whoever was looking ahead like that did a really good job because we're pretty comfortable with our capacity but Eric and I have discussed potentially looking at doing some modeling to see what that's gonna shake out to be in a couple years so looking at the debt side of things so currently in FY20 we do have $62,040 existing debt that is the water tower allocations and then a reconstruction project on West Canal that that expires in 2013 to oppose debt so on the it's mainly on the distribution side so we do have Main Street that of course is there is a substantial USDA grant of $988,000 that's gonna help buy that down a bit that that wouldn't occur until 2023 through the USDA funding but we are looking at Hickok Street as well so we just received Plenary Engineering that price the cost of that project has gone up we've seen some scope increase adding on West Street and extending up to Pine Street so that is at $1.45 million for water placement work that does cover the entire project engineering soft cost that's all in $1.45 million we are looking at using drinking water state revolving loan money for that that those debt payments typically start year after project construction so potentially 2021 that is looking to be around $97,463 for an annual that's assuming a 20 year bond for drinking water conservatively we are not showing any principle forgiveness but more than likely we should see or we hope to see some principle forgiveness basically some grant funding on that and then we do have some placements coming up but nothing for FY20 and I guess it will flag too on Main Street you'll see some massive numbers for FY21 and FY22 that's just to show the cash flow in and out so that's when construction would potentially occur so those would be the construction costs and then we would be getting reimbursements through USDA so that would be fully reimbursed and then the actual debt would start FY23 so on the bottom we show kind of that reimbursement money coming back to us from USDA and then the capital expense side again these are non-financed items so smaller things like hydro replacements and valves and meters and some small fleet pickups that's what we are currently looking at a full fleet replacement schedule that's where the fleet piece comes from so when I was talking about the capital planning too the next street that we're looking at water replacement is the Claire Street so we'd be looking to start to team that up in FY23 potentially so getting that project sort of sculpted out and get some pricing on it and then here's just some more detailed description of those two capital projects again it's hard to see but the hatched area is the limits of the Hickok Street projects that would go from Pine West Lane to Melts Bay OCC is at the very end there but that's all extremely old pre-1929 6-inch Kessler main I've updated the description because apparently there was a couple more breaks but there's been five breaks in the last six years so definitely it's a it's a candidate that really needs to be replaced so we are proposing to replace it with 8-inch duct-wired or potentially PVC which provides a lower cost for us to give us the needed fire floor or fire dimension size fire protection size so the idea with this project too to kind of talk about the general fun piece so we would love to do the full water meter replacement this summer and then in FY21 do the distributed replacement so that would allow sort of the trench to settle let the plows run over and impact it make sure that the sub base is ready for not a fun transition time for people living there but worth it I mean given the amount of construction that's taken place during very cold seasons in the recent past and then again this is we typically do this annually but now it's just kicked over the capital project side just starting to replace the old hydrants and valves throughout the system water from the side just to keep the good time rolling sewer funds so the sewer funds obviously a little bit bigger we have a wastewater treatment plant we have the distribution system that goes with it and this also includes storm water distribution within the sewer fund so you can see again our projected revenues estimated revenues for FY20 this assumes a 3% rate increase a little bit higher than water side because the main street project sewer cost is a bit more than the water piece and then on the expense side we have been able to reduce down some of the budget expenses just kind of going line by line looking at historic costs looking at kind of through your averages and a lot of some of the capital project work has also been moved out of operations into capital projects so what we're showing for FY20 is potentially 143,000 moving to capital projects again to help try to pay for those upcoming capital needs so just again a quick overview on the sewer side a lot of our most of our budgets on the salary benefits portion next significant piece would be the biosolids so I won't get into what biosolids are but it's very expensive to basically Burlington collects our biosolids de-water some and then landfill some so it's a pretty significant portion of our operation cost and again what we're looking at is 3% rate increase and then on the capital side proposed street sweeper which are very expensive which I'll get into detail again a revenue outlook so as you can see again our sewer service charge is the main generator so we also do have expansion and aid revenue piece that comes into hands and that is earmarked for capital projects that increases capacity so we typically use that funding for slip lining or some kind of truth so we typically don't budget for that because it's so sporadic to know what's going to come in for development what they're going to propose the use for restaurant versus financials so for FY20 again we're looking at potentially $30,000 increase in revenue and then we'll go line by line but just highlight some of the bigger ones so we have reduced professional services down so that's going to capital by $20,000 this is basically going line by line looking at actual expenses over the period $17,000 increase so the sewer side is roughly 69% this is a sanitary sewer side 69% of the total sewer fund budget we're getting into storm water $1,000 which is the other 31% of the sewer fund budget and that brings us to the CIP side same breakdown as the other two funds asset categories treatment plans, distribution system both centered in storm and then fleet and then capital planning so for FY20 we've got enough projects going on so big projects so we're looking at two kind of smaller projects for FY20 a building roof replacement at the trailer plant and a fleet replacement so again, general overview and similar to water funds we're trying to basically wean off that reserve fund allocation by increasing rates especially given you'll see above the capital fund sort of expenses the total additional debt that would be coming online and that's main street well that's main street and the headworks project mainly we're looking at going from $66,000 in FY20 to potentially $344,000 at the end of the five-year cycle I'll share the detail break out of that but this would require to maintain our operating reserve a higher tax or higher utility rate increase just so we don't get in trouble with reducing our reserves too low we still have enough money for cash on hand or any emergencies and again, this similar to water we're looking at potentially catching up in FY27 when we're not coming from reserve fleet this is just the overview of existing debt so you can see we've got one bond coming offline we've got all our fire upgrades and $60,000 but then we also have the garage the recently completed garage that is starting that $250,000 project and then on the distribution side Canal Street sewer replacement that's 2032 we're still paying that debt and then we do have fleet lease coming off the books in 2020 but then on the proposed debt side we'll have the headworks upgrade that's expected to come FY21 that's the $1.2 million project with the anticipated $310,000 loan principal loan forgiveness and then the Main Street project you know the proposed debt on that the estimated debt is $2.8 million $355 million starting in 2023 so that's $193,000 again starting in FY23 but for FY20 we are looking at replacing our current sweeper which is then the sewer funds given the stormwater sort of component to it that is $295,000 piece of equipment and it's usually a pretty short-term loan so we're five years is what we're looking at for lease which makes it that pretty fortunately pretty significant for our annual amount maybe we do have a couple other pieces of feet coming up in the next few years but for FY20 we're just looking at that sweeper for new debt and then this looks super basic but there is a lot of detail behind useful life pumps at the treatment plant and a whole breakdown but this is just sort of the general details on the two proposed capital projects this one is pretty simple it's just a roof replacement project at the plant which you can kind of see the outline of the roof, clarifiers and then just some fill-in sweepers so our current sweepers in 2005 it's actually currently down due to fire damage so only second time in common fire but it was scheduled to be replaced sorry it was scheduled to be replaced so we've been allocating front no we just knew it needed to be replaced but we've been planning it was one of those where we didn't have any numbers leading up to it we just had an expense cliff street sweepers are too amazing you only get they just lead our life the existing street sweeper was purchased with an EPA grant the existing street sweeper was purchased with an EPA grant that we had through the shamblin water district street sweepers are what USDA and the EPA have grants we had a store water assistance grant we have I know our utility managers reached out to try to kind of procure that same grant okay it wasn't it didn't sound like EPA had any bill it was the EPA's favorite open okay final emerging issues so these are just some bullets I won't go through just some things that we're thinking ahead on find the CIP and just look at other operations so we hit out a few of these and emerald ash poor threat you know continuing to inventory assets and refine the CIP and then trying to find potentially some additional grant funding for that general fund portion of main street trying to make that a little bit more economically feasible one thing that I'll probably be continuing to talk about is looking at our road payment replacement program one of the things I've seen is probably in the future we'll need to start putting some more money to get our roads in a more sustainable condition so TIF expires kind of building a tailored program to make that work on the water fund side trying to look at a sustainable program to replace our water mains and try to find some funding to help us out with that and then creating a meter replacement program making sure we're capturing all the revenue and making sure we're replacing meters as a 19 year schedule currently it's kind of ad hoc and then any new regulations that may be impacting us on both water and sewer funds and then of course phosphorus control and everything right now on sewer funds stormwater and sanitary sewer and then on hip hop street we are currently looking at you know obviously the main concerns of water making but investing in that sanitary and stormwater sewer line to make sure that you know if that needs replacement we're doing that appropriately at the right time or maybe we can we can get by with the slip lining and that's going to give us the longevity we need out of that so we have to really bun that out before the end of this month and make sure we capture that and that's all I have 57 slides later so I want to go back to the the two and a half and three and a half percent increases that we're doing in the water utility is that just going to cover the main street and hip hop existing capital improvement and debt that we know about well currently so with main street and hip hop it will not well it doesn't cover the debt right but that's where that number is coming from is to support those two projects but we don't know what's coming in the future we have many old water mains that potentially need work and I wonder if I don't know like is the rate too low already is that not even enough of an increase for us to have a sustainable budget in that fund for what we're providing yeah so I will say on the water side I mean we're we're below a lot of our surrounding municipalities but we're getting close to that sort of median level I guess I think on the sewer from inside we are quite a bit lower than a lot of our other surrounding municipalities and some of those surrounding municipalities also have a stormwater a separate stormwater utility fee which even decreases what our rate is so with the water main work we did build in what the next water main replacement is we're trying to look at the full outlook but yeah I mean it means that pop up that also we're having a ton of breaks on that we've got to get after that obviously and what does that mean to have the separate stormwater utility is that like adding an additional fee essentially yes so that is something we're exploring that was in the kind of first few slides to see if that makes sense for Winooski so it would be there's a couple different ways so you can do it on pervious coverage so say like your lot is X amount pervious then there's a fee for that or there's a base rate for residential or commercial but that would most communities around us are using it and it's there's a lot of new stormwater regulations that helps offset so one of the things they'll be seeing coming up is the UPWP yeah so as part of the UPWP the Uniform Work Plan yeah thank you through Regional Planning Commission so they offer basically a subsidy for scoping studies for typically transportation or water resources type projects so this is potentially one of the UPWP applications that we're going to be submitting for um one of the other things we're going to be submitting for is an inventory of our stormwater system so you know we need to know what we actually have as an asset because I mean we have a map showing you know kind of the our pipes and we don't know what size they are we don't know what slopes they are so we need to kind of get that base information before we start exploring some of these stormwater utility questions I'd just say I feel like this feels very thorough and proactive and um that there's a a logic to it so I appreciate um all the work that you did to get us to this place yeah I think the hard the difficult track ahead is um the reality that you know debts being put in place that's going to keep the rate on an upward trajectory in your reserves on a downward trajectory simultaneously um which invites risk um and that that's the part of this that's the most you know the most challenging and I think that's where it comes back to this concept that we're doing uh a specified allocation of funding currently from the TIFT district um to carry a portion of the debt service related to um specifically main street and I think that's going to be the community's challenge over the next couple of years is to look at this plan, look at these budgets look at the comprehensive CIP plan and really make thoughtful decisions about how to utilize those funds um because I just want to point that out that you know but for that sort of larger conversation and really debt coverage capacity being there I'd be much much less comfortable with that of increasing rates decreasing reserves um while saying well we're trying to wean ourselves off of reserves which is the right and build in future debt capacity which is all the right things to do um you know the question would be is are we trying to do too much right too quickly uh because we've done a you know maybe not right for or underfunded um for so long but I just want to flag that as what I think is really the big paramount conversation that comes sort of next that's very related to this I think I can sort of hold my nose to that issue look the other way because there's an understanding that it might take a recalibration of the way that debt's being serviced and it might require more of an appropriation from the TIF towards just general needs across these funds to help to help offset that impact um and the capital strain specifically um I just want to flag that because I don't if we didn't have that sort of back into it that would be that would be concerning to me but we do so it's all fine it's all fine but it means that there's there's more than just a set of bad decisions that have to be made in the future there's good decisions that have to be made I just want to I want to make that comment because this is you know if I looked at this as without that context from a public perspective I would say well wait a second hold on let me understand what that is I also think that getting the point where we can financially express I know I would appreciate that going into the budget season financially express what the impact for typical usage of a household might look like would be a very helpful tool to discuss this with the public what does a 3 or 4 percent increase look like on the funds water and sewer side so that we can say to them you know on your quarterly billing this is what that will look like this is how it will be expressed and this is what you could expect one year and what you could expect next year we'll respond well to that yeah I think that's important we put together a figure like that for the property tax rate and we're talking about multiple different items that are going to go up in impact affordability here how long have you been here 10 months yeah 10 months so just I mean in 10 months you took a process that was fledgling and demonstration that was fledgling that was just needed ownership and just want to commend all of the hard work and thoughtfulness you can see it here and you know I know the team here has always done amazing job on the financial management side of things but really appreciate the thought that went into demonstrating this and the way that it is you could probably have done the 40 slides next year that's my goal but in seriousness it's really really impressive and really the past three meetings we've seen really really impressive work from you and the team so thank you very much because I know that where this is versus where it was years ago in terms of being able to understand it and just seeing a bunch of as you said cliffs where there's like we'll have to figure that number out when we get there which we're still there but this is much more coherent and much more forward-looking and proactive thank you thank you all for taking the time to dive into it too it's a lot of information yeah I forgot to mention in my update that I met with John on Friday to look at it in depth and as he mentioned many spreadsheets involved it was very impressive a lot of information to take in there was always no comment she wanted to comment on the spreadsheets other questions comments concerns so in the packet are these resolutions and then the ballot yes language so those are thank you for that so the two bond votes contemplated in John's presentation are the the Hitchcock bond working in bond council are lawyers to get these documents ready you don't need to take any action on them tonight but we want you to start seeing the language the process as you remember the pool is you have to approve these resolutions saying there is a need for a bond vote in advance of setting the ballot items for town meeting day and so what these resolutions say is that there is a need for this debt to be incurred we're going to incur the debt for these purposes and they also include a reimbursement clause that allows us to reimburse ourselves for costs incurred before the debt is acquired so no action needed tonight but we want you to start seeing them because you're going to have to if you decide to put these items on the ballot so I did have questions about the ballot language and I'm not sure how much is sort of required or you know dictated by statute but the phrases about repayment is intended to come from the enterprise fund just in the interest of clarity for the voter not sure most people know what that means and so I don't know you know I don't know if that is language that is required to be included but I'm if it's intended to allay any concerns that this is going to hit you on the property tax or I don't think that it hits the mark so I guess I was just asking I'm asking what the purpose of that phrasing is if it's intended to educate the voter I think we could probably come up with something clearer if it's required as part of the bond banks or you know statutes then that's another thing altogether. You can check with bond council to see if other language is allowable. That would be great because I mean the point at least in the garage is this is not going to be funded through property taxes. It's a really good point. It holds the tax rate almost. But the enterprise fund like no people know what that is. Yeah. And then the Hickok Street it says a portion of the repayment is intended to come from the enterprise fund also then what is so if it's required language that's one thing we'll do our best to explain it but if it's not and it's intended to sort of help people understand how this is being funded I think maybe we can take another stab at it. And maybe maybe we'll just you guys do it the way you want to do it since this is an attorney maybe the attorney wrote it maybe you send them language and say this is what we'd like to put I mean I think back to the first point because it's probably somebody just trying to write very functional, clear legal definition that can't be challenged. Right. We'll talk with Tom and see what's the best language we can put forward. I think the reality is for because we get our bonding through the bond bank in larger cities that language is very important because it dictates the repayment mechanism and it locks the city into that because of how we do it technically all of our bonds are general obligation bonds so in theory we are going with the full faith and banking backing of our entire budget not just an enterprise but so I think it is meant to be more educational the intent is to not have any property tax dollars but ultimately at the end of the day we are on the hook for it but the plan is to not have it become something we can substitute water fees or parking fees for enterprise fund. Thank you. Other questions, comments, concerns, inquiries desires to dive deeper into the overall presentation Council Chief. Yeah, that is an area of the city with some of our oldest housing stocks so in that infrastructure we think of that as we looked at the constituents that are watching and we think of the infrastructure as repairing a closet and we are going to take a shower or a flush of toilets do you expect the fire department to be able to utilize the fire engines as much as you turn the class on and that is a stretch of the city that is during this time of year we have found 38 degrees to 5 degrees this morning that is on the trust flag from knowing that stretch especially when you apply water or anything so it could be difficult since it is time to meet and present some serious challenges so there is lots of room for thinking about that. Thank you. Other questions, comments, thoughts from the public? Anything else from Council? Seeing and hearing on thank you very much I appreciate it. Thank you. Yep, so request for a 2 minute recess so we will reconvene at 8.33 Alright so being 8.34 we will reconvene the meeting and we will pick up our agenda where we left off next up tonight is consideration of resolution established in the housing trust fund Okay, so I am bringing back a revised resolution a slightly revised resolution for establishing housing trust fund as we discussed at the previous City Council meeting the housing commission recommends approval of a resolution to establish a housing trust fund this the initial funding would be provided by a reallocation of the full amount of the home improvement loan program these funds are currently held at Opportunities Credit Union and they would be allocated to the housing trust fund with the housing improvement program falling under the housing trust fund so there were questions last time about dedicating these funds for low to moderate income household so I have included in your packet a reference from the loan policy and procedure indicating that initially these funds were for low to moderate income household so it wouldn't be changing the intent or mission initially intended and as requested at the previous City Council meeting the revised resolution before you includes in number three on page two definitions of eligibility for funding based on occupants household income so for rental units occupants must earn less than 80% area median household income and for home ownership assistant occupants must earn less than 120% area median income and those are based on census data oh I'm sorry based on census data households earning under $50,350 would be eligible and home buyers earning under $76,952 would be eligible and this aligns with several other programs that I looked at so for CHTs down payment assistance program on mobile homes it's exactly the same it would be under 80% area median income however for BH several of the BHFA programs for mortgage assistance those numbers are actually higher than the numbers that we're providing here so we are in alignment with other programs and I'd also like to point you to number seven on page two that was revised slightly as well to include a reference to a board or commission at City Council's designation serving as the decision making body thank you so I think in looking at the notes from before last time I think I addressed all the questions are there concerns in regards to the response or any additional questions that were inspired by reread I guess what I'm interested in the funds so and I know the housing commission has talked about this having sort of two purposes within the housing trust fund one for home ownership down payment assistance rental housing and so we're creating the housing trust fund but the funds that we're putting into it are still going to be dedicated to home improvement loans so when it says I'm looking at number five housing improvement loan program shall continue to service intended purpose of providing loans to load a matter of for home improvements so what we'd be doing is taking a portion so it wouldn't be the full amount of the funds would be going to home improvements but a portion would still be available to go to home improvements and but that's not addressed here in terms of what proportion no it isn't and certainly that's something that I think you know if this is approved we would be going back to the housing commission to come up with policies and procedures and that would be part of the decision-making but in terms of rental housing that is affordable to low-income households running less than 80% area median income there are currently no funds in the trust fund dedicated to that purpose but this sets up a vehicle for some sort of fees or in lieu of payments to be made correct well this would be my intention was to take those funds that are currently underutilized and to allow for greater range of uses so some of them could be used as trust funds for incentivizing low-income rental housing some could be for down payment assistance and some would remain to be available for the original intended loans for home improvements this addresses expenses not revenues so the way I'm interpreting it is that that money could be used for either or with no stipulation well the stipulation to come in the policies and procedures so that would be where we would make decisions about what person we should have somebody for example who says hey I'm gonna make a specialized contribution towards the housing trust fund I want $90,000 but I want to go only towards the home ownership portion and you could say and the nice thing is lending institutions can bifurcate that money if it needs to in a more formal manner on the set of sides in a similar vein where the majority of the parameters are not outlined here they come later we've established in number three the income threshold and then that 30% limit is like an evaluation method to make sure what they're getting into that's the affordability measure yeah yes okay and that's the definition we've been using the whole time with the housing commission as you know we're part of the housing commission as I'm yeah so this is like the highest level of the parameters that we want to establish are here and then everything else comes later and like how you would evaluate someone's application exactly the criteria for making decisions yeah okay much like the Winooski small business loan program has a set of policies and procedures there's a little of the way like with a cub with the HUD properties with those with vouchers where it works is there's that fair market rent set which is what you're guaranteed to get from a revenue standpoint for a particular unit based on bedroom sizes and then they'll take a tenant that qualifies and the tenant then it's a 30% calculation they contribute that then HUD fills the gap between the two and that's how the project that's where that 30% number kicks in in relation to fair market rents other questions, comments, concerns I think this is a great step forward and I think not to use the analogy of the pool because we've talked so much about the pools but you know now we're building the pool with setting this up and then now we need to figure out how to fill it with water so getting that revenue source to ensure we're getting funds in here to be able to accomplish this being used it's going to be good but hard work in the future but thank you for your work on this thanks to the housing commission I think the only other thing to flag is to at least enough flexibility you know one thing I've been concerned about is what happens if smaller rental properties run up against for example code compliance issues if there's a specialized fund for those and there's enough flexibility in here for that to serve that purpose with the potential of policy doing some specific side to because that's something I've been wondering about is how we also use this to improve that sort of smaller micro rental housing not just inspire construction of new from a safety improvement perspective any questions, comments, concerns from the public so seeing and hearing none this is on as discussion and potential approval item sounds like maybe able to entertain a motion in regards to the resolution establishing a housing trust fund motion by Nicole second by Eric, any further discussion seeing and hearing none, all those in favor please say aye those opposed, motion carries thank you next up is discussion introduction of the ordinance update chapter 28 fees thank you so we talked about this briefly during my initial budget presentation that there were some fees built into the budget proposal that we would be bringing to you in an ordinance change so this is that introduction of that potential ordinance change if the next step for you all would be to ask for additional information as for clarification for us and then set a public hearing for example for January 22nd to before you adopt there's a whole adoption series timeline series for adoption of ordinances so what's included here for you is a track changes version of this document we've tried to do two things here one is capture the fee changes as we contemplated in the budget also to do some administrative cleanup so since we last adopted this in 2017 there have been a number of things that we've been tracking that just needed administrative updates so you'll see those as well so the main highlights to call your attention to are everywhere where a fee, a municipal fee is set by state statute we've taken out the specific dollar value and just reference state statute so as that changes we don't have to change the ordinance we've included here the increases for the Thrive rates as discussed in the budget presentation and the finger printing service that the PD is recommending this year we've also taken out specific reference to the water rates and instead said water and wastewater rates and instead said that those will be set annually by the city council as part of the budget process traditionally that's how utility rates are set so again in the interest of not needing to update this every year for that change just reference it in there and then at Eric's recommendation reviewing our plan zoning permit process made some clarifications and adjustments there as well and just from a process perspective once this is introduced it can be changed in the next meeting prior to approval absolutely so are there questions or concerns folks want to flag today any items that people are interested in follow up on? Well I just have one question you know so we're moving the water fee out of here into the budget so we don't have to do separate ordinance update I'm just thinking about like why the Thrive rates are set does that make sense that those rates are set via ordinance and require that separate updating that's something that something I was going to flag too is we're going to try to get away from specific program fees that may need to change from time to time I don't know so that's the same question so technically per our charter you are required to set rates so we can't we would need to do a charter change if we were going to move away from you having to establish the rate for all community services programming for example that's the reason historically we've done those by resolution not by ordinance so we don't have to go through the whole ordinance process we certainly could for Thrive do the same we could mirror the process for the water and wastewater rates and just say you'll set those as part of the budget process that's certainly acceptable we haven't thought about that because we had a finite recommendation but it's we could absolutely do that yeah I mean something that's how I was thinking about for the programs if it makes sense for a different method for you yeah I think I'd be happy to not have to do every program through ordinance or resolution I think that's tricky and I think Thrive and traditionally because of the year in the state for state and sub-state rates it's easier to tie that to the state let's also put that in our Charter Park a lot of issues yeah I'm game for it being a deferential I would support that versus being a specific set number in there if possible other questions concerns can you just remind me again what the specific number increase was for Thrive rates I think so for the after-sales program it went from $70 a week to $75 so a dollar a day then for a summer it went from $30 to $140 so $2 a day for the summer program we made some adjustments around the partial subsidy families in the way we worked with those finances that were welcome but Thrive we're trying to improve the dollar a day for summer thank you so to progress this the proposal the ordinance update could be introduced with the request that a hearing date be set and at that time those adjustments could be noted prior to approval if that's something that the council is approving of this would also give you an opportunity to ask additional questions in the meantime and bring up any other new items during that hearing can I make that motion let me just ask any questions concerns from the public to introduce it to volunteer to introduce it Councilor Mace is offered to introduce this Councilor Mace would you like a January 2nd hearing date the 22nd indeed that would work best for me okay any questions or concerns right so hearing none this is for introduced thank you 2020 Community Services Reserves so just as Ray's coming up here both of these next two items were a request for additional information during Ray's budget presentation so the information is presented here yeah and I think as Jesse said if there are specific questions happy to field those but I tried to put a lot of information in front of you all and hopefully that was helpful I did get an email from Christine about a couple of other grant sources which was a great reminder so rocks to turn over out there but we I think did a pretty good job looking around and seeing what we could identify. Thanks for flagging it and demonstrating especially on the second IMA effort to do that just a great reminder for the public to see that too that we do have our eyes open and head on to it. So I'm gonna turn back and ask if there are specific questions on first the FY Community Services Reserves. Another update item? Questions or concerns from Council? So I'm reading this. The Reserves for Community Services have decreased by over a third over the last well this five-year period that you've shown us and I'm just wondering you know is that a cause for concern for you and as you think about the long-term sustainability of the department are these is this just a rough five-year period you know yeah is it the community center that's really I mean I think is it thrive I mean yeah I just that this would raise concerns for me. So I think a couple things I would say there is we there are a few programs when I started when I got here that were carrying pretty big reserves because they had been run in a very lean way I'll use that term to politically correct. Meals program is a great example that's a program that was carrying a $6,000 surplus when I started I think it's fair to say the approach we've taken with the meals program in terms of meal quality and how we're getting food to kids is much different than at that point so our margins have shifted quite a lot and you see that tracking down. Thrive is another example where I think we've really shifted the way from a program quality perspective the way we're trying to do that work and that costs more money so I think that's it that's another program where again the way we were doing things and the way we are doing things are different I think to the betterment of the people accessing those services but the cost has gone up. Does the does the trend concern me I would say it's on my radar I'm not concerned yet I think we need to make some adjustments I think we're trying to do that with Thrive I think certainly looking at some grant funding looking at some different ways to approach the recreation funding as well but you know I'm not I'm not troubled yet but I think we are certainly needing to turn the curve back the other direction but you know I think overall having a nest egg of that amount in this type of programming is actually a pretty good place to be but perhaps a little bit my perspective coming from the nonprofit world you don't often have the luxury of that sort of reserve is perhaps a different perspective to carry it but I think we're I think we're in an okay place and I think a lot of the investments we've made are the right ones and rec you know I think rec is an interesting model too and that that's a program budget that which is community services that very first line that's a misnomer but that's our recreation program budget you know that's an area where we're paying ourselves rent at the community center every year to 6500 bucks so that's a financial situation that we're in we're trying to work through that but that makes that budget's viability challenging that's an extra 6500 dollars we've got to find through program fees every year so I guess I would maybe I'll talk with you guys separately just trying to understand the pattern of reliance on reserves to fund operating expenses on an annual basis so I think you know it's more than just the OCC if we start to lose the viability of the department because we're increasingly whittling down the reserves anyway calls for some long-range planning I think that I won't be necessarily at this table for but want to at least explore what that conversation might look like I think that the two line items that are the big you know blinking lights are thrive obviously and then just the general community services operations budget right thrive we've had kind of more targeted conversations about its impact over the past couple of years sort of the larger budgeting philosophy of having negative budgets that's the part where just get our grounds a little bit better yeah and then you know just related to thrive I do think this analysis that you did about what other funding sources might be available is great other questions comments concerns regarding the reserves piece questions comments concerns from the public so seeing and hearing none will pivot to the item on the update in the philanthropic funding opportunities questions comments concerns from council we pursued these types of funding opportunities for driving to the past we have not haven't for thrive in the past because it's had generally decent program revenue so we haven't haven't gone there you know I think one of the challenges with a lot of these grant programs is that they're often looking to fund new or expansive elements and so it's challenging to write those for operational costs all right and I think certainly we've made some efforts to improve we've always want to add new things that innovate but then many of these grants end up being one two at best three-year cycles and so yours then at the end of that three-year period looking at either a cliff where you're needing to scale back services again or some means by which you need to fund that that gap that appears when the grant funding goes away so it's an interesting game that you get into once you start writing grants to support kind of day-to-day services you start to become reliant and it's not a great place to be working from a lot of nonprofits and human service agencies do it but it's a it's a tricky balance well they suddenly change their mission start programming based off of you chase the funds and yeah you get off mission and yeah so certainly we want to start to look and we mentioned this at the last meeting I think when we were chatting with us definitely want to start to look at some options for for thrive and again I do think we have some opportunities in the short term to make some improvements but I also don't want to rely on that to sort of change the overall financial picture of the program I think we're going to have to look at some other options there which we certainly will be doing other questions comments concerns from council in regards to the genomic philanthropic capacity that exists for any service program well I think it is just an interesting discussion I think the concern I have is going down the road I mean if we're saying these are the services that are really important we think the department should be offering them that should be something investment we're making as a city and don't want to put you in the position where we're saying we want you to provide these services now go chase this bouncy ball down the street so I just I worry about future iterations of that discussion and ensuring that you know we've got to find a line and really appreciate as much as possible you and your staff going out and identifying new sources of revenue but I don't want us to be in the position where that is the expectation for the majority of the work that your department does good questions comments concerns questions constant concerns from the public thank you thank you so seeing and hearing none that completes tonight's regular agenda I don't intend a motion for adjournment motion by christine sick by eric may close the session seeing and hearing none all those in favor please say aye in those posts